2025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees, in alphabetical order, starting with Bad Company. UPDATE: Awards for 6 others

[highplainsdem]

Last edited Mon Apr 28, 2025, 01:30 PM - Edit history (1)

UPDATE: 6 more artists were added under categories fans weren't allowed to vote on. See reply 5.


Bad Company
Chubby Checker
Joe Cocker
Cyndi Lauper
Outkast
Soundgarden
The White Stripes


Bad Company was my favorite here. Free, Paul Rodgers' band before Bad Company, should also have been in the HoF long ago.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2025/04/27/rock-hall-of-fame-inductees-2025/83253417007/

The boys club that comprises this year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class also contains a female solo musician who has always been a striking presence: Cyndi Lauper.

She's among the seven new inductees, whittled from a list of 14 announced earlier this year, who spotlight a more conventional rock lineup – excepting Atlanta hip-hop innovators Outkast – than the genre diverse classes of recent years.

-snip-

Those who didn’t make the cut this year include The Black Crowes, Billy Idol, Maná and Phish – all first-time nominees – along with Mariah Carey and Oasis (both nominated in 2024 for the first time) and Joy Division/New Order (nominated once before in 2023).

Veteran jam band Phish won the fan vote with almost 330,000 – about 50,000 more than the next highest, Bad Company – but contrary to popular belief, winning the fan vote does not guarantee induction.

-snip-

The induction ceremony will be November 8 and will air live on Disney+ and be on Hulu the next day, with a condensed version on ABC later.

[Prairie_Seagull]

1. Another- Bad Company.

With additional lyric line.

https://music.

[highplainsdem]

2. Love it! Thanks, P_S!

[EuterpeThelo]

3. First off, they should rename it!

Inducting artists that are decidedly NOT rock 'n' roll while snubbing, sometimes for DECADES, performers who not only racked up top ten hits but influenced countless other artists is ridiculous. I'd hoped it would get better with the well-deserved ouster of Jann Wenner.

Biggest snubs to me:

-The Monkees: Six top 10 hits; do you know anyone who doesn't know ALL the words to their three number one hits, "Last Train to Clarksville," "I'm a Believer," and "Daydream Believer"??? 11 other top 40 hits, including the three number ones and three others in the top 5, from 1966 to 1968. I mean, Don Kirshner is in there but the group that was, arguably, his biggest success is not??? Hope they get it together while Micky Dolenz still lives to see it.

-The Sweet: 13 top ten hits worldwide, including three in the U.S. ("The Ballroom Blitz," "Little Willy" and "Fox on the Run," with "Love is Like Oxygen" also doing quite well here, and even more in England, Germany, Sweden and Australia, where they had multiple #1 and top 5 hits.) Cited as an influence by Def Leppard, Axl Rose, Motley Crue, Joan Jett, Poison, KISS and many, many others. Ivor Novello Award winners whose music has been included in so many movies/trailers and TV shows it's impossible to count! Two of their members died, tragically, so young (in their 50s), but with Mike Myers having nominated them back in the early 90s when they were first eligible, RRHOF had PLENTY of time to get this right before the unfortunate passing of founding bassist Steve Priest in 2020. I hope they rectify it while Andy Scott, last remaining member of the lineup that produced all those hits, is still around.

-Iron Maiden, The Scorpions, Motorhead and Judas Priest (the latter begrudgingly given the "musical excellence" award in 2022 but still denied status as full inductees): RRHOF has long seemed to have a problem with heavy metal. Metallica and Ozzy/Sabbath are the only exceptions I can think of OTTOMH. Each of these bands have millions and millions of die-hard fans and, other than Motorhead, are still going more than fifty years since their inception and continue being able to sell out huge arenas. They may not have always gotten the chart successes they've deserved, but they've dominated AOR radio since the 70s, and I remember their videos being a staple of "Headbanger's Ball" back when MTV still played music!

