Results from the Mock Nom Com Project (Class of 2021)
It’s hard to believe, but it’s been over 4 months since the inaugural Mock Nom Com Project meeting. A group of 21 “experts” in the Rock Hall Watching (RHW) created a ballot from a group of 42 prospective candidates. Our final ballot consisted of 16 artists who we felt represented the rich diversity of popular music over the last seven decades. Starting in mid-May, Mark and I decided to take things one step further and created a Google Forms ballot for people to vote for their Top 5 candidates…just like the ballot any voter in the larger voting body receives each year. To give people amble time to vote, we kept the ballot active for almost the entire summer and it closed on August 31. After receiving 169 total votes, we complied the results and here they are…
Tina Turner: 92
Kraftwerk: 84
Joy Division/New Order: 75
Judas Priest: 63
The B-52’s: 62
The Smiths: 58
Kool & The Gang: 49
Kate Bush: 47
LL Cool J: 47
Jay-Z: 45
The Spinners: 43
Big Mama Thornton: 41
Beck: 39
John Coltrane: 37
Rufus featuring Chaka Khan: 25
Salt N Pepa: 21
Mark and I chatted on a Zoom call last week to discuss the results of the ballot. Traditionally, the Rock Hall inducts at least 5 artists in the Performers category each year. Some years, like the previous two, it’s 6 or 7 artists if the results are very close. We felt transparency of the ballot results were important, especially considering the Rock Hall never reveals the results to the public and it frustrates most of us to no end. To give the results a bit more depth, we decided to induct the top 7 vote-getters, mainly because we both felt bigger classes allow the Rock Hall to further explore artists from those genres (e.g., 70s R&B, Alternative/New Wave). Anyway…our inductees are: The B-52’s, Joy Division/New Order, Judas Priest, Kool & The Gang, Kraftwerk, The Smiths and Tina Turner.
During our Zoom call, we made some observations about the results worth noting:
A very European Class
o Just like the 2019 Class, the majority of our inductees were born in Europe.: Kraftwerk (Germany), Joy Division/New Order (UK), Judas Priest (UK), and The Smiths (UK). The American-born Tina Turner now resides in Switzerland and has lived there for many years now. Besides Turner, The B-52’s and Kool & The Kool Gang are the only other Americans in this class.
The ballot was too stacked, genre-wise
o Just like the Hard Rock/Metal split amongst the voters in the actual vote last year, our voters split on R&B and Hip-Hop. Perhaps the ballot was too diverse for its own good.
o In the process, we “cleared the lane” for Judas Priest who were the only metal and “Classic Rock” act on our ballot.
o Our final results went heavy on New Wave and Alternative artists—Joy Division/New Order, The Smiths and The B-52’s—which is an era that the actual Rock Hall is just starting to induct on a regular basis.
Despite half the ballot consisting of black artists, only two would be inducted from our poll’s results
o Too stacked in terms of representing post-60s black music (e.g., 70s R&B/Soul, Funk, Hip-Hop) and this is something the actual Nom Com would probably never do.
o Something important to note is that our Zoom call took place on Sunday September 6. We made the decision to add Kool & The Gang as our 7th inductee, which was only a few days before Ronald Bell’s death. With so much publicity and coverage on Kool & The Gang in the last week or so, except their names to pop up on many predication lists for the actual class of 2021.
Another year without Hip-Hop
o Perhaps the biggest deviance from our results is that Jay-Z would not be an FYE inductee. It’s almost an incalculable conclusion he’s a lock for induction next year.
o LL Cool J comes very close to induction again, just like Questlove once mentioned in an interview years ago. LL just can’t win.
o Salt N Pepa, who would be the first female rappers nominated, garnered the least number of votes.
A lack of women inducted from this ballot
o Just Tina Turner, Gillian Gilbert (New Order), Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson (B-52’s) would be the only women honored in this class.
o Tina Turner would become just the second-ever woman inducted twice in the Hall.
o But Tina already gets a ballot, so in this scenario only 3 women would be added to the voting body. This wouldn’t help move the needle forward to induct more women into the Hall as heavily discussed in recent years.
A more queer-friendly class
o The B-52’s (sans Cindy Wilson) and Rob Halford would represent one of the most marginalized groups in the Rock Hall: queer artists. Even Tina Turner’s induction as a solo artist would likely garner support from the LGBTQ community, especially on the heels of “The Best” used on Schitt’s Creek.
No 90s-era artists inducted
o In the last 6 years (since 2014), only the 2016 & 2018 classes did not feature a 90s-era artist—arguably among the worst years in HOF ceremony history (cough “Classic Rock”-heavy cough)
o Beck, the only “modern rocker” on the ballot to boot, and Jay-Z were the two sole representatives of that decade on our ballot and they failed to earn enough votes.
Disputes amongst members of bands would make HBO unhappy with the results—a lack of a headliner among other reasons
o Joy Division/New Order: Lawsuits and a bitter split with Peter Hook would dampen the festivities.
o The Smiths: Morrissey…enough said.
o Kraftwerk: Founding member Florian Schneider died earlier this year and the remaining members live in their native Germany. Have they even acknowledged any of their 6 previous Rock Hall nominations?
o Tina Turner: She’s 80, is a full-fledged citizen in Switzerland and apparently battling illnesses in recent years. Plus, she retired from performing and rarely makes public appearances anymore. I doubt she travels to the ceremony. Plus, it took the Rock Hall 30 years (literally) to induct Tina without her abuser (eligible since 1998, but still…).
o Of these, it seems Judas Priest, The B-52’s and Kool & The Gang would probably be the only 3 locks to show up. HBO wouldn’t be pleased with this class. We would love to see what the all-star jam would consist of with this group…but “Celebration” and/or “Love Shack” would be excellent choices.
So that concludes our Mock Nom Com Project (Class of 2021). Thank you to everyone who participated and supported our Project this past summer. We hope this becomes a regular annual tradition and we can include more members of the RHW community at the next one. Let us know your thoughts on the results in the comments section below and/or on Twitter.
