Don't Count on Moderate Republicans to Save the Day
PLUS: The most historically significant artists the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has yet to induct
“If you don’t think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement and where the power in the Republican Party truly lies, then you’re not paying attention.”—Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz (FL) to Steve Bannon last Wednesday morning on Bannon’s podcast
I foolishly believed for a second there that the reasonable wing of the Republican Party was finally ready to push back.
Days earlier, Rep. Matt Gaetz and seven other Republicans had plunged the House of Representatives into chaos by deposing Speaker Kevin McCarthy, effectively dissolving the chamber’s Republican majority. It was Gaetz and a band of hardline conservatives who, back in January, had forced McCarthy to endure fifteen roll call votes on his way to becoming Speaker. To win the holdouts’ approval, McCarthy had agreed to a slate of rules that made it easy for a handful of House members to recall him and promised to play hardball with Democrats on the debt ceiling and government funding bills. McCarthy didn’t have the leverage to play hardball, however, forcing him to work with Democrats to avoid default and keep the government open. That pushed Gaetz to sack McCarthy, a move that infuriated Gaetz’s fellow Republicans.
The search for a new Speaker was on. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise edged Rep. Jim Jordan in a House Republican Conference vote, but after it became clear hardliners would deny him a majority on the House floor, Scalise withdrew from consideration. Republicans then turned to Jordan, a co-founder and former chair of the populist House Freedom Caucus known for grilling witnesses during committee hearings and eviscerating Democrats on FOX News. Not only had he developed a reputation in Congress for opposing rather than supporting bills (including those written by his fellow Republicans) but over the course of his sixteen years in office, Jordan had never sponsored a single bill that became law. That hardly recommended Jordan for a job that would require him to shepherd bills through Congress, but, unlike Scalise, Jordan was an outsider more interested in stoking Republican rage than governing, so his bid had right-wingers downright giddy. Jordan was also a staunch Donald Trump ally and served as the point man for efforts on Capitol Hill to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Liz Cheney said Jordan “knew more about what Donald Trump had planned for January 6 than any other member of the House of Representatives.”
Initially, it seemed unlikely Jordan would become Speaker. He and his allies appeared to kneecap Scalise’s bid, which not only embittered many in Scalise’s camp but led others to wonder why they should be expected to back the second-place finisher/saboteur. Jordan’s team also began strong-arming Republican House members, promising an intense pressure campaign if they didn’t get onboard with his bid. Jordan indicated he planned to schedule vote after vote on the House floor to spotlight holdouts and get them to cave. Many Republican House members, including some whose spouses received threatening voicemails, denounced these tactics.
Still, as the first floor vote approached, Jordan’s odds of becoming Speaker looked good. A few key members who had earlier opposed his bid suddenly announced their support. Jordan received Trump’s “complete and total endorsement.” It wasn’t hard to imagine Jordan at least getting close on the first ballot and then working over a handful of holdouts to put him over the top on the second ballot. A House caucus that had been furious with Matt Gaetz just days earlier seemed poised to deliver Gaetz the no-holds-barred speaker he desired.
But that’s when I saw that glimmer of hope. Jordan managed to garner 200 Republican votes on the first ballot, but twenty Republican lawmakers—a group of moderates, institutionalists, and members from competitive districts—refused to back him. It was a rejection of the Jordan/Gaetz/Trump brand of politics. Jordan’s opponents were tired of being bullied and intimidated, tired of hardball tactics, tired of a politics that deplored consensus and compromise, tired of all the cacophony and chaos stirred up by MAGA politicians. Even Rep. Ken Buck, a right-winger who earlier had voted to oust McCarthy, said he refused to support Jordan because Jordan did not accept the results of the 2020 election. Furthermore, these Republicans had not only taken a stand against Jordan but actually formulated a plan to defeat him. Their strategy: Secretly withhold a bank of “no” votes that could be used on successive ballots so that opposition to Jordan grew rather than shrank during each round. It worked, and Jordan withdrew after the third ballot. It seemed as though the reasonable wing of the Republican Party had finally had enough of the MAGA wing’s insanity.
The House Speaker race became a free-for-all. Eight candidates threw their hats into the ring. Majority Whip Tom Emmer managed to win the next conference vote, but he had one glaring problem: He had voted to certify the 2020 election results. That made him a squish when it came to his devotion to the MAGA brand, so hardliners rallied against him and Trump threw him under the bus. Emmer’s candidacy lasted a little over four hours.
