Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame Announces 2008 Inductees

I'm going to preface this piece by saying that the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame is meaningless circle jerk created by Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner, and other out-of-the-loop golden oldies, for the sole purpose of collectively masturbating to the memory of Elvis Presley and jizzing on the legacy of Buddy Holly. In short, it's yet another Baby Boomer nostalgia factory wherein the Greater Generation assuages their irrelevance with self-congratulatory rhetoric and $1,000 per plate chicken dinners.

Okay, now that everything's clear: the inductees for the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame were announced this week! The class of 2008 includes Madonna, blue-collar rocker John Mellencamp, surf rock instrumentalists the Ventures, British invaders the Dave Clark Five, and Canadian poet/musician/Buddhist Leonard Cohen. Madonna was given the honor her first time around - the Hall's rules state that an artist becomes eligible for induction 25 years after their first album was released - while Cohen, Mellencamp, and the Ventures had to wait a combined 43 extra years for their nods.

Mellencamp is a classic rock radio staple with heartfelt heartland paeans such as "Jack and Diane" and "Small Town". His populist beliefs led him to organize Farm Aid in 1984 alongside country legend Willie Nelson and fellow classic rocker Neil Young. No political poseur, Mellencamp told Ronald Reagan to go fuck himself when the clueless Republican shill wanted to use "Pink Houses" in a 1984 campaign ad, apparently mistaking the boiling anger at the heart of the song for a celebration of folksy Americana.

The Ventures' iconic "Walk, Don't Run" defined the surf instrumental genre, even though the band hailed from the gloomy Pacific Northwest rather than the sunny beaches of Southern California. Cohen, the black horse among this year's inductees, is known for his poetic lyrics and oft-covered songs, delivered in his characteristic gravelly voice. The Cohen song "Hallelujah" has been covered extensively, most famously by Jeff Buckley and Rufus Wainwright, the latter of whose cover gained points with the under 10 set for its inclusion in "Shrek". The Dave Clark Five are best remembered for their stomp heavy hit "Glad All Over", which replaced the Beatles' "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" as the number one song in the January 1964 U.K. Singles Chart, as well as for eponymous drummer/songwriter Dave Clark's general dickishness (just ask fellow Invader Graham Nash of the Hollies). And Madonna? Well, you already know all about her.

Other inductees include harmonica player Little Walter and Philadelphia Sound mastermind producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, inducted under the "sidemen" and "producers" categories respectively. Although producers are not musicians (not really, anyway), they were given a category of their own in 2000 because the Hall is magnanimous like that.

In reality, the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame is a lot like High School. This analogy isn't so far fetched when you consider the sad similarities between the two. Both the Hall and High School are institutions created to maintain and perpetuate the status quo. Both are built upon a hierarchy of pettiness and exclusivity masquerading as education and recognition. Most strikingly, both tout themselves as important cultural milestones and both are largely insignificant in the larger scheme of things. So, if the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame was your high school, Madonna would be the rich girl who always manages to mention how much more expensive her jeans are than yours, Mellencamp would be the football star who, despite his many accolades, is still cool with you, Cohen would be the stoner who always writes something good in the yearbook, and the Ventures would be the jazz band geeks. So that makes you the Dave Clark Five: mediocre, unremarkable, and only notable because of that time you used a rubber band to launch a paperclip at the math teacher for a laugh and ended up taking her eye out instead. In the immortal words of another Dave (who was inducted into the Hall last year), "Class dismissed!"


RELATED: leonard cohen, dave clark five, madonna, rock n roll hall of fame, john melencamp

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