You don’t have to care about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I like seeing musicians that mean a lot to me receive flowers. I like seeing people that mean a lot to me (regardless of vocation) receive flowers. Yes, I understand the politics behind it, and I definitely understand that musical taste (and even influence, to some extent) is completely subjective. Still, I geek out over this shit.
This year’s 15 nominees are a very eclectic bunch of musicians that, largely, fall right into Mikey J’s taste wheelhouse. I’m not only excited to see who gets picked, I’m excited to visit the R&RHOF museum in Cleveland this summer for the first time in something like 15 years. I visited way back when with my friend Matt Wardlaw and didn’t get to take the experience in as fully as I would have liked to. In June, I’m headed to Pittsburgh to see my buddy Matt (not Mr. Wardlaw, who has been betrothed for some time now) get married, and I’m gonna extend that trip to see what’s new at the Hall in PGH’s neighboring city. Hopefully I’ll get some of my Pittsburgh-area music geek friends to join me, and maybe I’ll get to see Wardlaw and his lovely wife Annie as well.
Writing about 15 musicians is a bit of an arduous task, and I also am not trying to hit you with 100,000 words in one fell swoop. So I’m gonna break this out into three parts, five at a time. I’m not sure I’m ready to venture a guess on who from this list will actually get in (hell, I hope they all get in), I’ll save that for an upcoming episode of Journey N 2 Sound (2 PM Eastern every Saturday on Radio Free Brooklyn, y’all!).
Mary J. Blige
Synopsis: Dubbed “The Queen of Hip Hop Soul”, Mary J. Blige updated the Aretha template for Generation X and Millennials. She started by crooning over breakbeats (a novel concept at the time that became standard practice largely because of the ground she broke), she softened the hard edges of many a rapper (her appearances opposite hip-hop’s elite must number in the hundreds by now), and she’s a symbol of survival and grit. Her versatility is also pretty underrated. Mary’s repertoire encompasses everything from Anita Baker-style quiet storm to post-disco club music and includes credible covers of “Whole Lotta Love”, “Stairway to Heaven” and U2’s “One” (of note simply because Mary takes one of my five favorite songs of all time and somehow makes me love it more).
Plus: Mary’s first two albums, What’s the 411? (1992) and My Life (1994), are damn near flawless. She (assisted by a team of songwriters and producers mostly from Puffy Combs’ Bad Boy camp) deftly threads the needle between traditional soul stylings and a more streetwise approach. Although the vocal technique is very much a work in progress, the feeling is there. And feeling will always trump technique for me.
Minus: There hasn’t really been one, which in retrospect is kind of remarkable. Every Mary J. album has at least some good material. And while her record sales have ebbed and flowed over the years, she’s never actually made an all-the-way-bad record (at least not to my ears; tastes may differ).
Fandom: 9/10. I can’t think of an MJB studio album (barring her first) that I didn’t buy (like, actually purchase, not just stream) on the day it came out.
Mariah Carey
Synopsis: Mariah Carey emerged in 1990, drawing comparisons to Whitney Houston. While both artists possessed show-stopping voices and shared at least one collaborator (Narada Michael Walden), Mariah possessed songwriting chops Whitney did not (or at least neglected to utilize), and also wound up taking charge of her own career in a way that I kinda wish Whitney had. By employing some of that initiative, Mariah extended her career as well as her commercial relevance long past her contemporaries. She has more #1 singles than anyone other than The Beatles (and wrote all of them except one), and her legendary status would be firmly cemented even if she didn’t pop up every damn holiday season to remind us of it.
Plus: Hot take– I don’t think Mariah’s ever surpassed her debut in terms of quality. She’s come close (Daydream, Butterfly, The Emancipation of Mimi), but that first album is stacked from beginning to end, with a consistent flow. After making her big Emancipation comeback, her music got a bit formulaic, but she’s hit a late career renaissance (and is also releasing music much less frequently these days, which may account for the recent uptick in quality).
Minus: I’ve never seen Glitter the movie, so I can’t offer up an opinion there. Besides, this is about her music, not about her film work. The accompanying soundtrack album is pretty weak, in my opinion. I love that Mariah was able to wrest enough control from Tommy M. that she could fully embrace her hip-hop loving self, but…I’ll put it like this. When I first got diagnosed with diabetes, I swore off all sugar. When I finally did eat sugar again, I went crazy and binged. Mariah did that with guest rappers. And I say this as a hip-hop head.
Fandom: Also probably a 9/10. I’m not a member of “The Lambily” (and have no desire to be that obsessive about any artist…that level of devotion feels really cult-like to me), but I’ve owned every single Mariah studio album (and unlike with Mary J., I’ve also dropped coin on holiday albums, remix albums and just about every hits compilation over the years).