None of the remaining candidates seemed to have a plausible path forward. None had connections across the caucus. More importantly, it didn’t appear there was a way to bridge the gap between what MAGA hardliners and reasonable Republicans wanted in a speaker. The reasonable Republicans had a lot of leverage, too. They had just asserted themselves as a bloc the Republican caucus (hardliners included) would have to work with if they hoped to have a functional Republican majority. Rumors of a cross-party deal to install a temporary Speaker to deal with pressing House business provided an extra incentive for Republicans to figure this out on their own. By making it clear an intra-conference compromise was the only way forward for the party, the reasonable Republicans would finally discredit the bully-ball style of politics practiced by Gaetz and Jordan. That could also loosen Trump’s grip on the party and begin to move the GOP past election denialism and its other anti-democratic inclinations.
Enter Mike Johnson.
Look, I spend way more time than the average American learning about House districts and have spent way more time than the average non-Louisianan learning about Louisiana’s congressional delegation. But even I had no idea who this Mike Johnson guy was. I’m still not convinced Republicans didn’t just Chauncey Gardiner some guy from Shreveport and draw up a congressional district for him over the weekend. He’s so mild-mannered that if he whipped off his glasses, he’d still just be Clark Kent.
But no, Matt Mark Matt Mike Johnson is a real deal member of Congress, and this is what is not hard to learn about the guy:
He is an election denier. After the 2020 election, he recruited 125 Republicans to sign an amicus brief to the Supreme Court claiming four states won by Biden had unconstitutionally changed election procedures in their state. Johnson voted against certification of the results on 1/6. He claimed Venezuela and Hugo Chavez (who is dead) had a hand in manipulating the results. When pressed at a news conference about his election denialism (see below) he smirked and dismissed the question as the gaggle of Republicans around him shouted down the questioner. (Why exactly did they act that way? Did the question embarrass them? Why would they of all people be embarrassed about it?)
He is a Christian nationalist who does not believe in the separation of church and state. He erroneously claims the American constitution is based on Biblical law and that American law must correspond with a conservative Christian interpretation of the Bible.
He opposes abortion and has voted in Congress for a national abortion ban.
He opposes same-sex marriage and has called homosexuality “inherently unnatural” and a “dangerous lifestyle.” Johnson authored a “don’t say gay” bill in the House last year.
He supported Trump’s “Muslim ban” and once lobbied his state against working with a Muslim civil rights organization not because he was against Muslims but because he opposed terrorism.
He is a climate change skeptic who has voted against numerous clean energy bills. His single biggest campaign donor is the oil and gas industry.
He voted for the Trump tax cuts (which went disproportionately to millionaires) and has proposed slashing billions from Social Security and trillions from Medicare and Medicaid. Johnson described the entitlement programs as an “existential threat” to the American way of life.
Basically, if Paul Ryan and Mike Pence had a baby that did not share his parents’ qualms with Donald Trump (including that one time Trump sent a mob after his daddy) that baby would be Mike Johnson. While Johnson is not as conservative as Jordan according to NW-NOMINATE scores (Johnson is closer ideologically to Scalise and somewhat more conservative than McCarthy) he’s still more conservative than about 2/3 of a very conservative House Republican caucus. That doesn’t put Johnson out of step with his peers. Instead, his victory is a sign one of the world’s most conservative political parties keeps backsliding to the right.
Yet every House Republican—including the “reasonable” Republicans—voted for him during the floor vote for Speaker. Even Ken Buck, who had objected to Jordan on account of his election denialism, found a hair to split that allowed him to cast his vote for Johnson. Within minutes, Trump had nicknamed the new Speaker what Gaetz had called him earlier in the day: MAGA Mike.
I don’t know what these reasonable Republicans were thinking. Maybe they figured Johnson was close enough ideologically to McCarthy or the average Republican to pass muster, no matter how bonkos the average Republican is these days. Maybe the fact he wasn’t a flamethrower like Jordan was enough. Or maybe they just got tired of the whole circus and settled on a passably blank slate for Speaker.
