Eddie Vedder on the music too good for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
When it comes to art, the idea of awards always feels odd. How do you qualify, quantify, or even really judge art at all? It’s so subjective and so individual, even just to try and declare someone a legend feels flawed. Need proof? Just look at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Launching in 1983, the mission of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame seems simple enough: honour the best in the business in a new museum. However, as soon as it launched, it was quickly pointing out the flaws in the music industry via who was recognised, and who wasn’t.
It would take until 1987 for Aretha Franklin to become the first woman honouree. Even by 2013, out of 295 acts, 259 were entirely male. In 2014, still only 8.5% of all inductees were women. No matter how many times it was pointed out, it still wasn’t rectified.
After Donna Summer’s death in 2012, Elton John called the body out for never honouring the icon in her lifetime, calling it “a total disgrace, especially when I see the second-rate talent that has been inducted”. Courtney Love is another loud critic of the establishment, pointing out how women often take decades to be honoured while men seem to get in the door much faster.
But is there even any point in getting in the door? Beyond a photo on the wall, a ceremony and the ability to say ‘Hey, I’m in the Hall of Fame,’ is there actually any real value in the title? Eddie Vedder was unsure, especially as he sat there and watched Johnny Ramone be inducted in 2002, thinking just how flawed the whole thing was.
“He’s been a tutor of sorts,” Vedder said of Ramone, sharing at the induction ceremony how the Ramones made music feel accessible, adding, “They obliterated the mystique of what it was to play in a band.” To him, Ramone was the ultimate everyman of music, but also a man who happened to be there while history was being made.
Not only was he in the New York punk scene and leading from the front, but Vedder said of the artist, “The guy saw Hendrix and was sitting down. The whole crowd was sitting down. He saw The Who open for The Doors.” It was clear to him that Ramone wasn’t only part of musical history, but was that history, or at least was a key witness to so much of it.
That’s where his problem came in. Here Vedder was, inducting the Ramones after a body of judged had finally granted them the title of heroes or icons – but who were they to decide that? “He himself has more information than probably the institution to which he’s being inducted into tonight,” Vedder said, pointing out that when it came to rock and roll, Ramone gets it far more than whoever the suits are behind the scenes of the hall.
So who were they to judge him? And why does it even matter anyway?
