Love this!! It’s endlessly frustrating and rewarding, as there maybe should be an order to these things, but maybe not - it’s all about feel. It does seem weird for Coldplay before Oasis, though, or Smashing Pumpkins before Alice In Chains. But all four are worthy. I will only share my five hopes for this year:
1. The Strokes
2. Alice in Chains
3. Bryan Adams
4. B-52s
5. De La Soul
With no immediate slam dunk, it’s going to be a wild card kind of year.
Going in order is definitely not the Hall’s forte per se. Like Green Day, for example, bypassing almost every punk band it seemed to get in their first year back in 2015. It’ll be interesting to see how things play out next month when the nominations are officially out.
I also love to see an FYE nomination for The Strokes, although I don’t see it happening most likely. But they will get noticed probably in 5-ish years if I had to guess.
Smashing Pumpkins are probably more important than Alice in Chains, but AiC probably beats them in because of people's sympathy for Layne/antipathy for Corgan, and the Hall's extreme bias FOR grunge and against ALL OTHER alternative subgenres. I think Coldplay probably beats Oasis in since they had a much bigger impact on America and impact on America matters more than international impact to the Hall.
American recognition is definitely a big one! And Coldplay would definitely play at the show, whereas Oasis may or may not - kind of like Radiohead a few years ago. It shouldn’t matter, but I think people think about it.
I think after the reunion tour last year, there’s a 99% chance oasis plays if inducted. Before last year, very shaky and wasn’t all that exciting because of the prior circumstances.
Great list Nick! If you expanded to 200, I would include Enya, Rory Gallagher, Supertramp, Weather Report, Can, Tangerine Dream, Alicia Keys, Christina Aguleria.
I will consider those in the future. Alicia Keys isn’t eligible for the project yet because she hasn’t technically been snubbed yet. I think she stands a great chance for an FYE nomination this year. If not, she will rank high in 2027.
Thanks for the response Nick. If you would like, I played with ChatGPT a lot last year to craft Rock Hall nominee bios for the aforementioned acts. If you would like, I can email you the document. It is a long one, but it spans the genre gambit of snubs from all decades, and includes some international artists from Japan’s city pop scene to lots of jazz fusion greats. Let me know if you want to see it.
Great minds think alike! Alicia Keys and Strokes aren’t eligible yet for the project, because they haven’t been snubbed by the committee.
Strongly considered some of the names here like Donny Hathaway, Nick Cave (now an Oscar nominee), and Sleater-Kinney. I decided to take Blink-182 off this year to make way for some early rock and roll folks like Ben E. King and Tommy James and the Shondells. They will definitely be back in the fold. Same with John Mayer.
After reading your list, you've convinced me to add the following names: Meat Loaf, Tom Jones, Sarah McLachlan, Jeff Buckley, Kenny Loggins, Scorpions, Tommy James & the Shondells, Cranberries, Ben E. King
But I just don't really see the nominating committee taking these names seriously that weren't on my list: Huey Lewis and the News, Culture Club, 10000 Maniacs/Natalie Merchant, Shania Twain
So my list will now extend to 118 names thanks to your proposals. Nice job, Nick.
Ah, realizing you had Styx on your list as well, so there's one more on mine that isn't on yours. I'll post it if I can figure out where I made the mistake.
This comes up often regarding Gram Parsons. The reason he’s never been on the project ever is that I believe he’s destined for a side category induction in musical excellence or likely musical influence. He’s totally worthy and a founder of country-rock, but I don’t see it happening as a performers (especially since his last nomination was back in 2005). Kinda the same thing applies to The Meters, also very worthy.
Huey Lewis feels likelier and less gimmicky to me than Kenny Loggins, but admittedly, I guess Loggins did also have cred as a yacht rock songwriter. I think the Hall is probably done with that after The Doobie Brothers unless they actually do Toto. Lewis seems to have a more distinctive sound to me than Loggins, who just seemed to be riding trends his whole career (folk rock to yacht rock to arena rock, blah blah blah). But maybe that's more of a case against Loggins than for Lewis.
