Every year around this time, the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame nominating committee submits their list of finalists of which five artists will be selected for future induction. I always get excited each time but then always forget that the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame is a fuckin’ joke. Instead of inducting bands that have truly made an impact on popular music, what seems to happen is that Jann Wenner and his cronies go with the bands on their personal favorites list. If they don’t like the artist, accomplishments like album sales and influences on other artists still won’t matter. Jann Wenner is such an egotistical bastard that he even inducted himself into the Hall Of Fame. I won’t discredit his contributions as founder and editor of Rolling Stone, but shouldn’t he be inducted when he’s bit older, or maybe when he’s dead? I understand that listening to music is very subjective, and we all love to argue about who’s deserving to be in the hall of fame as much as we do about best songs of a decade, or greatest guitarist, etc. But of any shrine to an art form or sport, the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame has totally missed the boat. I respect the following artists, but of any bands in the Hall Of Fame, they are the best examples of musicians whose overall impact is questionable: Traffic, Frank Zappa, Buffalo Springfield, Sex Pistols, and The Talking Heads.  Traffic introduced the world to Steve Winwood, but have they really ever produced a meaningful song? Frank Zappa might have been innovative, but for a guy whose best known song is Valley Girl, does he really deserve to be in the hall? Buffalo Springfield only had one album with Stephen Stills and Neil Young and have only one relevant song (For What It’s Worth)! The Sex Pistols are also known for one album, and it’s a fact that Sid Vicious wasn’t even good enough to play bass, so he performed without his guitar even plugged in. I personally like the Talking Heads, but they are more known for their unique videos on MTV than their actual music. Only the creme de la creme should be in the Hall Of Fame: those that no sane person could argue such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Michael Jackson.
Category: People
all-about-musicians-and-the-people-who-help-them-make-music
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The Block is Back! New Kids Light Up New Jersey!
New Kids on the Block. Photo by socialitelife.com Last night, I found myself some place I never thought I’d be…at a New Kids on the Block concert. Not because I’m ashamed to be a NKOTB fan, mind you, but because I thought the boy band would never get back together. 20 years after the success of their breakthrough album, “Hangin’ Tough”, the still (relatively) young New Kids have reunited and I was fortunate enough to see their first show on American soil in fourteen years.
The crowd was, as expected, about 90% women. Somewhat surprisingly, the cavernous Izod Center (formerly Continental Airlines Arena, capacity 20K) was about 90% full. While I overheard a bunch of guys in the men’s room complaining about their wives or girlfriends forcing them to come to the show (one guy said that he said he’d come to this show if his wife went to Cruefest), there were also a handful of dudes sporting NKOTB tees, coming out of the closet, so to speak, after (like me) being embarrassed to be a New Kids fan during their high school (or younger) years. Hell, I even spotted one creepy Deadhead guy in the audience. Either he was looking to score some from one of the many single ladies in the audience, or he was mighty disappointed when he realized that the NKOTB aren’t little boys anymore.