But it doesn’t appear they put up any kind of a fight. They didn’t insist on an end to the GOP’s debt ceiling and government funding hijinks. They didn’t demand putting the baseless Biden impeachment inquiry on ice or denouncing election denialism. They didn’t demand changing the rules so Gaetz couldn’t throw the House into chaos again for three weeks. No, they let Gaetz get his man. They caved and once again put off dealing with the dysfunction at the core of the Republican Party, which means that problem will only continue to metastasize.
Realistically, it’s probably too much to ask of “reasonable” Republicans to save us, to put the country first and stand on principle for democracy and against the Trump MAGA movement. The majority of the Republican base in any congressional district probably demands fidelity to Trump at this point, meaning any Republican hoping to win a primary has to pledge their allegiance to Trump, too. Republicans who do object to Trump have either left the party or made their peace with the man, trading their commitment to American democracy for a list of policy priorities. There aren’t enough conscientious Republicans in office or in the electorate to turn to anymore to stand as a bulwark against MAGAism. Republican officeholders who continue to harbor reservations about Trump probably rationalize their public support of Trump as a failsafe: If a true Trump enthusiast replaced them, they reason, there would be no one to save the republic when Trump did something really egregious. The problem, as we saw yet again last week, is that they’re playing terrible defense. Sure, they may have kept Jim Jordan from becoming Speaker, but they still gave Matt Gaetz what he and his hardliners wanted: MAGA Mike. Whether it happens quickly or slowly, it’s still democratic backsliding.
It just so happens McKay Coppins’ buzzy new biography of Mitt Romney came out this week. Its subtitle, A Reckoning, alludes to the book’s focus on Romney coming to terms with all the compromises he and the Republican Party have made in pursuit of political power over the past few decades and if those compromises somehow led to the rise of Trump. I must admit Romney is a man I both grudgingly admire and abhor, often in the same breath. I’ve never found him to be a particularly ideological guy; yes, he is conservative, but his political style is more that of a savvy, insightful manager of public affairs than an ideological warrior. I can respect that.
But I also think he rather arrogantly believes he is uniquely suited to lead this great republic of ours, which has led him to make common cause with figures better left on the margins of American politics (Trump in 2012, much of the Republican Senate caucus over the past five years) and look down upon and dismiss those who don’t share his supposedly clear-eyed worldview (a.k.a., Democrats). So Romney makes the political compromises he has to make to gain political power and in turn bless the people with his stewardship, but in the process ends up empowering people who shouldn’t be entrusted with power. He thinks he can keep them in check, but they gain strength instead. He winds up becoming a stranger to his own party, one of its few voices of reason. Unfortunately, his conscience cannot convince his ego to abandon his party, to admit the toll of actualizing his political beliefs is too high for his beloved republic to pay. His only remaining options are to cast himself as either the knight defending his realm from the hordes or as the savior who might pull it back from the brink. Yet his efforts prove tepid and futile.
On their watch, Romney and this era’s reasonable Republicans have only seen their party grow more extreme. Those of us determined to reverse America’s democratic backsliding can’t expect them to save us. Instead, the lesson of this past week is that we should double our efforts to defeat them.
Further Reading:
“New House Speaker: Soft-Spoken. Mild-Mannered. Raging Theocrat” from The New Republic
“And the Winner Is…” by Charlie Sykes of The Bulwark (Spoiler alert: The winner is Matt Gaetz)
“Can the GOP Ever Come to Grips With the Lies of 2020?” by Adam Wren of Politico
“Johnson’s Speakership Win Fails to End House GOP Infighting” by Jordain Carney of Politico
“Is the Republican Speakership Cursed? Johnson is About to Find Out” by Carl Hulse of the New York Times (Republican Speakers and aspirants have frequently crashed-and-burned or fallen from grace. The article includes a good insight from Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer (MD): Republican speakers end up being consumed by the same forces of discontent the party uses to stoke its voters.
“‘I Mean, Is This My Party?’”, a think piece about the new Mitt Romney biography by Michael Kruse of Politco
“Mitt Romney is the Fixed Point Revealing the Republicans’ Slide” in The Economist
Signals and Noise
By Thomas Friedman of the New York Times: “Israel is About to Make a Terrible Mistake” (“The hour is late. I have never written a column this urgent before because I have never been more worried about how this situation could spin out of control in ways that could damage Israel irreparably, damage U.S. interests irreparably, damage Palestinians irreparably, threaten Jews everywhere and destabilize the whole world.”)
