In April, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced its 2025 slate of annual inductees, generating the now-perfunctory reactions that greet such news: disdain or exasperated relief combined with vague irritation at the Hall’s very existence, of which, cicada-like, we are reminded each year around this time.
The first two responses are fairly straightforward. The disdain stems from the admission of unworthy candidates, and the exasperated relief from the tardy admission of worthy ones. Nearly 40 years since its inaugural ceremony, one of these inevitably describes just about every nominee. The critic Bill Wyman notes in his highly entertaining ranked list of inductees, which doubles as a handy pocket history of the Hall, that it is now in its “pet rock era,” mining nostalgia from
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