![](\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/d\/db\/Gene_Simmons_2012.jpg\/220px-Gene_Simmons_2012.jpg\")
The Kiss frontman accuses the Rock and Roll institution of \u2018diluting\u2019 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 \u201cdiluting\u201d itself with hip-hop, pop and disco artists. With Kiss due to join the Hall next month, Simmons blamed \u201cback room politics\u201d for the institution\u2019s decision to induct past honourees like Run-DMC and Donna Summer. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey can run their organisation any way they\u2019d like, but it ain\u2019t rock!\u201d Simmons said in an interview with Radio.com (via NME) \u201cYou\u2019ve got Grandmaster Flash in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Run-DMC in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? You\u2019re killing me! [It] doesn\u2019t mean those aren\u2019t good artists. But … they sample and they talk. Not even sing! … If you don\u2019t play guitar and you don\u2019t write your own songs, you don\u2019t belong there.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019s a much longer list of inductees who don\u2019t follow Simmons\u2019 orthodox definitions, including Donna Summer, Madonna, Abba, Miles Davis and the Ronettes. In fact even the so-called king of rock\u2019n\u2018roll, Elvis Presley, scarcely wrote any of his own songs.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo deny hip-hop an honoured place in rock\u2019s narrative is to take a tremendous leap backwards and disregard a near century\u2019s worth of shared cultural markers,\u201d states the Rock Hall\u2019s website. Public Enemy\u2019s Chuck D similarly defended his group\u2019s induction during a 2012 interview with Rolling Stone: \u201cHip-hop is a part of rock\u2019n\u2018roll because it comes from DJ culture,\u201d he explained. \u201cDJ culture is the embodiment of all genres and all recorded music, if you actually pay attention to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Simmons apparently disagrees. \u201cDonna was my next door neighbour for many years,\u201d he told Radio.com. \u201cI knew and liked her, she was on my [1978] solo record. But if you asked Donna, \u2018What kind of artist are you?\u2019 do you think she would say \u2018rock?\u2019 If you asked Madonna, \u2018What kind of artist are you?\u2019 do you think she would say, \u2018Oh, rock!\u2019 … [Soon they will] get the Boston Pops Orchestra to be inducted!\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Source: The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Kiss frontman accuses the Rock and Roll institution of \u2018diluting\u2019 itself by inducting past…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}