Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2025 nominees: Heavy on the rock, but light on women, R&B, and artists of color
The nominations for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025 have been announced, and it’s certainly an interesting and downright random mix, with eight of the shortlisted artists — arena-rockers Bad Company, Southern rock revivalists the Black Crowes, rock ‘n’ roll dance-craze king Chubby Checker, late blues-rock belter Joe Cocker, punk/new wave superstar Billy Idol, Latin pop/rock band Maná, Dirty South hip-hop pioneers OutKast, and jam band Phish — being first-time nominees.
Perhaps the most surprising inclusion among those first-timers is Checker — not only because he never was inducted before alongside his ’50s and ’60s peers (an artist can be nominated 25 years after the release of their first commercial recording, so the “Twist” singer has had plenty of chances), but because the Hall has noticeably moved on from those decades in recent years. Maná’s nomination is also a curveball, even though the Mexican group is one of the most successful and accoladed acts in Latin music history, given the Hall’s tendency to overlook “foreign” artists who don’t primarily sing in English.
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Another surprise is that this year’s shortlist is noticeably light on women, despite seeming corrective attempts in the last few post-Jann Wenner years to diversity the Hall. The only female Class of 2025 nominees, among the list of 14 total artists, are Cyndi Lauper and Mariah Carey, who were respectively nominated and passed over in 2023 and 2024, and New Order‘s Gillian Gilbert and the White Stripes‘ Meg White. There are also only four artists of color on the list. The ballot is overall the Hall’s most rock-dominated in years, with only two nominees, OutKast and Carey, representing hip-hop and R&B — indicating that the Rock & Rock Hall of Fame powers-that-be have listened to rockist/purist fans’ complaints that the institution should take its name more literally.
Rounding out this year’s ballot with some ‘90s rock representation are Britpop band Oasis (who were nominated last year, but probably have a better shot now in light of Liam and Noel Gallagher’s recent much-hyped reunion), Soundgarden, and the White Stripes. And finally, Mancunian post-punks Joy Division/New Order have received their second dual nomination. (New Order was formed by the surviving members of post-punk band Joy Division shortly after that band’s frontman, Ian Curtis, died by suicide in 1980.)
Notable snubs this year include previous nominees Devo, Eric B. & Rakim, Iron Maiden, Jane’s Addiction, Alanis Morrisette, Mot?rhead, the New York Dolls, Sinéad O’Connor, the Replacements, the Smiths, Thin Lizzy, and Warren Zevon. Other artists that were widely predicted to be nominated for the first time, like Coldplay, Garth Brooks, the B-52’s, De La Soul, Dr. Dre, Queen Latifah, the Smashing Pumpkins, Luther Vandross, and War, were also passed over.
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ballots will be emailed to an international voting body of more than 1,200 artists, historians, and members of the music industry (this is the first time that the Hall will use digital ballots instead of mail-in voting), while fans can vote at vote.rockhall.com or in person at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum in Cleveland. The Class of 2025 inductees will be announced in late April, with the induction ceremony taking place in Los Angeles this fall.
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