My list is basically aimed at general induction rather than specifically through the Performers category so it's taken into account Musical Excellence, etc. but focused on names that can be considered general Performer inductees when you strip away the meaningless title for induction.
So, in the case of Loggins, I don't really see it as too likely and he'd basically be at the bottom of my revised list but when you throw in his chances via Musical Excellence at covering his career, then it feels more likely.
Whereas Huey Lewis and the News could really only get in via election as Performers as nobody cares enough to sidedoor such an act and I just don't see the votes ever being there.
I should probably be moving up Coltrane and Brian Eno accordingly due to the side categories plus Coltrane probably gets in no matter what via the votes should he make a ballot. I was docking him via the Jazz thing but since there's Miles Davis as precedent...
Eno would probably be a harder sell for the main ballot but a slam dunk for ME. They'd pretty much be nominating the ambient genre.
I don't think he counts artists in their first year of eligibility, so I presume that he didn't think that Keys, The Strokes, The National, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were eligible. I believe he said that Linkin Park only made his list this time because they were snubbed last year.
Putting Mayer and Styx that high must've made you cringe, huh?
Blink-182 I find puzzling because I know they were considered to be a joke by the original FutureRockLegends crowd (especially in the years when it was called FutureRockHall), yet I see serious critics calling them one of the most influential bands of the last 25 years. I do think they get in, but they seemed to be viewed as hacks by Gen X, guilty pleasures by millennials, and legends by Gen Z, the same basic trajectory that Linkin Park and My Chemical Romance also seemed to go through. So trying to predict those three especially seems to come down ENTIRELY to what generation is voting.
Sean - correct, any artist from 2000 and before is eligible for the project. They have to be ‘snubbed’ by either the commitee or voting body after their first year of eligibility.
Funny you should mention Mayer and Styx because that duo is, in fact, what makes me cringe the most when I look at my ranking. Unfortunately, that's about where they are in terms of probability of induction which would make them both near frontrunners circa 10 years now at the rate the Hall is inducting acts (about 8-9 Performers a year via the Performers category and using side categories to induct Performers).
Fair enough that Nick's got a gap between my list because he waits one year to put someone on his. Alicia Keys and The Strokes will definitely be in his Top 100 should they fail to be inducted in 2026. The National in the Top 100 makes a lot of sense given the Taylor Swift connections and who happens to be sitting around there. Perhaps the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are kind of a stretch (for now).
You also totally nailed the Blink-182 trajectory. Gen Z just seems to get the feels when they hear "All The Small Things" and here we are with 14 year olds years back voting them high up in the museum kiosk and people shelling out hundreds years later to hear them play that song in an arena. Bleh.
I think the kids would probably say "Dammit", "Adam's Song", and "I Miss You" were Blink's best songs, even though "All the Small Things" was their biggest pop song at the time. I guess objectively, they're something like the Goo Goo Dolls: Replacements/Green Day ripoffs who DID find their own identity, albeit through softening their predecessors' music for the masses, with one good songwriter and one bad one. Generally, with Blink, I think the Mark songs were good while the Tom songs were bad, just as the Johnny songs were good and the Robby songs were bad for the Goo Goo Dolls. But at least the Dolls knew not to release the Robby songs as singles. But the industry is going to want to induct them primarily because of Travis's respect as a drummer. Maybe all that Good Charlotte/New Found Glory/Sum 41/SR-71 was influenced more by Blink than by Green Day, but how much is that worth really?
I'd have maybe had Emerson, Lake, and Palmer on after Jack White shouted them out in his induction speech, as they were one of the most mainstream artists he mentioned and thereby one of the most legible to the Nominating Committee. I actually drafted ELP in the Who Cares About the Rock Hall? Discord draft for that reason (in the fifth round though, and there were 20 players in the draft, so I certainly don't rate their chances very high).
