Bon Jovi, The Cars, Dire Straits, The Moody Blues, and Nina Simone are the 2018 inductees into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the organization announced Wednesday.
Gospel pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe was chosen to receive the Award for Early Influence.
To choose the 2018 inductees, an international voting body of more than 900 artists, historians and members of the music industry received ballots, and the top five artists selected comprised a “fans’ ballot” that was tallied along with the other ballots.
Radiohead and Rage Against The Machine finished 12th and 13th respectively in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame fan voting, with 176,310 votes and 167,903 votes respectively. Bon Jovi crushed the competition, winning with 1,116,147. Moody Blues finished second with 947,795 votes. Nobody else came close to the top two. See the full vote results below.
Radiohead recently announced a concert in Buenos Aires, Argentina for April 14th, the same day the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony goes down in Cleveland. Reached for comment, a representative for the band confirmed to Consequence of Sound “they’re not attending” the ceremony if they were to be chosen to be inducted, which they now have not been.
Radiohead were asked about the Hall of Fame in an interview with Rolling Stone. “I don’t care,” Jonny Greenwood said. Ed O’Brien added, “I don’t want to be rude about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because for a lot of people it means something, but culturally I don’t understand it. I think it might be a quintessential American thing.” Ed O’Brien also discussed the Hall of Fame in an interview with Esquire last month. “It’s in our DNA to be a little ambivalent with award ceremonies,” he explained. “We haven’t had great experiences. I would never want to disrespect anything because obviously some amazing artists have been nominated. But if I’m honest I don’t understand it. It’s just kind of a British person going, ‘Okay, thanks, what does this mean?’”
O’Brien also said he believes the Rock and Roll of Fame is “a little bit thin on black artists and hip-hop artists,” adding, “I’m just speaking as a fan of American music, I would have thought that Dr. Dre should have been in there two years ago. His name should be first on the list way ahead of Radiohead.”
