Here’s Part One.
For the last couple of years (minus the year or two when the ceremony was virtual), I’ve weighed the pros and cons of attending the inductions. Tickets are expensive, but it’s a once in a lifetime experience, similar to me attending the Grammys for the first (and likely only) time last year. If the ceremony is held in New York, it’ll likely be at the Barclays Center, which is a literal fifteen minute subway ride from my apartment. I might have to work some contacts. Anyway, on to the next five nominees.
Foreigner
Synopsis: Foreigner is a British-American band, led by guitarist Mick Jones and lead singer Lou Gramm. Gramm’s soulful vocals powered a decade or so of radio hits during the corporate rock age, with occasional crossovers into adult contemporary/easy listening formats via the smash ballads “Waiting for a Girl Like You” (which spent ten weeks at #2 in the US) and “I Want to Know What Love Is” (their first and only chart-topper). Speaking of “Waiting”—I don’t know that I’d ever seen the video for this song before clicking on YouTube just now. I get that it was 1981 and music video hadn’t really matured as an art form yet. But, why are you mugging for the camera, members of Foreigner? This song’s mood is seductive, not goofy!
Plus: The aforementioned decade or so of radio hits contains very little fluff. I can’t say I’ve ever felt the urge to dig into an entire Foreigner album, but Gramm has a hell of a voice, and the band had some earworms. “Hot Blooded”, “Feels Like the First Time”, “Urgent”, “Dirty White Boy”--there is nothing wrong with being an act that can load up a greatest hits album and not much else. Gramm also had a couple of heaters as a solo act–1990’s “Just Between You & Me” is an excellent (and very difficult to sing) tune IMO.
Minus: I would say the knock on Foreigner is that they are completely greatest hits-able, but that’s not a huge knock. I mean, so is Cher.
Fandom: 5/10. Foreigner’s not a band that I get the urge to hear on a regular basis, but if “Waiting for a Girl Like You” pops up on random, I am all the way in.
Peter Frampton
Synopsis: Peter Frampton was a big thing in rock when I was an embryo. His big claim to fame was a live album (Frampton Comes Alive), which spent many, many weeks at #1 on the Billboard charts. He popularized the talkbox effect (which Roger Troutman rode to glory just a few years later) and is actually a virtuoso guitarist, although hits eluded him before his live breakthrough and the hits almost completely abandoned him afterwards.
Plus: “Show Me the Way” and “Baby I Love Your Way” are okay, I guess?
Between Frampton, Lou Gramm, Lenny and Mariah, curly ‘fros are ruling this class of nominees.
Minus: There is not a lot of meat on the Peter Frampton bone once you take his huge album away. And my favorite version of “Baby I Love Your Way” is actually by Diana Ross (who, inexplicably, is not inducted into the Hall of Fame as a solo artist).
Fandom: 1/10. There’s a copy of Frampton Comes Alive in my hall closet that I’ve been trying to pass off for years. Might be time to just toss it in the garbage.
Jane’s Addiction
Synopsis: Led by vocalist Perry Farrell and the perennially shirtless Dave Navarro on guitar, Jane’s Addiction threaded the needle between the harder rock that signified L.A. at the time (via Motley Crue and GNR) and the alternative rock scene that gained momentum as the ‘80s turned into the ‘90s. They were omnipresent on MTV’s 120 Minutes for a hot minute. Farrell founded Lollapalooza, which is still a thing nearly thirty years later!
Plus: I’ve never dug deep into Jane’s Addiction’s catalog. I owned Nothing’s Shocking and Ritual de lo Habitual at various times in the late ‘90s/early oughts, and nothing really stuck beyond the “hits” (“Jane Says”, “Been Caught Stealing”).
Minus: I’m not a big enough fan of the band to have much of an opinion here.
Fandom: 2/10. I understand and appreciate the importance of Jane’s Addiction. Which is completely separate from my enjoyment of their music, which is minimal.
Kool & The Gang
Synopsis: Kool & the Gang came straight outta Jersey in the late ‘60s, and established themselves as a smokin’ hot funk ensemble with tunes like “Jungle Boogie”, “Funky Stuff” and “Hollywood Swinging”. In the late ‘70s, they reinvented themselves as a soul/pop/rock juggernaut with a flair for the anthemic (assisted by the hiring of vocalist James “JT” Taylor). They were the most consistently successful Black crossover band of the ‘80s. And The King of Pop loved them! Check out MJ groovin’ along to this 1980 awards show performance.
Plus: Hits upon hits upon hits in two separate incarnations. A “best of” compilation from them will give you at least 20 slabs of killer, no filler (including “Celebration”, which I dislike not because it’s a bad song, but because it might be the first song released during my lifetime that was played so much that I grew to despise it). Hell, you could make a greatest hits album just based on songs that have sampled “Jungle Boogie” and the now-immortal (thanks Will Smith) “Summer Madness”.
Minus: As with Foreigner (and Cher), I can’t say there’s a Kool album that I enjoy all the way through. But American pop (and by extension, rock and roll) music has almost always been a singles-driven medium. Again…hits upon hits upon hits. Even if some of them were a bit formulaic (see again: Foreigner & Cher).
Fandom: 6/10. JT Taylor’s voice low-key soundtracked my elementary school years.
Lenny Kravitz
Synopsis: For a while in the ‘90s, Lenny Kravitz was the only melanated person you could find on American rock radio. We started a musical genre and then found ourselves almost completely removed from it! The former “Mr. Bonet” has spent the 35 years since his debut refusing to be pigeonholed, sliding effortlessly between genres. Capable of similar one-man-band skills as his idol Prince, Lenny’s songwriting, production and collaboration roster, quiet as kept, reads like an all-star lineup: Michael Jackson, LaBelle, Mary J. Blige, Madonna, Jay-Z, Drake, Mick Jagger and a slew of others have enlisted the services of Mr. Kravitz over the years.
Plus: It’s been thirty-five years since Lenny released his debut album, and it doesn’t seem like there’s been a moment when he wasn’t somewhere in the public consciousness. That speaks for something. And while his output has been inconsistent (something I’d say is the case for ⅔ of this list), 1993’s Are You Gonna Go My Way and 1998’s 5 are as cohesive and focused as any multi-genre hybrid can be in my book.
Minus: Lenny on autopilot can be painful. Oddly, some of his biggest hits (“Lady”, “Fly Away”, his cover of The Guess Who’s “American Woman”) have felt like his laziest efforts.
Fandom: 9/10. I was hooked from the moment I bought the “Let Love Rule” cassingle. To see someone with my skin color, in the public eye, not conforming to what society expected from a young Black artist at the time was super inspirational. Lenny gave a generation of Black outcasts hope.
Next time, we wrap up with a bang!