Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation chairman John Sykes provided a little insight into the Hall’s nomination process in an interview with Vulture.com.
Asked why Phil Collins has yet to be nominated for his solo work, he said, “He’s come up in meetings so much. What happens to great artists like Phil Collins, and I could name about four or five more, is that the committee will sometimes say, ‘He’s already in with Genesis.’ We have such a backlog of people that need to get in that sometimes great solo artists like Phil can’t get on the ballot because there’s someone who’s not on in any configuration.
“I’ll say right now that’s no excuse for not putting Phil Collins in because he’s a great artist. There are 27 artists who are in twice — Ozzy Osbourne, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Paul Simon, all the Beatles. I’m a voter, and I really believe Sting should be in as a solo artist.
“I’ve nominated him many times, and I’m the chairman. That shows how this isn’t some backroom organization where decisions are made by a couple of people. People vote on these things, and they fight like hell. So I think Phil is deserving.” (Sting was inducted as a member of The Police.)
Another artist Sykes says is overlooked is Joe Cocker. “He hasn’t been able to get through, and I think he’s a deserving name. See, I’m going to get in a lot of trouble for doing this interview because there’s a lot of people who should be getting in. There’s an amazing number of artists out there… I love this job, but it can be thankless at times because you can’t get everyone [in].”
The nominating process for the Class of 2026 will get under way this month with the nominees announced in February.
As for changing the name of the Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland to something like Music Hall of Fame, Sykes says, “People don’t understand the meaning of rock and roll. If you go back to the original sound in the ’50s, it was everything. As Missy Elliot calls it, it was a gumbo. It just became known as rock and roll. So when I hear people say, ‘You should just change it to the Music Hall of Fame,’ rock and roll has pretty much covered all of that territory. Rather than throwing the name out, it’s doing a better job of communicating to people where rock and roll came from and what it’s truly about. Once they hear it that way, they understand.”
This past October’s induction ceremony is streaming on Disney+.
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