First pick was Oasis. Last pick was The Bangles. Then we had a pick for side categories (where some people picked artists and other people picked actual side category contenders; I picked Estelle Axton). Then a round of wildcards where as on the pod, we could only draft people who were on no one else's lists.
Thin Lizzy, Bjork and Dre were value picks in the 5th round. Stayed on the board way too long.
First round was very strong but it got way too random for my liking in the 2nd round which should have basically been 20 names that are either really strong cases that haven't been nominated yet or some of the usual ballot regulars that were likely to return. Not that the picks in the second round weren't good, just felt like that some of them would have made more sense in the third or fourth round. Meat Loaf? Weird Al? Etc.
Obviously, some people were voting for who they liked, some people were trying to prove how cool they were, some people were just goofing around (Spinal Tap lol), and some people were going for points. Cliff was making a point about the Hall's exclusion of R&B and queer artists, which I get, but because of said exclusion, I would not have drafted most of those artists in the rounds when he did. I was going for maximizing points regardless of my personal tastes, as befitting a dude who is doing auto racing sabermetrics I guess...
I primarily wanted to go for uncool people who nobody else would want to draft (I REALLY wanted the Counting Crows after all that Phish/Kravitz/DMB/Black Crowes stuff that keeps getting nominated, but they got snatched up WAY sooner than I thought they would be), whose chances were probably underrated (except I suppose Fiona, because I think they're going to try something Lilith Fair-related and that was my best guess).
The foremost example of that probably being Robert Cray. After the bizarre Lenny Kravitz nomination, I've got a feeling the Nominating Committee is looking for black artists who white R&B-averse rockists would go for, and even though blues rock was definitely fading from relevance at that point, a Hall that inducted Albert King and Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Clapton three times perhaps more easily than they should have would feast on that like catnip. Although I am fairly certain Cray will never be nominated, if they DO, I think he goes in instantly, and after Kravitz, I could see them trying it. With all that DMB/Kravitz/Black Crowes stuff, I could even see them trying Hootie and the Blowfish in that vein. But I'm pretty sure Cray would get in and I'm pretty sure Hootie wouldn't.
Here's every inductee to Rock Hall Revisited/Rock Hall Projected over at FutureRockLegends that nobody took in the draft in chronological order:
Johnny Burnette & the Rock and Roll Trio
Jan & Dean
Mary Wells
The Marvelettes
Toots & The Maytals
Peter, Paul and Mary
The Sonics
The Shangri-Las
Scott Walker
Love
Captain Beefheart
Silver Apples
Can
Three Dog Night
Nick Drake
Sparks
Neu!
Blue Oyster Cult
Rufus With Chaka Khan
The Commodores
Brian Eno
Television
The Runaways
The Damned
XTC
Wire
Suicide
The Jam
Chic
The Buzzcocks
X
The Specials
Echo and the Bunnymen
Dead Kennedys
Bauhaus
Afrika Bambaataa
Husker Du
Ice-T
Bad Brains
Slayer
Pantera
Anthrax
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
The Jesus and Mary Chain
The Flaming Lips
Stone Roses
My Bloody Valentine
Megadeth
Jane’s Addiction
Offspring
Massive Attack
Fugazi
Pavement
Blur
Tori Amos
PJ Harvey
Aphex Twin
Tool
Sleater-Kinney
Daft Punk
The Chemical Brothers
Belle and Sebastian
System of a Down
Queens of the Stone Age
- Mary Wells and The Marvelettes should have been drafted. They've been on the ballot before and that would line up nicely with Chubby Checker. Perhaps The Shangri-Las as well in that same line of thinking.
- Brian Eno should have been chosen as a side category inductee. Highly probable.
- Daft Punk is an A-list act and the first that comes to mind if the Hall wants to honor more electronic music
- Jane's Addiction has been on the ballot in the past. I get that drafters may have figured it unlikely due to recent band turmoil (so the nominating committee could skip them figuring a performance might not happen if they're inducted), but that's too good a pick to just not scoop up by Round 5.
