Cher, Mariah Carey, Sinead O’Connor, Oasis and Sade are among the first-time inductees for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class of 2024, revealed on Saturday.
Other new names on the hall’s short list include Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Kool & the Gang and Lenny Kravitz. The list also includes Dave Matthews Band, Mary J. Blige, Jane’s Addiction, A Tribe Called Quest and Eric B. & Rakim, each of whom has been nominated at least once in the past. Ozzy Osbourne, already a member of the pantheon as a member of Black Sabbath, earned the nod as a solo artist for the first time.
“This remarkable list of inductees reflects the diverse artists and music that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame honors and celebrates,” John Sykes, president of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, said in a statement. “Continuing in the true spirit of rock ‘n’ roll, these artists created their own sounds that influenced generations and influenced countless others who followed in their footsteps.”
The 15 artists inducted are the first batch of nominees since the abrupt departure last year of Jann Wenner, the editor of Rolling Stone and co-founder of the Rock Hall, who had long been a powerful influence on the awards process.
In September, Wenner was ousted from the chamber’s board of directors just one day after publishing an interview in the New York Times in which he justified the subjects for his interview collection “The Masters” — all white and male — with comments that they were condemned widely seen as racist and misogynistic. Female artists like Joni Mitchell, she said, were not “rock philosophers”, and black performers like Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye “just didn’t articulate on that level”.
It’s also just over a year later Jon Landauthe former Rolling Stone critic turned producer and manager of Bruce Springsteen has stepped down from his longtime position as chairman of the hall’s willfully secretive nominating committee.
But this year’s selections largely continue a pattern that has existed in the hall for much of the past decade — a mix of pop stars, Gen X and classic rock icons, and a host of hip-hop and R&B artists. After years of vociferous complaints about a lack of women, some of the highest celebrity power comes from female performers like Cher and Carey. It also includes a posthumous nomination for O’Connor, the uncompromising Irish singer-songwriter who died in July aged 56.
Not only is this Cher’s first nomination, but Sonny & Cher, the duo that first made her a star in the 1960s, has never been nominated.
For fans of ’90s Britpop and brotherly drama fireworks, Oasis’ nomination offers the possibility of a reunion of that band’s Liam and Noel Gallagher – the Mancunian brothers whose vicious public spats were once billed as 14 minute recordingand I have never completely faded away.
Inductees will be announced in April, and the 39th annual induction ceremony is set for this fall in Cleveland, home of the Rock Hall museum. Nominations are voted on by more than 1,000 music historians, industry professionals and inducted artists. Artists become eligible for nomination 25 years after the release of their first recording.