Whatever microscopic bit of credibility this organization might of had left has just been flushed down the toilet.

Just as there are multiple boxing organizations that have their own titles (WBA, WBO, WBC, etc.), I think there should be competing Rock & Roll Hall of Fames to honor real rock acts.

Not that I have anything against ABBA....they were a great pop music group....but none of their songs by any stretch of the imagination is even remotely close to being rock & roll.

I would start the new Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by inducting the previously snubbed acts Ted Nugent and Rush.

Rush, yes.

Ted Nugent, no.

You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life
See that girl, watch that scene, digging the Dancing Queen

Can you hear the drums, Fernando?

Ted Nugent should be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame if he only released just this one album....

One of the greatest rock & roll records of all time

And if you did journey to the center of his mind, what would you find?

Not much.

My vote goes ...

- Rush: YES
- Ted Nugent: YES
- Abba: Questionable. I actually like a lot of their tunes, but they should probably be in something called the "Pop Hall of Fame" not the "Rock & Roll Hall of Fame".

Exactly, Larry.

"That sound you hear is rock 'n' roll purists smashing their vinyl collections against their heads now that ABBA has just been certified as a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-approved act", sums it up pretty nicely.

You act as though they're the first pop band in the Hall.

There are lots of pop bands in the Hall.

Let's be honest: the Beatles are a POP band by today's standards.

And country is now Rock & Roll ... weird how that happens.

Please don't insult Rock & Roll like that, Larry.

MAMA MIA!

Oh come on guys and..

Take a chance, take a chance, Take a chance chance !

Gunnar, I absolutely agree with you. Pop music is not always Rock and Roll. Wait until they nominate Run DMC.

Hey now. Run-DMC are the Kings of Rock.

Walk This Way, could get them in.

Run DMC are the kings of something. I'll give you that. But rock n roll? Not in this or any other lifetime. And Ted Nugent? Only in his delusion mind.

Even though Ted is a class A jerk, I'd let him in for "Stranglehold" alone.
And the Beatles weren't just a pop band. The same album that had Obla-Di Obla-Da also had Helter Skelter. Put that one on and crank it up.

But ABBA? Who's next? Miley Cyrus?

[This message has been edited by Bob Netherton II (12/15/2009)]

It is obvious that there are several posters here who diss Ted because of his current political opinions, who have never listened to his recorded output between the years of 1973 to 1978.

You nattering neighbobs of negativism should shut up and listen to this:

Not only did I listen to Ted back in the day, I saw him live several times. Yesterdays glory does not outweigh todays lunacy.

Run DMC, while a rap group, helped resurrect Aerosmith. In doing so, they had the first big rap/rock crossover. King of Rock is an awesome song. And it is pure rock. Don't be so quick to dismiss them.

Rock music exists under a very large umbrella. This isn't a bad thing.

As far as Ted Nugent is concerned, Stranglehold is a great song. As is Great White Buffalo.

But I don't believe that he can deflect bullets with the power of his rocking (as the High Enough video would lead you to believe). He's more nut than anything else, and I can't ignore that.

Bob (deuces) - You're right, the Beatles had several songs that rocked. But at their core, they were a pop band (that occasionally rocked), not a rock band (that occasionally was poppy).

[This message has been edited by Brian A. Reed (12/16/2009)]

Brian, Brian, Brian ... you are either too young (or I'm too old).

The group called "Blondie", the song named "Rapture". Look it up ... I didn't and don't need to.

"Run DMC" did not resurrect "Aerosmith". Aerosmith brought them to fame with their rendition of "Walk This Way" (not the other way around).

Also, "The Beatles" basically defined "Rock & Roll", along with Elvis, Chuck Berry and crowd -- in my mind anyway.

Larry wrote:

The group called "Blondie", the song named "Rapture". Look it up ... I didn't and don't need to.

I didn't need to look it up either. I am familiar with Rapture. Suffice it to say that Debbie Harry's attempts to rap were just slightly better than the old lady's riff on the Sugarhill Gang in The Wedding Singer.

In other words, it sucked.

And by "crossover," I didn't mean a song where a band experimented with a different genre. I meant a collaboration of two bands. That's my working definition of crossover, and I realize it's not perfect.

Think Run-DMC/Aerosmith or Anthrax/Public Enemy.

And Aerosmith was at the lowest point of its career (the interim between the Jimmy Crespo years and Permanent Vacation) when the reimagined Walk This Way came out. Aerosmith was all but irrelevant in 1986. They were all but dead.