- Pavement has definitely been picking up steam by being mentioned by voters and Hall-adjacent people and headlines the mid-sized festivals and is currently considered to be at their all-time live peak
I was particularly surprised by nobody drafting Eno, and that's probably what I would've done if somebody drafted Axton, but it seems like inductions of long-time wronged snubbed women has been a trend lately with Tina Turner, Carole King, Carly Simon, and especially Carol Kaye and Big Mama Thornton. She's like the last of those really obvious long-time female snubs (particularly when considering side categories only) so that felt likelier to me than Eno.
As for Mary Wells and Marvelettes, I admit I was definitely hesitant about touching any R&B if Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson, the two biggest pop stars of the '90s, both needed at least 3 ballots. Granted, those two are more in the era of what the Hall generally likes to induct and maybe Spinners and Kool & the Gang paved the way for them. I'm also probably not personally taking anything indie in a draft until the Sykes-era Nominating Committee convinces me they have any interest, which so far they haven't. Pretty sure the Replacements and Bad Brains nominations were both late-period Wenner.
Connie Francis was a great draft choice and is an oversight that isn't on my personal list or Nick's. Especially given how one of her songs just became a massive hit thanks to TikTok.
Love this!! It’s endlessly frustrating and rewarding, as there maybe should be an order to these things, but maybe not - it’s all about feel. It does seem weird for Coldplay before Oasis, though, or Smashing Pumpkins before Alice In Chains. But all four are worthy. I will only share my five hopes for this year:
1. The Strokes
2. Alice in Chains
3. Bryan Adams
4. B-52s
5. De La Soul
With no immediate slam dunk, it’s going to be a wild card kind of year.
Thanks Garry for the kind words!
Going in order is definitely not the Hall’s forte per se. Like Green Day, for example, bypassing almost every punk band it seemed to get in their first year back in 2015. It’ll be interesting to see how things play out next month when the nominations are officially out.
I also love to see an FYE nomination for The Strokes, although I don’t see it happening most likely. But they will get noticed probably in 5-ish years if I had to guess.
Yeah, The Strokes is a long shot but they’re a big name!
Smashing Pumpkins are probably more important than Alice in Chains, but AiC probably beats them in because of people's sympathy for Layne/antipathy for Corgan, and the Hall's extreme bias FOR grunge and against ALL OTHER alternative subgenres. I think Coldplay probably beats Oasis in since they had a much bigger impact on America and impact on America matters more than international impact to the Hall.
American recognition is definitely a big one! And Coldplay would definitely play at the show, whereas Oasis may or may not - kind of like Radiohead a few years ago. It shouldn’t matter, but I think people think about it.
I think after the reunion tour last year, there’s a 99% chance oasis plays if inducted. Before last year, very shaky and wasn’t all that exciting because of the prior circumstances.
Great list Nick! If you expanded to 200, I would include Enya, Rory Gallagher, Supertramp, Weather Report, Can, Tangerine Dream, Alicia Keys, Christina Aguleria.
Thank you George!
I will consider those in the future. Alicia Keys isn’t eligible for the project yet because she hasn’t technically been snubbed yet. I think she stands a great chance for an FYE nomination this year. If not, she will rank high in 2027.
Thanks for the response Nick. If you would like, I played with ChatGPT a lot last year to craft Rock Hall nominee bios for the aforementioned acts. If you would like, I can email you the document. It is a long one, but it spans the genre gambit of snubs from all decades, and includes some international artists from Japan’s city pop scene to lots of jazz fusion greats. Let me know if you want to see it.
It's crazy how on the same page we are. My metric for most likely inductees extends to 109 names and we share 87 in common.
