Author: Dale Nickey

The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame carries a stink. Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner is also co-founder of the R&R Hall. And it is common knowledge that his personal musical taste dictates the nomination list. The list fails to include some of the more accomplished British Bands or any artist he ‘don’t cotton to’. He seems to have a particular distaste for British artists in the progressive wing of rock music.

So here then are just a few of the artists who are inexplicably excluded from the Hall of Fame, but occupy our record collections, and rule our airwaves none the less.

YES:

50 million albums sold

I guess it’s not enough that they are the preeminent and most popular progressive rock band in the history of …well….progressive rock. Not to mention the 50 million albums they have sold worldwide. Their back story is compelling. They reigned supreme in the early to mid seventies. “Roundabout” and “Your Move/Seen All Good People” are classic rock staples right along with “Stairway To Heaven” and “Pinball Wizard”. They perfected the bloated, self-indulgent concept album with “Tales From Topographic Oceans”. An Album cited by many journalists as their greatest folly (despite the fact it shot to #1 on both sides of the Atlantic upon release). They fell on hard times during the punk revolution only to re-invent themselves and conquer the world yet again in 1982 with a # 1 album “90125” and # 1 single “Owner Of A Lonely Heart”. However, Genesis gets the Hall instead because Phil Collins is cuddlier.