ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES, 2025

Further shine has been taken off this year’s return of Oasis, already blighted by the ticketing chaos that saw fans paying exorbitant prices to see them perform from a great distance away at football grounds this summer. This is the news that, yet again, their name does not appear in the list of those to be inducted into US Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I look forward to hearing the reaction to this blow to their esteem from the Gallagher Brothers, Liam especially, who will doubtless respond with an expletive-strewn condemnation of an institution that, admittedly, does seem to be outstaying its welcome. 

I can hear it now: “Wha’ a fuckin’ useless bunch of fuckin’ cunts running this fuckin’ shit show. I ’ope it fuckin’ burns to the fuckin’ ground with them in it.”

Or words to that effect. 

Nevertheless, my poor record in selecting inductees appears to have taken a turn for the better with the list of 2025 inductees, announced yesterday. Earlier in the year, invited to pick seven from the following – Bad Company, Black Crowes, Mariah Carey, Chubby Checker, Joe Cocker, Billy Idol, Joy Division/New Order, Cyndi Lauper, Maná, Oasis, Outkast, Phish, Soundgarden and White Stripes – I chose Bad Co (largely on the basis that Free was a truly great little band, better than Bad Co in my humble opinion, and the two surviving member of Free will get inducted), Chubby Checker (because those Twist singles really were great), Cyndi Lauper (on orders from a mate), Joe Cocker (a Yorkshireman whose heart was always in the right place), Joy Division/New Order (because I wanted to see how Peter Hook would interact his former bandmates, whom he appears to loathe), Oasis (ditto re Noel and Liam, this nomination occurring before they buried the hatchet and announced their 2025 shows, of course) and White Stripes (because I liked them).

Inducted from among that list are Bad Co, Chubby Checker, Joe Cocker, Cyndi Lauper, Outkast, Soundgarden and White Stripes, so I picked five out of seven, which I think is a personal best. 

        Also inducted are Philadelphia soul producer Thom Bell, keyboard session wizard Nicky Hopkins, session bassist and Wrecking Crew member Carol Kaye, rappers Salt’n’Pepa, label exec Lenny Waronker and singer/songwriter Warren Zevon. This last six didn’t appear on the nomination form, and are elected by those who run the HoF. Salt’n’Pepa and Warren Zevon are in as ‘musical influences’, which I think is a new category, perhaps created by the board for those whom they believe deserve to be in but, stubbornly, don’t get the votes, while Bell, Hopkins and Kaye get in under ‘musical excellence’, and Waronker, a former president of Warner Bros Records, gets the Ahmet Ertegun award for influential record label A&R executives.

        I’m mighty pleased to see Nicky Hopkins on that list. I interviewed Nicky for the December 11, 1971, issue of MM, my piece appearing under the heading ‘The sixth Stone who almost became the fifth Who’, a reference to his prodigious session work with all the top names of the sixties. He even appeared on a Beatle track too, ‘Revolution’, the fast version that was a single, for which, on 11 July 1968, he was paid £6.50, according to Beatles mastermind Mark Lewisohn. 

Nicky Hopkins who, alas, died in 1994. 

        None of which takes away from my firm belief that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is an anachronism. Conceived in an era when there was little, if any, recognition for the great names in rock, it has now – with a few notable exceptions – recognised all the greats and is perpetuated, for purely commercial reasons, by inducting too many not-so-greats. I would have thought that the notable exceptions, among them Slade, Richard Thompson and Gram Parsons, would, because of their age, probably never get in now but seeing Hopkins on this list gives me a scintilla of hope. 

        Every year I think to myself that I’ll chuck in the towel when the nomination form arrives through my letterbox. Then I think, one more year. I’ll think about it again in 2026 if I’m still around.