Here's mine that weren't on yours:
28. Alicia Keys
29. Donny Hathaway
38. The Strokes
39. John Coltrane
40. Chic
43. Wilco
45. The Buzzcocks
49. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
50. Love
~63. Jim Croce
~63. John Mayer
70. Styx
~75. Brian Eno
~75. Nick Drake
~83. Captain Beefheart
~83. Flaming Lips
~83. Gang of Four
~83. The National
~83. Sleater-Kinney
93. Rufus with Chaka Khan
~95. Yeah Yeah Yeahs
~105. Blink-182
Great minds think alike! Alicia Keys and Strokes aren’t eligible yet for the project, because they haven’t been snubbed by the committee.
Strongly considered some of the names here like Donny Hathaway, Nick Cave (now an Oscar nominee), and Sleater-Kinney. I decided to take Blink-182 off this year to make way for some early rock and roll folks like Ben E. King and Tommy James and the Shondells. They will definitely be back in the fold. Same with John Mayer.
After reading your list, you've convinced me to add the following names: Meat Loaf, Tom Jones, Sarah McLachlan, Jeff Buckley, Kenny Loggins, Scorpions, Tommy James & the Shondells, Cranberries, Ben E. King
But I just don't really see the nominating committee taking these names seriously that weren't on my list: Huey Lewis and the News, Culture Club, 10000 Maniacs/Natalie Merchant, Shania Twain
So my list will now extend to 118 names thanks to your proposals. Nice job, Nick.
Ah, realizing you had Styx on your list as well, so there's one more on mine that isn't on yours. I'll post it if I can figure out where I made the mistake.
Ah, you don't have Gram Parsons listed (yet again). #14 for me.
This comes up often regarding Gram Parsons. The reason he’s never been on the project ever is that I believe he’s destined for a side category induction in musical excellence or likely musical influence. He’s totally worthy and a founder of country-rock, but I don’t see it happening as a performers (especially since his last nomination was back in 2005). Kinda the same thing applies to The Meters, also very worthy.
My Top 10 Most Likely Inductees:
1. Diana Ross
2. Daft Punk
3. Mariah Carey
4. Beck
5. Dr. Dre
6. Coldplay
7. Weezer
8. The Monkees
9. Boston
10. Devo
Huey Lewis feels likelier and less gimmicky to me than Kenny Loggins, but admittedly, I guess Loggins did also have cred as a yacht rock songwriter. I think the Hall is probably done with that after The Doobie Brothers unless they actually do Toto. Lewis seems to have a more distinctive sound to me than Loggins, who just seemed to be riding trends his whole career (folk rock to yacht rock to arena rock, blah blah blah). But maybe that's more of a case against Loggins than for Lewis.
My list is basically aimed at general induction rather than specifically through the Performers category so it's taken into account Musical Excellence, etc. but focused on names that can be considered general Performer inductees when you strip away the meaningless title for induction.
So, in the case of Loggins, I don't really see it as too likely and he'd basically be at the bottom of my revised list but when you throw in his chances via Musical Excellence at covering his career, then it feels more likely.
Whereas Huey Lewis and the News could really only get in via election as Performers as nobody cares enough to sidedoor such an act and I just don't see the votes ever being there.
I should probably be moving up Coltrane and Brian Eno accordingly due to the side categories plus Coltrane probably gets in no matter what via the votes should he make a ballot. I was docking him via the Jazz thing but since there's Miles Davis as precedent...
Eno would probably be a harder sell for the main ballot but a slam dunk for ME. They'd pretty much be nominating the ambient genre.
I don't think he counts artists in their first year of eligibility, so I presume that he didn't think that Keys, The Strokes, The National, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were eligible. I believe he said that Linkin Park only made his list this time because they were snubbed last year.
Putting Mayer and Styx that high must've made you cringe, huh?
Blink-182 I find puzzling because I know they were considered to be a joke by the original FutureRockLegends crowd (especially in the years when it was called FutureRockHall), yet I see serious critics calling them one of the most influential bands of the last 25 years. I do think they get in, but they seemed to be viewed as hacks by Gen X, guilty pleasures by millennials, and legends by Gen Z, the same basic trajectory that Linkin Park and My Chemical Romance also seemed to go through. So trying to predict those three especially seems to come down ENTIRELY to what generation is voting.