A poll found 49% of Israelis want to hold off on an invasion of Gaza. Only 29% wanted an immediate escalation of the war.
Ned Lazarus in The Atlantic ponders alternatives to a ground invasion of Gaza and can’t find any that make sense.
Jim VanderHeil and Mike Allen of Axios examine Biden’s efforts to slow walk an Israeli invasion of Gaza. The Washington Post reports similar news.
NBC News reports drone attacks have injured several American service personnel in Syria and Iraq.
Graeme Wood of The Atlantic visited the West Bank to find settler violence against Palestinians there has intensified.
By Yair Rosenberg of The Atlantic: “The End of Netanyahu” (“Today, following the worst anti-Jewish violence since the Holocaust, [Netanyahu’s] promise has been irrevocably broken. The myth that Netanyahu assiduously cultivated about his leadership stands exposed as a self-serving fiction, and he will be forever remembered as the security hawk who presided over the greatest security failure in Israeli history. He will never be elected prime minister again.”) MORE: “Israelis Feel Abandoned by Netanyahu After October 7” by Ellen Ioanes of Vox
Graeme Wood of The Atlantic writes about why the Israeli Defense Force chose to share graphic footage recorded by members of Hamas during its attack on Israel with the press. (WARNING: The article describes the attacks in brutal and horrifying detail; I share it not out of a morbid interest in these events but because it is important not to sanitize the inhumane and evil acts that occurred that day.)
From CNN: Medical personnel in Gaza have found parents have taken to writing their names on the legs and abdomens of their children to that they can be identified following an attack that leaves either themselves or their children dead.
NBC News reports Muslim Americans in Michigan feel betrayed by President Biden and are openly planning on withholding their votes from him on Election Day 2024. In 2020, Biden won Michigan, which has one of the largest Muslim and Arab American populations in the nation, by about 2.8% in 2020.
The worst mass shooting in the United States this year has left 18 people dead in Lewiston, Maine. Reacting to new House Speaker Mike Johnson’s comment that “now is not the time” to consider new gun legislation, John Gruber wrote “The Aftermath of a Massacre is Always the Time to Push for Gun Legislation” (“Would Republicans argue that October 8 was “not the right time” for Israel to discuss Hamas terrorism? Was September 12, 2001 “not the right time” to discuss Al-Qaeda? Should FDR have delivered an address to the nation on December 8, 1941, advising that we relax, let cooler heads prevail, because the aftermath of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor “was not the time” to consider retaliating?”)
Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips has announced a primary challenge to Joe Biden. Despite agreeing with Biden on nearly everything, he cites Biden’s low poll numbers as reasons for getting into the race. (Phillips won’t say it, but his campaign seems premised on concerns about Biden’s age.) Phillips campaign is one worth watching, as he, more than Robert Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West, can plausibly win the protest votes of Democrats who want to move on from Biden.
Is Don Trump losing it? This week:
He claimed he was never indicted. (He’s been indicted four times this year.)
He claimed Viktor Orbán is the leader of Turkey. (He’s the leader of Hungary.)
Told his supporters to work as poll watchers rather than actually vote.
Don Trump had to take the witness stand in his New York civil fraud trial to answer questions about comments he made that potentially violated his gag order. The judge didn’t believe his answers and fined him $10,000. Trump later stormed out of the courtroom as his attorney cross-examined his former fixer, Michael Cohen.
Another Trump attorney (this time, Jenna Ellis) has cut a plea deal with prosecutors in the Georgia election fraud case. And former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has been granted immunity in exchange for testimony in the federal election fraud case brought against Trump.
House Republicans from New York are ready to move forward with a motion to expel Rep. “George Santos”. Santos pleaded not guilty to a 23-count corruption indictment.
Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowen (NY) pleaded guilty to pulling a fire alarm in a House office building last month on the day of the vote to fund the government.
In redistricting news, North Carolina Republicans have re-gerrymandered their state in a move that will likely net them 3-4 extra seats. In Georgia, a judge has ordered maps redrawn to ensure adequate representation for Black voters, which will likely add a Democratic seat to the Georgia delegation.
Justice Clarence Thomas likes to make the point that he’s just an average guy who like to travel the U.S. in his RV and hang out with average Americans. But, according to a new Senate report, Thomas secured a loan worth more than a quarter of a million dollars in 1999 from a wealthy friend (he has a lot of wealthy friends) to purchase a luxury motor coach, and then, after making numerous interest payments, had the loan “forgiven.” Thomas’s lawyers refuted the report.
