Rock Hall 2024 Nominees: These 5 Artists Should Get In

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a ridiculous institution. But that won’t stop me from talking about The Rock Hall 2024 Nominees.

 

Inexplicably, the Rock Hall released their list of nominees for the Class of ’24 on Sunday morning, just hours before the Super Bowl. I don’t think I need to drop a whole bunch links to research telling you that the Super Bowl is the biggest, most watched, most talked-about media event of the year; it’s something we all know. So the Rock Hall is like: “Let’s drop a press release on Super Bowl Sunday!”

 

They just can’t seem to do anything right.

 

And that’s what makes picking apart their lists of nominees and criticizing who’s in and who’s out so much damn fun. If their process was logical, predictable, and fair, there’d be no debate. But it isn’t logical, it’s always unpredictable, and only occasionally fair. OK, maybe that last bit is a stretch. There are a lot of deserving names in the Rock Hall. But there are still too many big names that aren’t.

 

Rock Hall 2024 Nominees: These 5 Artists Should Get In

Turning our attention to the current crop, the Class of ’24 will be drawn from a list of 15 nominees. And let’s get this part out of the way, right away: the Hall’s definition of “rock” has changed dramatically in recent years. So you’ll see a lot of artists that aren’t considered by purists to be “rock” artists. Sorry if that makes you mad. I actually like it. Maybe I’ll write different piece and tell you why.

 

But for now, I’d like to tell you why 5 of the 15 nominees this year absolutely, positively should be enshrined in late April. You can get the full list of 15 on the Rock Hall’s website to compare and contrast. And you can bet that, come April, the 10 artists I’m not highlighting will get in and the 5 I am highlighting will be left out. The Rock Hall is silly that way.

• Ozzy Osbourne

  Technically, Ozzy Osbourne is already in the Rock Hall…as a member of Black Sabbath. The fact that he’s not in as a solo artist is inexcusable. He’s arguably the best and unquestionably the most influential metal front man of all-time. His post-Sabbath run of solo albums throughout the ’80s and into the ’90s saw him establish himself as a solo artist backed by bands that were a who’s-who of the biggest names in hard rock. Ozzy is the guy that everyone wants to record and tour with. He should be in.

• Jane's Addiction

  The Rock Hall’s record on the modern rock/alternative rock artists of the ’80s and ’90s has been mixed, at best. That being said, it’s been a hell of a lot better than their record on metal/hard rock. While Nirvana and Pearl Jam are in–and should be–a big part of the reason those bands got as big as they did and were deserving of enshrinement was Jane’s Addiction. Jane’s is the band that blazed the trail in the late ’80s for the alt rock explosion of the early ’90s…then dipped out before they could take full advantage of that legacy. That shouldn’t diminish their importance. They belong here.

• Lenny Kravitz

  In recent years, the powers that be at the Rock Hall have made it a priority to embrace diversity of sound and genre underneath the great, big rock tent. Lenny Kravitz is the musical embodiment of this shift. Over the course of his musical career, Kravitz has shape-shifted seamlessly between rock, funk, R&B, and related sounds, creating music that has endured in popularity and brought together disparate music fanbases under the previously mentioned great, big rock tent. If the Rock Hall is going to tout something like “the Spirit of Rock,” Lenny is a prime example of that spirit.

• Cher

  Much like Ozzy Osbourne, when I saw Cher on the 2024 list of nominees, I immediately thought: “How the hell is Cher not in the Hall already?” Like Ozzy, she’s a decade-spanning icon of an artist. Like Lenny, she’s never content to pigeonhole herself in one genre and instead dabbles in many. She has generations of fans and a laundry list of hits reaching back over those generations. And ask yourself this: does it make sense to have a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that Cher isn’t a member of? Of course it doesn’t!

• Oasis

  OK, real talk: I think, of this year’s class, Eric B. & Rakim are more deserving of enshrinement. I like that the Rock Hall has embraced hip hop, I think there are a handful of rap acts that belong in the Hall, and I think this is one of them. And I think there are far more deserving alt rock acts than Oasis that should get the honor. But the bedlam that would ensue if Oasis were made a part of the Class of ’24? I’m rooting for that harder than anything else this year; even Ozzy. Let’s make it happen.

  Fuck the Rock n Roll hall of fame its full of BUMBACLARTS LG x

  — Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) February 12, 2024