Sean - correct, any artist from 2000 and before is eligible for the project. They have to be ‘snubbed’ by either the commitee or voting body after their first year of eligibility.
Funny you should mention Mayer and Styx because that duo is, in fact, what makes me cringe the most when I look at my ranking. Unfortunately, that's about where they are in terms of probability of induction which would make them both near frontrunners circa 10 years now at the rate the Hall is inducting acts (about 8-9 Performers a year via the Performers category and using side categories to induct Performers).
Fair enough that Nick's got a gap between my list because he waits one year to put someone on his. Alicia Keys and The Strokes will definitely be in his Top 100 should they fail to be inducted in 2026. The National in the Top 100 makes a lot of sense given the Taylor Swift connections and who happens to be sitting around there. Perhaps the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are kind of a stretch (for now).
You also totally nailed the Blink-182 trajectory. Gen Z just seems to get the feels when they hear "All The Small Things" and here we are with 14 year olds years back voting them high up in the museum kiosk and people shelling out hundreds years later to hear them play that song in an arena. Bleh.
I think the kids would probably say "Dammit", "Adam's Song", and "I Miss You" were Blink's best songs, even though "All the Small Things" was their biggest pop song at the time. I guess objectively, they're something like the Goo Goo Dolls: Replacements/Green Day ripoffs who DID find their own identity, albeit through softening their predecessors' music for the masses, with one good songwriter and one bad one. Generally, with Blink, I think the Mark songs were good while the Tom songs were bad, just as the Johnny songs were good and the Robby songs were bad for the Goo Goo Dolls. But at least the Dolls knew not to release the Robby songs as singles. But the industry is going to want to induct them primarily because of Travis's respect as a drummer. Maybe all that Good Charlotte/New Found Glory/Sum 41/SR-71 was influenced more by Blink than by Green Day, but how much is that worth really?
I'd have maybe had Emerson, Lake, and Palmer on after Jack White shouted them out in his induction speech, as they were one of the most mainstream artists he mentioned and thereby one of the most legible to the Nominating Committee. I actually drafted ELP in the Who Cares About the Rock Hall? Discord draft for that reason (in the fifth round though, and there were 20 players in the draft, so I certainly don't rate their chances very high).
Considered ELP this year, for the reason you mentioned. If Jethro Tull gets in, then they’re more likely to appear on the project in the future.
Would love to see the draft results
Don't know if this is open to all viewers, but:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1waHTRwzB-rLsx-BUYTbxGwmlNLcZiU9ohAPs_Dibyb4/edit?gid=0#gid=0
First pick was Oasis. Last pick was The Bangles. Then we had a pick for side categories (where some people picked artists and other people picked actual side category contenders; I picked Estelle Axton). Then a round of wildcards where as on the pod, we could only draft people who were on no one else's lists.
Thin Lizzy, Bjork and Dre were value picks in the 5th round. Stayed on the board way too long.
First round was very strong but it got way too random for my liking in the 2nd round which should have basically been 20 names that are either really strong cases that haven't been nominated yet or some of the usual ballot regulars that were likely to return. Not that the picks in the second round weren't good, just felt like that some of them would have made more sense in the third or fourth round. Meat Loaf? Weird Al? Etc.
Obviously, some people were voting for who they liked, some people were trying to prove how cool they were, some people were just goofing around (Spinal Tap lol), and some people were going for points. Cliff was making a point about the Hall's exclusion of R&B and queer artists, which I get, but because of said exclusion, I would not have drafted most of those artists in the rounds when he did. I was going for maximizing points regardless of my personal tastes, as befitting a dude who is doing auto racing sabermetrics I guess...
I primarily wanted to go for uncool people who nobody else would want to draft (I REALLY wanted the Counting Crows after all that Phish/Kravitz/DMB/Black Crowes stuff that keeps getting nominated, but they got snatched up WAY sooner than I thought they would be), whose chances were probably underrated (except I suppose Fiona, because I think they're going to try something Lilith Fair-related and that was my best guess).
