A Lasting Monument to Change
The Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and Museum rewards innovation while wading in a sea of controversy
On the banks of Lake Erie, a stately glass pyramid rises from the depths of the water, glowing with an ethereal veneer. Equal parts memorial and fortress, this holy site, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, designed by architectural guru I.M. Pei, is quite literally a time capsule, documenting the birth and subsequent evolution of rock and roll.
Just what rock ’n’ roll is has long been considered a matter of subjectivity. “Rock ’n’ Roll is a river of music that has absorbed many streams: rhythm and blues, jazz, rag time, cowboy songs, country songs, folk songs. All have contributed to the Big Beat,” Cleveland-area disc jockey Alan Freed says. He should know—he is responsible for coining the phrase “rock and roll” and for inventing the rock concert when he threw “The Moondog Coronation Ball” in 1952.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum aims to “preserve, exhibit and educate the world about the importance of this art form,” Terry Stewart, president of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, says. The glass pyramid does an excellent job of protecting a variety of artifacts that unite rock ’n’ roll past, present, and future in ways that honor and educate the artists.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a nonprofit organization, an entity refreshingly free from the corruption that plagues the music industry. While Stewart acknowledges the fact that “the music industry does impact how people make music,” he states firmly that the purpose of the Hall of Fame and Museum is “not to have an impact on the industry,” but to preserve music.
Yet, the Hall of Fame takes the subjective and presents it as objective, real history, a problem with which all museums or archives are familiar. With limited floor space and a limited number of inductees per year, selection controversy is inevitable.
“When people don’t see their artists getting in [to the Hall of Fame], they think there must be something wrong,” Stewart says. The museum tries to ease the situation by displaying memorabilia from various types of groups ranging from REO Speedwagon to the Velvet Underground, however the argument is still frequently raised. It is here that the Hall of Fame proves to be an organization of music-lovers rather than a group of businessmen, as inductees are chosen based on their importance on the development of rock ’n’ roll, not on the amount of money they’ve been able to generate for themselves and their record companies.
Inductees into the hall—and memorabilia displayed in it—come from all sides of the musical spectrum, revealing the intangible connections that link even the most disparate corners of rock and roll and honoring their impact on the advancement of the form. Exhibits include everything from Hank Williams’ white wool, felt 10-gallon hat to John Lennon’s report card to a concert advertisement for a young Chuck Berry.
From punk poet Patti Smith and pop princesses the Ronettes, to ’80s guitar gods Van Halen and indie pioneers R.E.M., the 2007 inductees into the Hall of Fame represent various branches of the rock ’n’ roll tree, though the most notable additions to the Hall are hip-hop innovators Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. To Stewart, this honor “validates the continuum we see in this music” because hip-hop merely revises the “instrumentation and melody structure” of rhythm and blues, while providing a contemporary outlook on the subject matter of “black street life.”
Another group of street life chroniclers, early punk purveyors the Sex Pistols, were voted into the Hall of Fame this year but rejected the honor. Stewart laments the event as “unfortunate for them and their fans that they missed out on this incredible moment,” but refutes the band’s claims that the Hall of Fame was just out to make a profit off of them.
The Hall of Fame recently incurred the public’s wrath over the induction of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Both the press and the public questioned the induction of the hip-hop pioneers by coupling arguments about the legitimacy of hip-hop with false reports of ballot fixing. During their acceptance speech at the 2007 induction ceremonies, the group acknowledged the influence of rock on their music and called for wider acceptance of hip-hop in the rock world.
“The reaction to it [the controversy] was the same as the reaction to the extension of R&B [into rock ’n’ roll],” Stewart says. He elaborates his point by explaining that in such cases, purists are immediately going to be riled, but the exploration of new musical territory is ultimately necessary to revitalize the genre.
The nominating and voting committees for the Hall of Fame have each used this idea of artistic appraisal and reinvention to reorganize their structures in order to get some fresh blood in the selection group.
The induction process for 2007 inductees saw reductions of the size of both the nominating and voting committees, made up of distinguished industry executives, musicians, journalists, and other members of the rock community. According to Stewart, this was done to ensure “a high participatory rate amongst those in the committees,” and to make sure that “the demographics were reasonably spread.” The changes sought to eliminate any built-in biases that might hurt the induction chances of younger or more explorative groups and to produce a high level of enthusiasm among the remaining members of the committees. With these changes in place, the Hall of Fame looks forward to honoring a wider range of bands as the musicians begin to meet the eligibility criterion of having put out their first record at least 25 years ago.
On their 1969 album Sweetheart of the Rodeo, 1991 inductees the Byrds, sang, “One hundred years from this day/ will the people still feel this way?” On behalf of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, 1995 inductee Neil Young would like to respond: “Hey hey, my my/ Rock and roll can never die!”