Gene Simmons: hip hop and pop should not be in the Hall of Fame
The Kiss frontman accuses the Rock and Roll institution of ‘diluting’ itself by inducting past honourees such as Run-DMC and Donna Summer. Kiss frontman Gene Simmons has accused the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame of “diluting” itself with hip-hop, pop and disco artists. With Kiss due to join the Hall next month, Simmons blamed “back room politics” for the institution’s decision to induct past honourees like Run-DMC and Donna Summer.
“They can run their organisation any way they’d like, but it ain’t rock!” Simmons said in an interview with Radio.com (via NME) “You’ve got Grandmaster Flash in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Run-DMC in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? You’re killing me! [It] doesn’t mean those aren’t good artists. But … they sample and they talk. Not even sing! … If you don’t play guitar and you don’t write your own songs, you don’t belong there.”
Founded in the early 1980s, the Rock Hall began its annual inductions in 1986. Though they celebrated R&B and soul acts from the very start, it was 21 years before the organisation honoured their first hip-hop act: Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, in 2007. Run-DMC, the Beastie Boys, and Public Enemy have followed since then, but there’s a much longer list of inductees who don’t follow Simmons’ orthodox definitions, including Donna Summer, Madonna, Abba, Miles Davis and the Ronettes. In fact even the so-called king of rock’n‘roll, Elvis Presley, scarcely wrote any of his own songs.
“To deny hip-hop an honoured place in rock’s narrative is to take a tremendous leap backwards and disregard a near century’s worth of shared cultural markers,” states the Rock Hall’s website. Public Enemy’s Chuck D similarly defended his group’s induction during a 2012 interview with Rolling Stone: “Hip-hop is a part of rock’n‘roll because it comes from DJ culture,” he explained. “DJ culture is the embodiment of all genres and all recorded music, if you actually pay attention to it.”
Simmons apparently disagrees. “Donna was my next door neighbour for many years,” he told Radio.com. “I knew and liked her, she was on my [1978] solo record. But if you asked Donna, ‘What kind of artist are you?’ do you think she would say ‘rock?’ If you asked Madonna, ‘What kind of artist are you?’ do you think she would say, ‘Oh, rock!’ … [Soon they will] get the Boston Pops Orchestra to be inducted!”
Kiss will join the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 10 April, alongside Nirvana, Peter Gabriel, Cat Stevens, Linda Ronstadt and Hall & Oates. The face-painted rockers recently announced that they will not be performing at the gala, due to a reported dispute with organisers and two of their former band members.
Source: The Guardian