The foremost example of that probably being Robert Cray. After the bizarre Lenny Kravitz nomination, I've got a feeling the Nominating Committee is looking for black artists who white R&B-averse rockists would go for, and even though blues rock was definitely fading from relevance at that point, a Hall that inducted Albert King and Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Clapton three times perhaps more easily than they should have would feast on that like catnip. Although I am fairly certain Cray will never be nominated, if they DO, I think he goes in instantly, and after Kravitz, I could see them trying it. With all that DMB/Kravitz/Black Crowes stuff, I could even see them trying Hootie and the Blowfish in that vein. But I'm pretty sure Cray would get in and I'm pretty sure Hootie wouldn't.
Here's every inductee to Rock Hall Revisited/Rock Hall Projected over at FutureRockLegends that nobody took in the draft in chronological order:
Johnny Burnette & the Rock and Roll Trio
Jan & Dean
Mary Wells
The Marvelettes
Toots & The Maytals
Peter, Paul and Mary
The Sonics
The Shangri-Las
Scott Walker
Love
Captain Beefheart
Silver Apples
Can
Three Dog Night
Nick Drake
Sparks
Neu!
Blue Oyster Cult
Rufus With Chaka Khan
The Commodores
Brian Eno
Television
The Runaways
The Damned
XTC
Wire
Suicide
The Jam
Chic
The Buzzcocks
X
The Specials
Echo and the Bunnymen
Dead Kennedys
Bauhaus
Afrika Bambaataa
Husker Du
Ice-T
Bad Brains
Slayer
Pantera
Anthrax
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
The Jesus and Mary Chain
The Flaming Lips
Stone Roses
My Bloody Valentine
Megadeth
Jane’s Addiction
Offspring
Massive Attack
Fugazi
Pavement
Blur
Tori Amos
PJ Harvey
Aphex Twin
Tool
Sleater-Kinney
Daft Punk
The Chemical Brothers
Belle and Sebastian
System of a Down
Queens of the Stone Age
- Mary Wells and The Marvelettes should have been drafted. They've been on the ballot before and that would line up nicely with Chubby Checker. Perhaps The Shangri-Las as well in that same line of thinking.
- Brian Eno should have been chosen as a side category inductee. Highly probable.
- Daft Punk is an A-list act and the first that comes to mind if the Hall wants to honor more electronic music
- Jane's Addiction has been on the ballot in the past. I get that drafters may have figured it unlikely due to recent band turmoil (so the nominating committee could skip them figuring a performance might not happen if they're inducted), but that's too good a pick to just not scoop up by Round 5.
- Pavement has definitely been picking up steam by being mentioned by voters and Hall-adjacent people and headlines the mid-sized festivals and is currently considered to be at their all-time live peak
I was particularly surprised by nobody drafting Eno, and that's probably what I would've done if somebody drafted Axton, but it seems like inductions of long-time wronged snubbed women has been a trend lately with Tina Turner, Carole King, Carly Simon, and especially Carol Kaye and Big Mama Thornton. She's like the last of those really obvious long-time female snubs (particularly when considering side categories only) so that felt likelier to me than Eno.
As for Mary Wells and Marvelettes, I admit I was definitely hesitant about touching any R&B if Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson, the two biggest pop stars of the '90s, both needed at least 3 ballots. Granted, those two are more in the era of what the Hall generally likes to induct and maybe Spinners and Kool & the Gang paved the way for them. I'm also probably not personally taking anything indie in a draft until the Sykes-era Nominating Committee convinces me they have any interest, which so far they haven't. Pretty sure the Replacements and Bad Brains nominations were both late-period Wenner.
Connie Francis was a great draft choice and is an oversight that isn't on my personal list or Nick's. Especially given how one of her songs just became a massive hit thanks to TikTok.
I have no problem with The B52’s getting in whatsoever but I am hopeful the next New Wave/Post Punk act that will get in is Joy Division/New Order