-The New York Dolls: They were punk before punk was punk and cast the mold for so many acts that followed. It's a shame now that all the members of the classic lineup are gone with the recent passing of David Johansen. They were real pioneers (along with the British glam bands like T. Rex, Sweet, Bowie, etc.) of fusing loud, infectious grooves with wild, gender-bending costumes.

-Dio: Arguably (along with the aforementioned and also-snubbed Maiden's Bruce Dickinson and Priest's Rob Halford) one of the most powerful, talented and versatile vocalists the music world has ever seen. From his early days with Elf to his storied tenures with Rainbow and Black Sabbath and on through his massive success as a solo artist, it's unbelievable he's still left out in the cold. Sabbath have had some fill-ins in the lineup that were rightfully excluded as part of their induction, but Dio most definitely should have been part of the personnel so honored.

And, speaking of that:

-Rainbow: Deep Purple got in ages ago, but the band that the legendary Ritchie Blackmore formed upon his departure should have gotten no less attention just because they got less airplay. Besides Blackmore and Dio, this band had Cozy Powell, Bob Daisley, Don Airey, Roger Glover and Joe Lynn Turner, among others, in its lineup over the decades.

In this latest round of voting, it's positively criminal that Bad Company, Chubby Checker and Joe Cocker weren't already inducted LONG ago. The Black Crowes and Joy Division/New Order and, as much as I dislike him, Billy Idol, were absolutely robbed. But sure, Outkast, Salt 'n' Pepa and the White Stripes deserve more recognition than everyone I just discussed. SIGH.

[ProfessorGAC]

4. Good Post

I was as big a fan of The Sweet as there was.
I think Desolation Boulevard is a top 5 hard rock album of all time. Just great rocker after great rocker.
Fox... & Ballroom Blitz are 2 of the weakest songs on the album & they were hits!
Agree with you on Rainbow, too. Sane with Iron Maiden & the Dolls. Not what I listened to, but they were very influential.

[EuterpeThelo]

6. Thanks, ProfessorGAC!

Sweet is my all-time favorite band. So, so criminally underrated. Every one of them an absolute virtuoso on his respective instrument. Once they got away from Chinn/Chapman (and even before then, on the B-sides), their music more than proved they deserve to be recognized right up there with the likes of Led Zep, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Queen. It's a really sad story of bad timing and bad management that ultimately cost them their proper due. Later, Ed Leffler would take all the mistakes he made with them, do the exact opposite, and Van Halen reaped all the benefits.

"Give Us A Wink" clocks in as my favorite (and it was Steve Priest's as well), followed by "Off the Record." Agreed that, while I love Fox and Blitz, they're FAR from their strongest material. These guys were the prototype for metal and punk that all the lipstick in the world couldn't hide.

[ProfessorGAC]

7. I Love "Wink" Too

White Mice is an awesome hard rock tune.
Kind of unusual to run into someone who was as attracted to them as much as ne.
My favorite song off DB was "No You Don't". That break in the middle with the cello (or bowed guitar) just builds & builds. Super cool.
Another off that record that I think superb is "I Wanna Be Committed". I could listen to that whole album 3 or 4 times in a row.
I used to travel a lot when I was working & on those long international flights, I probably did.

[highplainsdem]

5. Update - 6 more artists were given special awards

https://variety.com/2025/music/news/rock-roll-hall-fame-inductees-cyndi-lauper-white-stripes-1236379605/

Two more recording artists won induction into the hall despite not appearing on this year’s ballot, by a move of the board in a separate Musical Influence category: Salt-N-Pepa and Warren Zevon.

Three other musicians are getting in via the Musical Excellence Award, as also selected by the board: producer Thom Bell; pianist Nicky Hopkins, a frequent Rolling Stones sideman back in the day; and bassist Carole Kaye, a famous member of the session players’ ensemble the Wrecking Crew.

The lucky 13th inductee for this year is Lenny Waronker, whose stewardship at Warner Bros. Records over a period of decades landed him a reputation as an artist-friendly exec with some of the best ears in the business.