David Leonhardt makes the progressive case for tougher restrictions on immigration for The Atlantic. MORE: “Crossings at U.S. Southern Border are Higher Than Ever” by Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times
Ronald Brownstein writes in The Atlantic about Trump’s increasingly extreme positions on immigration and Biden’s struggle to counter it with popular policies.
Carmen Paun of Politico writes the opioid crisis has only gotten worse since a 2018 law first began to address it.
Abortions have increased nationwide following the end of Roe, but inequalities exist from state to state.
The Virginia midterms will offer an interesting test: Republicans there have rallied around Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s call for a ban on abortions after 15 weeks with exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. Youngkin has cast Democrats as endorsing abortion policies with “no limits.”
As of mid-October, only 7% of Americans have gotten the updated COVID booster.
The Economist observes that ever since the pandemic, consumer sentiment has broken sharply with the expected consumer sentiment derived from a number of economic variables.
It seems most people tend to think people’s views of the economy are out of whack with the reality of the economy. But could it be that the economic variables used to measure the strength of the economy aren’t doing a good job capturing the strength of the economy? (Still, GDP grew at a 4.9% annual rate last quarter!) Or is something else entirely going on here, a pervasive sense of malaise, perhaps, that frames assessments of society generally?
The UAW has reached a tentative agreement with Ford. (And Stellantis.) With a 25% pay hike over the next four-and-a-half years, it looks like workers are pretty happy with the deal.
According to the Washington Post, Twitter has lost 30% of its users since Elon Musk purchased it last year and has seen ad revenues plummet.
Top 5 Records Music Review: The 21 Most Historically Significant Artists Snubbed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
This Friday, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will induct its 2023 honorees. This year’s class includes Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott, George Michael, Willie Nelson, Rage Against the Machine, and the Spinners, as well as DJ Kool Herc, Link Wray, Chaka Khan, Al Kooper, Bernie Taupin, and Don Cornelius. The ceremony will for the first time be streamed live at 8/7 central on Disney+.
The big news coming out of the RRHoF over the past few months is less celebratory. Jann Wenner, co-founder of Rolling Stone and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, told the New York Times in an interview about his new book The Masters: Conversations with Dylan, Lennon, Jagger, Townshend, Garcia, Bono, and Springsteen that he did not include any female artists in his book because “none of them were…articulate enough on this intellectual level.” He made similar remarks about Black artists Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield. In response, he was kicked off the board of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation.
Many found in Wenner’s comments proof of the RRHoF’s bias against women and minority artists. Less than 9% of inductees are women, and the nominating committee historically has been overwhelmingly male. While the RRHoF initially inducted many Black artists, the number of Black honorees has dropped over the years. The organization also has a tendency to induct middle-of-the-road white guy rock bands (i.e., Bon Jovi, Chicago, Journey, the Doobie Brothers, Dire Straits, etc.)
I’ve never been one to buy the whole Jann-Wenner-as-RRHoF-puppet-master theory; it’s too easy to disprove once you know who is on Wenner’s list of favorites (the J. Geils Band) and who has gotten in instead (ABBA). But it is easy to see how Wenner’s view of rock and roll as an art form and the work that he considers historically significant have shaped the RRHoF’s roster of honorees. Wenner’s view (shared by the old guard) is the “rockist” view of rock and roll: That good rock and roll is somehow “authentic,” that it is conscious of its roots but transcends them as art, that it always pushes against the mainstream while serving as the voice of a vanguard generation. According to this view, pop music during the rock and roll era was always an inferior musical product. Yet many female and Black artists at this time were automatically deemed pop artists by the critical community. Few bothered to actually listen close enough to find out if these artists were saying something significant in the pop-rock medium. They just weren’t taken seriously as “articulate” artists.
That’s just a quick encapsulation of this issue. It does get more complicated, and some exceptions (i.e., Jimi Hendrix, Madonna, Prince) actually kind of prove the rule. There are also many other blind spots the RRHoF has struggled to address, namely British bands that never achieved superstar status in the U.S. and underground/alternative critical darlings who never made it big but influenced future generations of musicians.
