2025 Rock Hall Ballot, Charles' Version

Plus, Charles and David return to the "Who Cares about the Rock Hall?" podcast

The 2025 class of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame will be announced this Sunday. David and I wanted to share who we each voted for this year.

We were once again invited by the good folks at the Who Cares about the Rock Hall? podcast to talk through our picks. Co-hosted by Joe Kwazkala and Kristen Studard, “Who Cares…” normally keep their ballot talks with individual voters behind the Patreon paywall, but they’ve very generously allowed us to share our appearance with No Fences Review readers. You can check it out here. (And support their Patreon while you’re at it!) As David said yesterday, it’s always a pleasure to talk both about our choices and how we came to choose them on an always-crowded ballot.

Below are my picks, with brief discussions of why I chose them. (Be sure to check out David’s choices, which he posted yesterday!) There were a few slam-dunks and a few harder choices, but I’m hoping that - even if you don’t agree - you’ll understand my thinking and listening. And away we go…

Bad Company – NO. There was one night that you could’ve talked me into voting yes. A couple years ago, I heard a bar band play “Shooting Star” at the end of the night, with the few people who were still there shouting along to the chorus and the servers dancing with each other behind the bar. In that moment, it felt like the best song ever written. But the moment faded, and – while I still love “Shooting Star” – I couldn’t pull the trigger on a band whose rock-solid professionalism and solid-rock hits nonetheless don’t draw them above any number of other artists, even within their milieu. I have no problem with Rodgers, Kirke, and the rest, and I consider “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love,” “Feel Like Makin’ Love” and especially “Shooting Star” to be welcome additions to my playlist. But on a Rock Hall ballot that sometimes felt like the revenge of the white boys, they weren’t going to make the cut.

The Black Crowes – NO. The first two albums from these Southern-fried Faces are fantastic, and there are tracks scattered through their later records that I will turn all the way up when I get the chance. I appreciate the band’s facility at strutting back and forth between the jammier and crunchier ends of post-Stones rock ‘n’ roll, as well as their commitment to a rocker identity that honors the past and takes it seriously. But I couldn’t figure out a reason to give them the nod over anyone I chose, or even a few I didn’t. Still, I hope they keep rockin’ as long as they can.

Mariah Carey – YES. Last year, I almost voted for Carey. As I wrote in our 2024 ballot recaps, even though Andrew Chan’s remarkable book had shifted my thinking on Carey’s catalog and place in the larger story, I was still primarily only familiar with her great run of hits and thus she just missed the cut for me. Guess what? I was wrong! Carey’s not only one of the great singers of the modern era, but also a pop auteur whose albums bespeak influences from across the stylistic spectrum and reflect her singular ability to mix them together. Come for the radio classics, stay for the less celebrated deep cuts, and never leave the shining, shimmering world of this great artist. You won’t ever want to leave, anyway. – CH

Chubby Checker – NO. Back in 2023, a friend asked me if I wanted to go see Chubby Checker with him. I said sure, figuring it’d be entertaining enough to justify the expense and a welcome chance to see one of the last performers of his era. I was blown away. Checker’s got more hits than you probably remember, the good sense to hire a crack band to support him, and the easy expertise of a seasoned song-and-dance man who can twist, limbo, and hucklebuck to the delight of his audience. It was a blast. I still didn’t vote for Chubby Checker this year, but his nomination makes a whole lot more sense to me now than it would’ve before that great live show. And if that ain’t rock and roll, I don’t know what is.

Joe Cocker – NO. Joe Cocker deserves to be in the Rock Hall. He had a great career, from the blistering run in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s – capped by the magisterial chaos of Mad Dogs and Englishmen – to his later reinvention as a skilled Adult Contemporary hitmaker. (Check out 1989’s “When The Night Comes” for a great example of grown-folks pop-rock.) He found unexpected depth and nuance in his gravelly, Ray Charles-recalling voice over the years, while (almost) never falling into the kind of mimicry that sometimes befalls gifted “blue-eyed soul” singers. Even his later recordings – like the gentle and generous “Pass It On” – hold up well as the last chapters of a longer artistic story. Ultimately, I didn’t find a place for him on my ballot. But I hope that he gets in, either this year or in the future.

Billy Idol – NO. I like “Rebel Yell” and “White Wedding” and “Dancing With Myself” and especially “Cradle of Love” just fine. (Although “Cradle of Love” is pretty icky if you focus on the lyrics instead of how Idol’s vocal slides agreeably around the track’s insistent stomp.) And I guess one could make the case that Idol brought a certain kind of punk persona into the pop mainstream, filtered through the rockabilly revival and responding to the flashy image-making of New Romanticism and early-MTV pageantry. And it’s true that he had a good ear for hits and a good voice with which to deliver them. But there was never any way he was making my ballot.

Joy Division/New Order – YES. I won’t claim to have a deep listening relationship with either band, but what I know I love and what I don’t know I’m excited to explore. I’ll leave it to others who know more – like David – to describe in better detail why this crucial continuum of British pop-rock deserves induction. There isn’t anywhere near enough in the Hall that honors the electronic and dance sides of rock ‘n’ roll writ large, and both Joy Division and New Order are worthy representatives of those rich traditions. Both for their significant place in the larger story and their enduring music, I hope that the Rock Hall recognizes them.

