I'm feelin' kinda old, due to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees for 2007, specifically REM. Now, certainly the Ramones and Prince and The Clash were artists that were far more important to me as a kid than REM, and they're already in the Hall of Fame, but I was not that hip to the music scene when I was eight and nine, which is when the first Ramones and Prince and Clash albums came out. (I believe I may have gotten my copy of Billy Joel's The Stranger somewhere around that point. Also the soundtrack to The Muppet Movie. I already owned Elton John's Greatest Hits.) I remember vividly, though, the release of Murmur and people talking about it at school and hearing "Radio Free Europe" and thinking it was kinda weird. (Yeah, I know, the Chronic Town EP came first, but whatever). This is really the first time that a band that started about when I got interested in music is in the hall of fame. Which is one more measure of gettin' old, I suppose.
If Van Halen had broken up after 1984, I wouldn't have any problem with their induction, but I guess I feel that their descent into suckitude somehow weakens their case. I mean, they've got Hagar listed on the press release! Are they really being inducted on the strength of "Love Walks In"? I mean, in my book, Hagar is just a poster boy for rock and roll mediocrity. (Or, as I like to call it, "medirockrity") In my hall of fame, he'd be listed as The Guy Who Ruined Van Halen and The Guy Who Unwittingly Inspired Double Nickels on the Dime) Who votes on these things? They're very cagey about this.
Of course, we all know who votes on the baseball hall of fame, and what a bunch o' hypocrites those guys are. I mean, I don't really have any problem with excluding Mark McGwire over his steroid use, but where were all these high and mighty anti-steroid baseball writers when these guys were blowing up like the Michelin Man? They were all writing adoring columns about McGwire and Sosa and how they were so good for baseball and isn't this run for the record books fun? And I don't remember anybody questioning whether they were using steroids or not, or actually doing any investigating or anything. I guess that would involve actual journalism. They were happy to promote these guys at the time, and then, like Claude Rains in Casablanca, they're shocked, shocked to find out that steroid use was going on. Puh-leeze.
