World of Weird Al Yankovic

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum turns 20; a look back in pictures, 1993-2000
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Weird Al Yankovic takes a selfie in the exhibit hall, 2000. (Photo by Neal Hamilton courtesy of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum)

This year's list of Rock Hall nominees came out, and Al was unsurprisingly left off the list again. However, there was an encouraging tweet from Questlove, who is a key member on the committee:

@questlove: as close to a musical illuminati i belong to (my "stonecutters"/guttenberg moment will be when i get @alyankovic in) https://rockhall.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I don't know if this is reason enough to hope Al will get in eventually, but haven't at least a couple of this year's nominees been eligible practically forever, only to just now be nominated for the first time?

Genius in Maine wrote:I don't know if this is reason enough to hope Al will get in eventually, but haven't at least a couple of this year's nominees been eligible practically forever, only to just now be nominated for the first time?

Yes, but 55% of all acts that make it in do so on their first nomination. I doubt that Chic, who's now been nominated 10 times, will ever make it in. (If not the year of "Get Lucky", then when?)
I'm certainly not holding my breath, but the nomination of Janet Jackson this year happened because of intense support from her fans, and the same is true for KISS who got in a couple years ago. I know that Jann Wenner personally recruited Questlove to be on the committee, so I am hoping if he ever does make a big push for it, they may listen.

I don't even see how it would be an issue now, with all the success he's had within the last year. I mean I heard The Cars might be going in, what the hell? It seems nearly anything is Rock Hall material these days. If we can get him nominated, than he'll surely get in.

Yankomaniac wrote:I don't even see how it would be an issue now, with all the success he's had within the last year.

You'd think so, and yet he wasn't nominated this year or last.

The Rock Hall doesn't necessarily take success and popularity into account. This is a good thing because otherwise there would be a lot of shitty pop groups in there, but it's not so good when you're trying to get a somewhat less well known group in.

For example, here is a list of highly influential and popular acts who have never even been nominated: Warren Zevon, Harry Nilssen, Captain Beefhart, The B-52s, T. Rex, Sonic Youth, Pixies, Pavement, MC5, Jethro Tull, ELO, The Doobie Brothers, Devo, The Carpenters, Bad Company... most of whom, let's face it, much more popular and influential than Weird Al (to say nothing of the dozens of extremely popular and influential groups who have been nominated but not yet inducted).

Chicago!! Finally!!

HAHA I knew that would make you happy. When I heard that I immediately thought of your avatar.

What if "Weird Al" Yankovic isn't nominated and inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in the main performers category, but instead, he is inducted in the "Musical Excellence" category or the "Lifetime Achievement" category? Would that bother anyone?

Musical Excellence
Year Name
2011 Leon Russell
2012 Cosimo Matassa
2012 Tom Dowd
2012 Glyn Johns
2014 The E Street Band
2015 Ringo Starr

Lifetime Achievement
Year Name
1986 John Hammond
1991 Nesuhi Ertegun
2004 Jann Wenner
2005 Frank Barsalona
2005 Seymour Stein
2006 Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss

I guarantee that he will not get into either of those categories. It's gonna be impossible for him to even get in the regular category