Cher
Synopsis: Cher’s career has been truly remarkable. Her voice is singular. She’s a star of stage, screen and song, and is one of the few artists to begin their career in the Sixties and have cultural resonance well into the 21st century. She’s also maybe the most musically versatile artist in this year’s crop, having tackled Beatle-esque pop, story songs, disco, new wave, hair metal, doo-wop, ABBA covers and a few genres or sub-genres that have maybe not been invented yet.
Plus: If your career has lasted as long as Cher’s has, one would imagine you’ve had a few peaks. I enjoy the aforementioned story songs (“Half Breed”, “Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves”) quite a bit, and I still have a taste for her rock-edged late ‘80s comeback hits (“I Found Someone”, “If I Could Turn Back Time”). “One By One” was a mid ‘90s tune that found Cher operating in a downtempo R&B framework. It wasn’t a big hit, but it’s a great tune.
Minus: I feel like this is where some folks would call out Cher’s forays into what some might consider bad taste. But isn’t “tacky” the point when it comes to Cher? The woman does not give a fuck, and that’s part of why she’s so awesome. How many forty-something year old women (in 1989) would’ve made a video like “If I Could Turn Back Time”? Hell, how many women period would’ve made a video like that? Cher (and Madonna, who is in many ways Cher’s spiritual heir). That’s it.
Fandom: 6/10. Shock and horror! I’m a queer dude who’s not the world’s biggest Cher fan. I appreciate her aesthetic, and she’s been a fixture in pop culture my whole life (I can remember watching Sonny & Cher reruns as a toddler), but I think I’ve only purchased one non-compilation Cher album in my entire life (1998’s Believe, which I feel like everyone owned).
Dave Matthews Band
Synopsis: A totally unique ‘90s rock band. Seriously-how many multi-platinum bands in the last thirty years have boasted a violin as a primary instrument? DMB helped usher in the age of the modern-day jam band and became a cottage industry. And unlike their contemporaries Phish, they reined in some of their jammier excesses and had a solid decade of radio hits. Again, no small feat with a sound that owed as much to jazz, international music and bluegrass as it did to straight-ahead “rawk”.
Plus: They’re an incredible live band (I’ve seen them fourteen times, I might be a bit biased), and while I understand Dave’s voice is an acquired taste, their run of albums from Under the Table and Dreaming through Big Whiskey & The GrooGrux King (their last album featuring late sax player LeRoi Moore) is super solid. On a personal note, I was super fucked up in the wake of September 11th, 2001. The “Everyday” video brought me to tears a number of times, but the video (and of course, the song) also got me out of bed and functioning on quite a few mornings.
Minus: LeRoi’s death (and to some extent, the messy axing of violinist Boyd Tinsley) robbed DMB of their recorded mojo. While they’re still quite entertaining as a live unit, their last few albums have sounded exhausted. Also, you can’t blame a band for their fans, but the knock on DMB lovers (who, for a long time, consisted heavily of drunk frat bros and their girlfriends) exists for a reason. But hey, fandom is inherently a weird thing. I’d rather be stuck in a room with 100 Dave fans than 100 Mariah fans.
Fandom: 8/10. Have I mentioned that I’ve seen them fourteen times?
Eric B. & Rakim
Synopsis: Rakim changed hip-hop on a cellular level. He changed its cadence, he changed its volume, he changed its subject matter. He is widely considered the greatest rapper of all time for a reason. Not gonna lie, I’ve always been a little unclear on what Eric B brought to the table (and I’ve grown even more unclear over the years as Eric’s contributions have been questioned more and more). Nevertheless, this duo’s four album run is legendary.
Plus: The duo’s second album (and first on a major label), 1988’s Follow the Leader, is one of the genre’s first excellent long-players. Rakim was still playing a bit with his style on 1987’s Paid in Full. A year later, he’s focused, locked in, and he has the beats to match. The title track is a rapping master class (also, Rakim’s rhyming is as animated as it would ever get.)
Minus: Like most folks, I had really high hopes for Rakim’s solo work, and thought he would be a lifeboat to steer us out of the waters of hip-hop’s “jiggy era”. I was wrong. His baton was at least partially picked up by Nas, but Nas had his own struggles with the quality of his output in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s.
Fandom: 8/10. I paid a not small amount of money to see Eric B. & Rakim play a reunion show in NYC a few years ago (I think it was 2019 but I’m not sure). If I’m digging in my pockets to see you in concert thirty years after you’ve peaked, I’m a fan. That said, I feel like Ra’s crown might not be as secure as it once was (in my book anyway, I’m just as liable to give the crown to Black Thought or Andre 3000 or even Rakim’s golden-era rival Big Daddy Kane. Depends on the day.)
Next up: Foreigner, Frampton, Jane’s Addiction, Kool & the Gang, and Lenny Kravitz (who I will try to not objectify…I’m gonna fail miserably).
You’re coming to Cleveland? Need a wedding date? Haha.
....and dug this a lot. Looking forward to reading your breakdown for the rest of the nominees