It's safe to say that the two bands helped each other, but it's not like Aerosmith was the Aerosmith we think of now (or that was thought of in the 1970s) when Walk This Way 2.0 was released.

[This message has been edited by Brian A. Reed (12/16/2009)]

Rock & Roll, circa 1964 is pop music, circa 2009.

Aerosmith (1986) is roughly equivalent to Alice in Chains (2005).

Once great, but considerably south of where they once were (and would eventually be again).

I'd substitute Guns N' Roses for AIC, but GNR came back ... and shouldn't have. Besides, GNR isn't really GNR anymore. It's Axl and a bunch of suck.

Okay, apparently what we've got here is a failure to communicate.

And BTW, you are wrong.

Larry wrote:

And BTW, you are wrong.

GNR 2.0 isn't a bunch of suck?

We can agree to disagree.

And your FACE is wrong.

On a side ... one would think Gunnar would be more of a fan of ABBA, considering their common Scandihoovian lineage and what-not.

[This message has been edited by Brian A. Reed (12/16/2009)]

Au contraire, Brian, I am a huge ABBA fan. One of the great pop acts of the 1970s. I just don't think they have anything to do with rock music.

BTW, I am a huge fan of certain types of popular music....as I am with country, bluegrass, jazz, etc. George Jones singing "The Race is On" is more rock & roll than anything ABBA ever put out.

Brian A. Reed wrote:

GNR 2.0 isn't a bunch of suck?

You posted your message exactly 15 seconds before I did mine. I was replying to the ones above it. I'm not going to defend GNR, which kind of was and is, as you put it "a bunch of suck".

In regards to the old "Rock & Roll", don't you think Chuck Berry was the definition of Rock & Roll ... even still today?

"The Beatles" also did a lot of pretty hard rock stuff, at the time, and still stands.

My surrogate Dad, back in the 1970's, worked for Skateland (or Skateworld or Skatewhatever) in Billings. He would bring home boxes of 45s and 78s ... after they got used up at the rink. My sister and I would divvy them up and listen to all of them. While not the best source of music, it was still quite a collection. "Puppy Love" was not one of my favorites.

In any case, I don't think you can classify the old 50's/60's, nor perhaps a bit of the 70's, Rock & Roll as "pop" ... they were the ones that created the genre.

Very true, Larry. Old 60s rock is the real deal. Definitely not 2009 pop....maybe 2009 oldies.

Some great rock records were released in 1964, Brian. Chuck Berry's "From St.Louis to Liverpool" is classic rock & roll.

Larry, should we get off you and Gunnar's lawns now, or should we wait until you tell us to?

Abba definitely did some amazing music. If you don't think so pay attention to the production work on any song. It's far from ordinary. I've really become a huge fan of Swedish music (which by the way is state sponsored).

What gets me miffed is that Kiss once again and Rush have not made it into the Hall OF Fame. That's just wrong.

1964 rocks!

I am with you Steve, as far as Rush goes. But Kiss? With no doubt at all, the worst songwriters in the history of music. If you feel like risking your sanity, find me a Kiss tune that has lyrics not written by a fourth grader. But I would not advise that. It's just too dangerous for a mere mortal like yourself. In my opinion, really good make-up should not qualify anybody for any hall of fame. Great stage show no doubt, but it's a vaudeville act. Nothing more.
(Disclaimer) "In no way do I intentionally disparage fourth graders"

Gunnar wrote:

Some great rock records were released in 1964, Brian. Chuck Berry's "From St.Louis to Liverpool" is classic rock & roll.

Very true. Chuck Berry isn't my particular cup o' tea (Like Jerry Lee Lewis' piano skills - hit one key as fast as possible, sweep fingers down keyboard, repeat ... I find Berry's riffs to be too repetitive and simplistic). But I can appreciate their - and his - place in rock history and the impact they must have had at the time. My personal opinion notwithstanding, we would not have rock music today if not for Chuck Berry.

My favorite music to come out of 1964 comes from The Kinks, which is the first band (again, in my opinion) to play what I consider to be Rock, not Pop. To me, rock without power chords and a timeless, kick-ass guitar solo isn't rock. And to this day, there are fewer better examples of this kind of rock than "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night." Brilliant songs. Timeless. Pure awesomeness. Rock, defined.