In the wake of Wenner’s comments, it would make sense for me to highlight the many important female artists who have yet to make it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but I actually wrote that article last year. (You can check it out here.) I’m happy to note two of the artists on that list (Kate Bush and Chaka Khan) and one who made the honorable mention list (Sheryl Crow) will be inducted Friday. The other female artist honored this year—Missy Elliott—is a newly-eligible no-doubter for induction.
Instead, I want to take a look at the most-historically significant artists who have yet to be inducted. There are any number of criteria you could use to determine who belongs in the RRHoF. Artistic merit definitely matters. Also, some acts are just too big to ignore (although popularity alone isn’t enough to earn an act admission.) For me, though, historic significance matters most. Did the artist do something new and different? And did that work influence notable artists who came in their wake? If it’s impossible to write any good history of rock and roll without mentioning a certain artist, then that artist belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Here’s a list of 21 such acts.
Tori Amos: In the 1990s, Amos updated the singer-songwriter genre for the indie-rock/alternative rock era. Amos set the stage for Lilith Fair and inspired decades of adventurous, idiosyncratic solo artists. (Listen: “Crucify”)
Big Star: A cult 70s power-pop band from Memphis, Big Star was never able to crack the charts and broke up after only releasing three albums. Still, their ragged but sensitive songs would influence R.E.M. and every quirky, sensitive indie rock band who used melody to reach out to the world. (Listen: “September Gurls”)
Bikini Kill: A fiercely political rock band, Bikini Kill stood at the forefront of the 90s riot grrrl movement. Their explosive blend of punk and feminism is as essential to the history of alternative rock as the music of Nirvana and Green Day. (Listen: “Rebel Girl”)
Black Flag: Emerging from the late-70s west coast punk scene, Black Flag became the standard bearer for hardcore, an aggressive, confrontational, anti-commercial style of rock and roll that pushed punk to its aesthetic extremes. The spirit of Black Flag lives on in every mosh pit and shaped the development of thrash metal, emo, and grunge. (Listen: “Rise Above”)
Can: Few Americans are familiar with the work of this German band, but in the 1970s, Can fused the sounds of the Beatles, psychedelic rock, funk, the Velvet Underground, and experimental rock with free jazz and avant-garde music to create a wildly experimental and distinctly European style of rock and roll. Numerous post-punk bands and groups like Radiohead and LCD Soundsystem have referenced Can as a source of inspiration. (Listen: “Mushroom”)
Mariah Carey: At a time when pop music was looked down upon by critics, Carey claimed her place as the biggest pop star of the 1990s. More significantly, however, her melismatic vocal style can be heard running through the music of the generation of pop stars who grew up listening to her hits. (Listen: “Vision of Love”)
Chic: No band has been nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame more often (11 times) without getting in than Chic. The RRHoF attempted to correct this by giving band leader and producer Nile Rodgers a musical excellence award in 2017, but that’s not enough. Chic crafted a new rhythmic language out of disco that could be fused with rock music, paving the way for the 80s pop era. Their sound influenced countless artists, from Michael Jackson and Madonna to David Bowie and Duran Duran. (Listen: “Good Times”)
Dick Dale: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has done a pretty good job honoring the important artists of the 50s and 60s, but one glaring oversight remains: Dick Dale, King of the Surf Guitar. By channeling the power he felt while surfing the waves of the Pacific Ocean, Dale created a style of music that not only left its stamp on the sound of the 60s but reverberated through the work of Jimi Hendrix and other hard rock musicians. (Listen: “Miserlou”)
Dr. Dre: Dr. Dre is already in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of N.W.A., but he also merits induction as a solo artist and producer. The laid-back, synthesized G-funk sound he popularized on The Chronic (1991) came to define west coast rap. (We might name drop Snoop Doggy Dogg as a worthy inductee for similar reasons as well.) (Listen: “Nothin’ But a ‘G’ Thang”)
Brian Eno: Like Dr. Dre, Eno (who was already inducted with Roxy Music) could make it into the RRHoF as either a solo artist or producer. As an artist in the 1970s, Eno’s synthesized soundscapes contributed to the development of ambient music and electronica. As a producer, Eno collaborated with David Bowie, Devo, Talking Heads, U2, and Coldplay on many of their most important records. (Listen: “St. Elmo’s Fire”)
