Cleveland rocks!

I have not yet had the chance to watch HBO’s two-hour highlight show of the 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, honoring Rush, Heart, Donna Summer, Public Enemy, and Randy Newman, so that will be a separate post. (Though I do miss the years that FUSE showed the whole messy thing, uncut and live.)

It’s a familiar parlor game at this point to pile on the HOF and its nominating committee for who is not enshrined. A controversy that won’t die and came to a head this year when Rush got their long, LONG overdue nod.

Still, there’s a lot of names who have been spent too long in the waiting room. Consider this list of who is NOT in the Hall:

Bad Company
Blue Oyster Cult
Boz Scaggs
Cheap Trick
Chicago
Deep Purple
The Doobie Brothers
Foreigner
Grand Funk Railroad
Hall & Oates
Iron Maiden
Jethro Tull
Journey
Judas Priest
Peter Frampton
Steve Miller Band
Thin Lizzy
Three Dog Night
Todd Rundgren
War
Warren Zevon
Yes

Surprised? You should be. Maybe some of those slots have been taken over the years by inductees like these who ARE in:

Bobby Darin
Abba
Beastie Boys
Bobby Womack
Brenda Lee
Del Shannon
The Dells
Gene Pitney
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
Jimmy Cliff
Laura Nyro
Leonard Cohen
Lloyd Price
Madonna
Miles Davis
Run DMC
Sex Pistols

Nothing against the artists above and, yes, I get that Rock and Roll is a melting pot of other musics. And I get that acts are eligible at different times. But it’s not the “General Music” Hall of Fame under that pointy pyramid in Cleveland.

Come on, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Let’s make 2014 the year of the Purps!

Likely, the story for the 2014 list will be whether or not Deep Purple – the most egregious exclusion – make the cut. And given the Hall’s seemingly predisposition to shun prog, hard rock, and heavy metal (which gets “That Metal Show” co-host/DJ Eddie Trunk fuming), it’s time for the Purps to get in – though it’s too bad keyboardist Jon Lord won’t be around to see it since his death last year.

So come on, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Let’s get some of these more-than deserving rockers on the roll!