For me, rock that isn't hard is pop. I like my rock to ROCK. Not every song from a rocking rock band has to rock, but they have to have the rocking rock pedigree established in order to have the cred (in my eyes) as a ROCK (not pop) band.

For instance, if the Rolling Stones' first song was "Tattered" or "Emotional Rescue" ... they wouldn't be rock in my eyes. They'd be pop. But they rocked out hard earlier ("Satisfaction," just to name one of quite a few) in their career, earning them rock status.

Matt wrote:

If you feel like risking your sanity, find me a Kiss tune that has lyrics not written by a fourth grader.

Easy. "Unholy"

Remember, Matt - in order to belittle "fourth grade" answers, you have to provide more than a second grade challenge.

[This message has been edited by Brian A. Reed (12/17/2009)]

Sorry Brian. Poor challenge on my part. I'll never know if there is a Kiss tune with decent lyrics. I can't force myself to listen and see if it's actually true. But it is very telling that you came up with just 1 example, considering that Kiss had how many records over the years? I suppose there may be more, but again, I will never know. Here's the deal. I and a good buddy, have noticed over the last several years that when a Kiss tune plays on the radio, the lyrics show no songwriting skills of any kind. Some of their songs certainly have a massive, chunky and crunchy sound to them. No doubt. And I like that. But the lyrics are just severely pedestrian, in my opinion. This conversation is exactly what makes music so entertaining to me. I love stuff that would make you gag, and you love stuff that would make my ears bleed, in a bad way. It's great. Go find almost any woman in her 30's, and tell her that Tim McGraw can't sing his way out of a wet paper bag. Then duck! But would I take his money, if I had to suffer his talent also? Or lack thereof? In half a heartbeat I would.

[This message has been edited by Matt - Schmitz (12/17/2009)]

I agree with your assessment about most Kiss lyrics. I hate hate hate hate hate HATE that the only Kiss song that ever gets much radio airplay is "Rock & Roll All Nite," which SUCKS!

"Unholy," on the other hand, is an awesome song and one of my alltime favorites. For lots of reason.

Matt wrote:

But would I take his money, if I had to suffer his talent also? Or lack thereof? In half a heartbeat I would.

On the list of Tim McGraw's "possessions" that I (very, very rarely) find myself envying, his money and his talent rank #2 and #3, respectively.

[This message has been edited by Brian A. Reed (12/18/2009)]

Rock and Roll is a state of mind
What ever stirs your soul and makes you tap your toes
It may be The Beatles, The Stones, The Grateful Dead,George Jones,Willie Nelson,Run DMC, ABBA or the newer acts Adam Lambert, the Barnaked Ladies or Lady Gaga.

On the list of Tim McGraw's "possessions" that I (very, very rarely) find myself envying, his money and his talent rank #2 and #3, respectively.

Is Brian trying to find "Faith"?

In that way - and ONLY that way - yes.

OK - back to ABBA.

Count me solidly in the ABBA is not a rock band group. ABBA falls into a combination category of bubble gum for pubescent girls and youthful anthems for middle aged matrons longing for their college days (daze). I don't think there's a hall of fame for that....

Oh wait - mamma mia! There is too. It's a little place called Broadway.

I was at my sister's place for the Christmas holiday and one of our evenings was spent watching Mamma Mia! I'd never seen it and it's probably been at least 10 years since I've listened to ABBA songs on anything but radio or as a single song in a soundtrack to movies like Muriel's Wedding or Priscilla -Queen of the Deseert.

Yet -- I recognized every song and could sing along with the chorus to most of them. And I have to admit that I ended up tapping my toe and sometimes even shaking my booty to the tunes. In fact, everyone in the room got into it and we had a blast. Ya gotta admit - There's just something contagiously fun about those songs.

And those melodies stay with you - long after they're welcome unfortunately. Maybe that's why ABBA is everyone's favorite group to hate.

Steve wrote:

in a soundtrack to movies like Muriel's Wedding or Priscilla -Queen of the Deseert.

Well, I love ABBA and after listening to Ted Nugent wailing and howling in our basement through out the 70's while Gunnar played his air guitar, I am glad ABBA is not true Rock and Roll. I am sure Ted Nugent is responsible for my hearing loss.

while Gunnar played his air guitar

Boy, I'm glad my mom doesn't post on MC.com....

Its my sister's fault, Bridgier...she tuned up mom's computer over the Christmas holiday.

Her next post will probably be how I tried to grow weed in the basement when in high school.

What about the BeeGee's?