Up the Irons and eff the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The Boys from Britain don't need no stinking HOF!

Iron Maiden has been nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

My reaction? Who gives a shit.

Evidently I’m supposed to be excited by this news… I find myself feeling rather apathetic, with a smattering of bemusement and a (slight) bit of anger.  I do recognize the considerable irony in stating “who gives a shit” and then spending my time writing a post about the news. Evidently I have some level of investment. But I’m writing this as much for as my own amusement as anything else.

A little history on my relationship with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In the past I have kept tabs on the list of inductees. I was happy to see the likes of Black Sabbath and KISS eventually get in, though both are kind of no-brainers. I didn’t get too wrapped up in either nomination, because I figured it was a done deal. And it was (an aside: it took KISS, eligible for induction since 1999, FIFTEEN YEARS to get in, which it finally did in 2014).

My typical level of detached minor interest ratcheted up in 2018 when stupidly, I got wrapped up in the fan vote for Judas Priest. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame includes a fan vote, with the top five acts in the popular vote earning what amounts to a single “vote.” These five bands then get that one vote added to the couple hundred votes cast by the real power-holders, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Committee, a shadowy cabal of unknowns who hold all the power of who gets in and who gets left “Out in the Cold” (pun intended).

As should be obvious by the formula, one fan vote stacked against a couple hundred “educated” votes by the “critics,” counts for next to nothing. I spent time--too much, as you can vote over and over again, though only once per day--voting on the HOF platform, only to see Priest—which did get in the top five in the fan vote—get croaked by the committee.

So, in 2018 Judas Priest—a band who revolutionized heavy metal by adding an iconic sound (the twin guitar attack) and establishing its iconic look (leather and studs), immortal songs like “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” and “Breaking the Law,” and a 50+ year legacy of influencing countless bands—lost to the likes of Nina Simone.

Since then Priest has failed to make it any further, to the Hall’s eternal shame.

That brings me to Iron Maiden, another personal favorite band of mine about whom I’ve made my love abundantly clear here on the blog.

Maiden has had a career that would turn 90% of the previously inducted acts’ faces green with envy. I don’t think people outside of heavy metal circles understand how massively popular and influential these guys are. They’ve been selling out sports arenas (pre-COVID of course) for 40 years. They’ve sold more than 100 million copies of their albums worldwide, all without any commercial airplay or support. At one point VH1 ranked them No. 24 in their “100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock.”

It’s utterly absurd to think that they need to add a Hall of Fame credential to justify whether or not they are great, or influential on the development of rock-and-roll. But frankly, it’s the “hard” part of “hard rock” that makes Maiden an unlikely candidate for Hall of Fame acceptance.

The fact is, the voting on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is calculatedly political, and archly snobbish, and therefore actively hostile to brash, loud, metal acts. Heavy metal can never get its just due in this stifling, narrow-minded environment. Even relatively safe, mainstream party rock acts like KISS only get a look when their case is so overwhelmingly obvious that to leave them out would compromise any shred of validity the enterprise still holds.

Bruce Dickinson has voiced his opinions very clearly on the Hall of Fame, calling the Hall "an utter and complete load of bollocks" that is "run by a bunch of sanctimonious bloody Americans who wouldn’t know rock ’n’ roll if it hit them in the face." Go Bruce.

So in the end, it does not matter whether Maiden gets in. Their career speaks for itself. When Maiden is finally retired and gone, the echoes of “Hallowed be thy Name” and “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” will ring through the ages, long after most of the acts in the Hall of Fame have been forgotten.

Unlike 2018 I will not waste a moment voting for Maiden. Not because I don’t love the band, but because the institution itself is corrupt. No Maiden, Priest, or Motorhead renders the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame utterly irrelevant.