Rock N Roll HOF Nominees
- Thread starter Fijimn
- Start date
The outrage over who's nominated or voted into the RRHOF is hilarious.
Related: name me a better debut album than The Cars. You can't. They may as well have called it Greatest Hits.
Related: name me a better debut album than The Cars. You can't. They may as well have called it Greatest Hits.
All fine albums with solid songs throughout, but as for actual "hits", either at the time or now as classic rock staples, the numbers don't lie:
Cars debut album:
1. Good Times Roll
2. Best Friend's Girl
3. Just What I Needed
4. You're All I've Got Tonight
5. Bye Bye Love
6. Moving in Stereo (admittedly more famous because of Phoebe Cates's ta-tas)
G 'N R debut album:
1. Welcome to the Jungle
2. Paradise City
3. Sweet Child 'O Mine
Pearl Jam's debut album:
1. Even Flow
2. Alive
3. Jeremy
Cars debut album:
1. Good Times Roll
2. Best Friend's Girl
3. Just What I Needed
4. You're All I've Got Tonight
5. Bye Bye Love
6. Moving in Stereo (admittedly more famous because of Phoebe Cates's ta-tas)
G 'N R debut album:
1. Welcome to the Jungle
2. Paradise City
3. Sweet Child 'O Mine
Pearl Jam's debut album:
1. Even Flow
2. Alive
3. Jeremy
No offense but if you think of Dire Straits as some type of one hit wonder band you really shouldn't be taking part in this conversation.
No offense taken. They just don't have a lot of big hits. I'm not sure how they get in...
Also how many hits a group had has nothing to do with this. The Grateful Dead never had a hit until 25 years into their career. Bruce Springsteen had one hit "Hungry Heart" before his Born in the USA album came out nine years after Born To Run and 11 years after his first album was released.
How many bands in the HOF never had any huge string of big hits?
Pink Floyd
Rush
Kiss
Black Sabbath
Deep Purple
The Sex Pistols
The Clash
The Ramones
Led Zeppelin
the greatness of rock and roll became album centered and not hit single centered in the late 1960's.
How many bands in the HOF never had any huge string of big hits?
Pink Floyd
Rush
Kiss
Black Sabbath
Deep Purple
The Sex Pistols
The Clash
The Ramones
Led Zeppelin
the greatness of rock and roll became album centered and not hit single centered in the late 1960's.
The part that is strange about the The Cars not being in already is that they had both worlds they had huge hits and albums and critics also loved them.
You're kidding, right? At least, I hope so. They had several albums before Brothers in in Arms, including Making Movies (with Romeo and Juliet and Tunnel of Love among others), which is one of my all-time favorite albums. On top of that, Mark Knopfler is one of the most original guitarists in rock music.
You're kidding right
You're kidding right. ALL of those bands were commercially successful in one way or another. I don't ever recall any ever saying, man you gotta check out the new Dire Straits album, it's killer. I get the Knoffler has a cult following and that his soundtrack stuff is renowned. But Dire Straits being in the same club as Zepplin and Pink Floyd, I just don't see it. Kiss was world famous and had a dozen great albums and they just barely got in...
Clearly a troll.
No one in their right mind mentions Kiss and Dire Straits in the same sentence, on purpose.
No one in their right mind mentions Kiss and Dire Straits in the same sentence, on purpose.
The Cars debut album is amazing and they deserve to be there already for sure.
Another two debut albums that I can think of (if you measure as far as legacy/ later radio play and not just hits at the time):
Lynyrd Skynyrd debut album and my pick for most amazing debut
1) I Ain't the One
2) Give Me Three Steps
3) Simple Man
4) Tuesdays Gone
5) Free Bird
Weezer's debut album
1) My Name is Jonas
2) Buddy Holly
3) The Sweater Song
4) Say it Ain't So
Interestingly enough, and tying it all together, Weezer were huge fans of The Cars and got Ric Ocasek to produce it. And so like the Cars debut before to them, this album influenced a ton of of bands 15-20 years later.
Green Day's Dookie deserves mention, as well:
"Longview"
"Welcome to Paradise"
"Basket Case"
"She"
"When I Come Around"
Lots of hits & extremely influential. While it's not their debut, it's when they hit the national consciousness.
"Longview"
"Welcome to Paradise"
"Basket Case"
"She"
"When I Come Around"
Lots of hits & extremely influential. While it's not their debut, it's when they hit the national consciousness.
