2022 Rock & Roll HOF induction nominee screechfest

Joan Jett? Heart? Chrissy Hynde? Patti Smith?

Honestly not sure where any of these fit.

 

Joan Jett, maybe. And I love Joan, but outside of one song, she has not endured (which is a bummer, because she has a pretty good list of decent stuff). Heart was a band and did nothing that would qualify as hard rock after Barracuda in the mid-70s. Chrissie Hynde and Patti Smith were not hard rock.

 

That's what I'm talking about. Without looking that up, I never would have believed it. Maybe because she'd been a staple for 40 years, it seems like her prime was much longer.

But ...

I doubt she got a push from The Legend of Billie Jean. While BYH will defend its awesomeness, he's also the only one who saw it.

 

So let's look at the numbers if we're talking years and U.S. top 10 and hey, I'll throw Steinbrenner too!

She hit the ground rockin' with a top 15 followed by a No. 2, No. 1, No. 4 in consecutive years.

Her next two albums were top 15 too.



Let's look at the singles ...



Benatar has 2 top 5's, 4 top 10's, and 9 top 20's.

And Pat Benatar's Heartbreaker -- gosh, it only made it up to No. 23 -- is immortalized in one of the greatest TV shows of all time.

 

Even in 2022, Pat Benatar is SCOREBOARD!

 

I'm not sure whether you're endorsing here, but here are the chart resumes from a pair of bands that have never even been nominated, let alone inducted.

Band A
Albums: No. 20, 6, 6, 2, 1, 3
Singles: No. 6, 27, 36, 8, 29, 21, 16, 1, 26, 3, 9, 3, 6, 40, 3, 25

1 No. 1; 4 top-5s; 9 top-10s, 9 top-20s.

Band B
Albums: 4, 3, 5, 1, 4, 15
Singles: 4, 6, 20, 3, 2, 15, 12, 14, 4, 2, 26, 26, 1, 12, 6, 5

1 No. 1, 7 top-5s, 9 top-10s, 14 Top-20s

One is marginally better, the other is better by a great deal. So it's looking more and more like being female worked well for Patricia.

 

The first Pretenders album rocked harder than anything Pat Benatar has ever done. There, I said it.

 

As did the second album. And the third.

And for Exhibit A, I humbly submit the following:

Ya ready, girls?

 

One of these bands smells like Def Leppard

 

Some Hall of Famers are Mike Schmidt. Others are George Kell.

But they're both Hall of Famers.

 

Is Weird Al in the Rock hall yet? Not sure how they measure "cultural impact" but there are performers who do leave a significant footprint regardless of their artistic or commercial merits.