hey! we have talked about this before. my stance on it is this: the rock and roll hall of fame has been rendered almost meaningless because it has forgotten what it is about. the idea is to honor those that had something to do with the music's past. unfortunately, the music industry turns it into another opportunity to market and promote acts of today - letting them gush on about how they were affected by someone. there is no way in hell alicia keys had any business being inducting anyone in the hall of fame - not on the strength of releasing one album, regardless of how many awards she has won because of it. and that is not an attack on her personally, it is an attack on the music industry! an industry that i have worked in for years. you think she would have inducted someone if she did NOT win any grammy awards last month?! no chance. same thing for bono, whom i would say has the inside track on doing the police induction speech, unfortunately. he has inducted several acts in the hall, in my opinion not being warranted on doing any of them except for chris blackwell's (guy that ran island records). the 1st one he ever did was for the who, in 1989. when i think of acts that have influenced the who, u2 is not one of them. i have never heard any member of u2 say they were influenced by the who, that they even like the who. dylan, the clash, never the who. yet, there was bono in 1989, inducting the who, saying in his speech that, more than any other band, u2 was influenced by the who. ???? totally cheapened that induction, if you ask me. but look at the time: 1989, u2, biggest band in the world. where am i going with all this? for me, the person that has the honor of inducting our beloved police into the hall of fame should be a card-carrying, heart-on-his/her-sleeve fan of the police, and all the world knows it. don't have some flavor of the month up there inducting them because "the police are a cool band. i used to love listening to "wrapped around my finger". give me someone that knows their back catalog, knows EVERYTHING about them, someone who's life has been shaped and affected by them. and there are people out there that fit this bill. though i personally do not like his music like i used to, billy joel is a great example. dave grohl is another. people that are going to get it across just how important the police are in the grand scheme of rock music. hell, they should just let miles do it... rich --- Maggie White <mwhite@gw.smbsd.k12.ca.us> wrote:
Well, since no one immediately springs to mind to induct the Police into the HOF, here's an idea that I came up with while driving home last night:
Outlandos or Sting.com should have a contest for a FAN to give the induction speech. I have a very low opinion of so-called "random drawing" contests, so I think the format should be this: interested fans submit a draft of a written speech and then those be judged. What would YOU say if you had the opportunity and honor to induct the Police???
OK, fantasy world aside, I don't think Sting.com would do it because it focuses on the Police (I agree with Josh that Sting.com acts like the Police never existed) and Outlandos has a predilection for those oh-so random drawings.
But hey, it's a unique idea.
They will probably get someone like Rob Thomas to do it. A nice guy, but what's his connection to the Police??
I was trying to think of the bands the Police opened for (Wayne Country, Cherry Vanilla, who else??) and none of them that I remember are big enough names. Or bands who opened for the Police (GoGo's, Fixx, UB40, ???). So unless we want Belinda Carlisle or Cy Curnin, we'd better lobby for a contest.
And besides, I have my speech half written in my head anyway (it's a long drive home) :)
Maggie
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