Another debut album that certainly merits consideration as best debut is The Black Crowes Shake Your Money Maker. From a commercial success standpoint, it featured two #1 singles (Hard to Handle, She Talks to Angels), two others that made it into the top 5 (Seeing Things, #2, Jealous Again, #5), and another that peaked just out of the top 10 (Twice as Hard, #11).
It's a great piece of work.
It's a great piece of work.
Last edited:
As far as Appetite for Destruction, I think those 3 big hits trump The Cars 6 hits, and the entire Appetite album still gets air play today, especially satellite radio, where back in the day some songs weren't aired because of the language. I think of The Cars, and I think of 80's movie soundtracks, but don't get me wrong, that was a great album and they should already be in the HOF.
I think that 80's metal/hard rock is considered cheesy by alot of the mainstream media, and labeled air bands, but what Motley Crue did in the 80's, helped carry the 80's hard rock scene, and bands like GnR morphed because of Motley Crue. If a pro sports athlete carried a decade like Crue did, they would be first ballot inductees.
I think that 80's metal/hard rock is considered cheesy by alot of the mainstream media, and labeled air bands, but what Motley Crue did in the 80's, helped carry the 80's hard rock scene, and bands like GnR morphed because of Motley Crue. If a pro sports athlete carried a decade like Crue did, they would be first ballot inductees.
Last edited:
I agree, and I like both the Cars and GNR a lot. Totally agree that the Appetite language limited airplay, but nearly all those songs are pretty classic. I mean, NWA didn't get any airplay either, and those songs are all well-known (and I have no problem with NWA in the "rock and roll" hall of fame).
And obviously, this is subjective, but I think GNR is a little less dated. The Cars music, while excellent, still lives to me in an era. I think GNR somehow is more timeless. It's even a more timeless than Motley Crue. I've had three teenagers, and there's something about GNR songs, particularly that album, that elicit an unqualified reaction of "awesome song", rather than "really cool old song" elicited by other great groups like The Cars, Motley Crue or The Four Seasons. It's like The Beatles vs Herman's Hermits or Stevie Wonder vs. The Supremes.
I can't put my finger on it, but somehow some great music transcends it's era better than other great music. Maybe the simple answer is it's just a little bit better, maybe it's something else.
Nonetheless, that doesn't mean the Cars shouldn't be in. They should be.
To me they are a great band with a wide range of sounds and almost haunting guitar sound. One of the few bands I could sit back and listen to an album from beginning to end.
I think some of you are missing the points being made here. If you say "hits" in the world of music you mean hit singles. You may not have meant that but that is what it means unless you specify with "hit albums" or "hit tours" or something like that.
"Stairway to Heaven" is the most played song in the history of FM radio, it was never released as a single thus it was not a "hit" for Led Zeppelin. Thus the # of "hits" that a group had after 1967 became an unimportant factor in their popularity and impact.
Now I certainly don't think Dire Straits is in the conversation of the Zeppelins and the Stones etc but neither are some of the others in the Hall who couldn't touch Dire Straits. Madonna is in. Mark Knophlers turds have more musical talent than Madonna.
"Stairway to Heaven" is the most played song in the history of FM radio, it was never released as a single thus it was not a "hit" for Led Zeppelin. Thus the # of "hits" that a group had after 1967 became an unimportant factor in their popularity and impact.
Now I certainly don't think Dire Straits is in the conversation of the Zeppelins and the Stones etc but neither are some of the others in the Hall who couldn't touch Dire Straits. Madonna is in. Mark Knophlers turds have more musical talent than Madonna.
Dire Straights had neither though. They've got like 3-4 songs in regular rotation in classic rock radio. Even Generation X folks probably can't name five Dire Straights songs.
They've neither got a ton of hits (like Madonna or Journey) nor a huge presence in the AOR radio era (like Zeppelin or Jethro Tull). And I've never really heard them described as revolutionary or influential in popular music in any particular way. They were just a fine band that some people like a lot, mostly guitar purists, that had one really popular album. They only had like 5 albums.
I'm not saying they definitely shouldn't be in, just that they're fairly small potatoes. I don't think they have a stronger claim than bands like Motley Crue, the Doobie Brothers, Def Lepard, etc. that were massively HUGE for periods of time and still draw crowds today.
ALL THAT BEING SAID...that's a very U.S.-centric view. They were much more popular in the UK, and if that counts for something, maybe that should tip them in.
I wouldn't have necessarily thought Dire Straits would qualify as HOF-worthy, but I don't really know their catalog well. I know Mark Knopfler is highly-regarded as a guitarist and Brothers in Arms was a blockbuster, but they must have been more influential than I realized.
I don't think so. I think that's about it. But guitar lovers really appreciate them.