Eric B. and Rakim: Often cited as the best rap duo of all-time, Eric B. and Rakim stood apart from their peers in the 1980s by adopting a more relaxed, free-flowing vocal delivery that broke with the beat-heavy delivery favored by old-school rappers. Additionally, Eric B. chose to compose rather than improvise his lyrics, which encouraged rap artists to formulate more sophisticated rhyme schemes while pushing the genre to greater lyrical heights. (Listen: “Follow the Leader”)
Hüsker Dü: Despite never reaching the same level of popularity as R.E.M., Hüsker Dü still loomed large over the development of the alternative rock scene in the 1980s. As a hardcore band that grew more melodic with each new album release, the Minneapolis-based group proved punk did not need to be off-putting or base to stay true to its ethos. (Listen: “Makes No Sense At All”
Joy Division/New Order: Joy Division’s moody, austere music positioned the group at the vanguard of the post-punk and goth rock movements. Following the death of lead singer Ian Curtis, Joy Division renamed themselves New Order and recorded some of the most groundbreaking electronic dance music of the 1980s. Their legacy can be heard in the work of U2, Nine Inch Nails, and Interpol. (Listen: “Love Will Tear Us Apart”)
King Crimson: The RRHoF has inducted bands that have set the template for specific genres of music (i.e., Black Sabbath for heavy metal, the Ramones for punk, James Brown for funk). The RRHoF has inducted progressive rock bands that brought compositional methods associated with classical music to rock and roll (i.e., the Moody Blues, Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Rush). Yet the RRHoF has yet to even nominate King Crimson, the band that set the template for progressive rock. (Listen: “21st Century Schizoid Man”)
Frankie Knuckles: As a DJ and record producer, Knuckles played a critical role in the development of house music. A steely fusion of disco, post-punk, and electronica, Knuckles’ productions were first heard in underground clubs in Chicago in the 1980s before breaking through to mainstream dance music and techno hits in the 1990s. (Listen: “The Whistle Song”)
Motörhead: A fast, relentless, abrasive heavy metal band with a punk attitude, Motörhead set the table for the new wave of British heavy metal in the late 1970s as well as thrash metal and speed metal. While peers like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Def Leppard pointed heavy metal toward bigger audiences, Motörhead ensured metal would remain an unapologetic counterpoint to mainstream rock and roll. (Listen: “Ace of Spades”)
OutKast: Having faded from view, it’s easy to forget how popular and critically-acclaimed OutKast was at the turn of the century. While they deserve induction based on the inventiveness of their funkadelified work alone, OutKast also played a major role in putting southern rap on the map and shifting the center of the hip-hop universe to Atlanta. (Listen: “B.O.B. [Bombs Over Baghdad])”
Gram Parsons: Parsons obliterated the line separating rock and roll from country music in the late 1960s and early 1970s through his contributions to the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo, as a member of the Flying Burrito Brothers, and over the course of his brief solo career. His brand of country rock—which he dubbed “cosmic American music”—opened the door to artists like the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt, exerted a profound influence on the Rolling Stones, and blazed a trail for numerous alt-country bands to follow. It makes no sense Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson are in the RRHoF but Gram Parsons is not. (Listen: “Christine’s Tune”)
The Pixies: There are many 80s alternative rock bands that merit induction (Sonic Youth, the Replacements, Jane’s Addiction) but the Pixies stand out from the field. Many features of their musical aesthetic—extreme soft-to-loud dynamic shifts, abrupt stop/start arrangements, and surreal subject matter—became recurring features of alternative rock. (Listen: “Where is My Mind?”)
The Smiths: At a time when synthpop was all the rage in the UK, the Smiths brought jangly, guitar-based rock and roll that recalled the music of the 1960s back to the fore. Morrissey’s depressing yet humorous lyrics gave the band a distinct voice. The U.K. equivalent of R.E.M., the Smiths initiated the British alternative rock movement and laid the foundation for 90s-era Britpop. (Listen: “There is a Light That Never Goes Out”)
A Tribe Called Quest: Favoring jazz samples over funk, the work of A Tribe Called Quest became an endless source of inspiration for alternative rap and neo-soul acts. Gangsta rap may have dominated hip-hop in the 1990s, but as time passes and the sound of rap diversifies, hip-hop’s most imaginative and ambitious artists keep returning to the music of ATCQ. (Listen: “Check the Rhime”)