Did You Know You Can Influence Who Gets in the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?
Vote for your seven favorite nominees in the fan poll every day until April 15
You might be surprised to learn that the current leading vote-getter in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominee fan vote is Dave Matthews Band, with 393K+ votes. That’s right, at this writing the Virginia jam band with the Dead-like fan base has more votes than Foreigner, Peter Frampton, and Ozzy Osbourne.
Here’s what the current leaderboard looks like:
Some on social media are crying foul and suggesting it’s rigged. It’s more likely just a good social media push that’s activating loyal DMB fans to vote. Since nominees were announced on Feb. 10, DMB has been regularly reminding their Instagram followers to vote every day with the hashtag #votedmbeveryday. They’ve even cleverly tied the ask to a contest to win a trip to see the band play two nights in Colorado.
Comparatively, funk rocker Lenny Kravitz – who currently sits in sixth place among the pool of 15 nominees – only acknowledged the original nomination on Instagram. He isn’t lobbying his fans or running any promotions.
It’s important to note that only the top five fan vote-getters will move on and be added to votes from more than 500 industry experts. That combination will determine this year’s inductees.
Adding fuel to the fire, as in years past, many are voicing consternation over some of the selected nominees in the first place. And it has less to do with their body of work and more with how representative they are of “rock” music. For example, this year’s field includes numerous acts commonly considered R&B (Mary J. Blige, Sade) or hip-hop (A Tribe Called Quest, Eric B. & Rakim). As you might expect, all but Kool & the Gang (which just inched up to #7) are residing in the bottom half of the leaderboard.
But this certainly isn’t the first year acts associated with other musical genres have been nominated and ultimately inducted into the Rock Hall. Motown R&B vocal group The Temptations were honored in 1989, rap pioneers Run DMC entered the 2009 class, and who can forget when country superstar Dolly Parton was inducted in 2022, only to release her very first rock album a year later.
Taking another look at the leaderboard, it’s perhaps more concerning to diehard rock fans that bands like British alt-rockers Oasis and Perry Farrell’s Jane’s Addiction are struggling with only 127K and 103K votes, respectively, after nearly 3 million total votes tallied.
While it’s too late to do anything about the group of nominees, you can follow a page from DMB’s playbook and vote for not only your favorite but up to seven acts once per day through April 15. Suffice it to say, I’m doing all I can to get sultry soulstress Sade into the top five.
So, what are you waiting for? Go here, login, and vote.
The 2024 inductees will be announced in May, with the induction ceremony taking place this fall.