How the Rock Hall Works

I wish there was a link to this article on Rolling Stone's website, but I can't find it. Anyway, in the November 26 issue, the one devoted to the 25th anniversary concerts of the Rock Hall, Nominating Committee member Anthony DeCurtis wrote a piece called, How Do You Get Into The Hall of Fame? Sounds juicy, but the piece itself rehashes stuff we already know. How does the NomCom meet, and what does Steven Van Zandt think about all this? We know he's the one pushing the 50's and 60's artists, and wants more early artists inducted. It's not until the final 1/3 of it that we get some juicy information.

Why only 5 inductees? Because Jann Wenner says so. Add more inductees? "I've had to be the curmudgeon and say no," and he says "there are plenty of years coming up. We're trying to do this for the history books. It can't be a popularity contest."

Most of the quotes are from Jon Landau, head of the nominating committee.
Among them: criteria for induction? : "a mix of quality and influence", and "we have artists with mass appeal, and artists with a very narrow audience."

What about these committee members? Landau says, "It's not a group that can be easily swayed or intimidated." Landau also says he has tried to bring more women, minorities and younger people onto the committee. (as the article says most of the nomcom consists of white men between 40 and 60 years of age).

The closing quote from Landau is also of interest. About the Hall's signifigance today he says, "The Hall of Fame has its critics, there are people who disdain it for a variety of reasons, and I've heard them all. But I've also heard artists walk into that induction ceremony and just say, Wow. The Hall of Fame is a big place, physically and emotionally. Some artists feel underappreciated by it and knock it. At the same time, it's obvious how much they'd like to be in there."