Cyndi Lauper – YES. One of the best and most iconoclastic pop megastars of the 1980s, Cyndi Lauper possesses a unique singing voice and singular artistic voice. Lauper is both gifted interpreter – applying her magic to writers from Prince to Marvin Gaye to the standards collected on At Last and beyond – and skilled songwriter, like the gorgeous “Time After Time” which gave her a standard of her own. Her records are technicolor dreamscapes, conversant with rock and pop impulses both timely and timeless. She’s never shied away from speaking up, from the AIDS prayer “True Colors” to contemporary condemnations of Trump-era fascism. She helped launch Wrestlemania and the 1980s wrestling boom, she cut soul and country albums and sounded great on both, she sang the Pee Wee’s Playhouse theme, and she even damn near stole the show on “We Are The World.” A rock star in the truest, brightest sense of the word.

Maná – YES. By every metric used for Rock Hall inductions, these foundational figures of rock en español deserve it. They have longevity, influence, success, catalog depth, and cultural importance that outstrip many of those who have already earned their spot. While I’m even less familiar with their catalog than I am with that of Joy Division/New Order, Maná earned my vote because of that clean and total sweep of criteria. (Check out what my friend Eric Wenninger had to say about the band and one of their classics.) I’ve started digging into their many records and found myself struck by how sturdy and vibrant their songcraft and performances are, validating my Johnny-Come-Muy-Últimamente opinion that, indeed, 50,000,000 Maná fans can’t be wrong. And I’ll be real: the Rock Hall needs to speak a whole lot more Spanish, so this is also a symbolic vote that I’m damn proud to make. I can’t think of a better way to inaugurate what hopefully will be a larger trend than honoring this richly deserving band. Especially right now. ¡Viva Maná!

Oasis – YES. Every year, I try to reserve one vote for my teenage self. This year, especially with the expansion to seven choices, there was no doubt who would occupy that slot. Their first three albums (yes, even the bloated Be Here Now) are great, all their subsequent albums have some speaker-rattling highlights, and their role as the most blatant Brit-Pop throwback has somehow aged better than I ever would’ve expected. They deserve it, but I’ll be real: This one’s just for me. (originally printed last year)

Outkast – YES. One of the great recording artists of the 1990s and 2000s, who should be a slam-dunk for Hall induction. Over six albums, all of which are fantastic, the Atlanta hip-hop duo not only defined the expansive funk of the “Dirty South,” but broadened to incorporate everything from pulsing dance music to Beatles-recalling pop. They remained rooted equally in both past and future, with remixed traditions bouncing off sci-fi visions in a manner that revealed such juxtapositions as crucial to the historical Black South and the contemporary hip-hop of the ATL and beyond. (Check out Regina Bradley’s transformational work on the band to learn more.) And what a run of singles, from “Players’ Ball” to “Rosa Parks” to “Ms. Jackson” to “So Fresh, So Clean” to non-album classics like “The Whole World.” As good as any music got in their era, and a template for the restless creativity of current pathbreakers from Kendrick Lamar to Bon Iver to Janelle Monae (with whom they worked early in Monae’s career). A no-brainer, and one of the very best to ever do it.

Phish – NO. As with last year’s Dave Matthews Band, to whom they are often (and not always fairly) compared, I have no particular beef with Phish. I admire their creative curiosity and the way they leaven their virtuosity with a playful spirit, which has sustained them and their loyal army of fans through a four-decade career. And there are a good handful of Phish songs that have stopped me short, like the twangy “Farmhouse” or expansive “Evening Song.” I won’t complain if they get in, but I couldn’t find space for them on my ballot.

Soundgarden – NO. This was a close one. I love Soundgarden’s epic thunderstorms, and deeply appreciate how deftly they incorporated metal and prog grandiosity into an “alternative” mix that sometimes ostensibly excluded them. (It never really did, of course, but that’s another story.) To continue the metaphor, Chris Cornell’s voice still strikes like lightning, paired with a band that could groove, thrash, and simmer with equal effectiveness. They certainly deserve inclusion, and they almost got my vote. I hope I get another chance to vote for them, because they will mostly likely get it for sure next time.

The White Stripes – YES. Here’s the band that knocked Soundgarden off my ballot. Listening back to their catalog, I was struck by how well the band’s genre experiments and booming anthems hold up when divorced from the early-2000s context when they were sometimes uncomfortably heralded as rock saviors. I was more struck by their softer, poppier side. I was even more struck by how great a drummer Meg White is, and how much Jack White’s fluid guitar work required and responded to her deep rhythmic foundation. The White Stripes captured both the classicism and weirdness of rock at its 2000s post-alternative best, and the fact that the band brought their fuzzy, twitchy music into the mainstream seems all the greater accomplishment. The Rock Hall doesn’t yet have enough inductees who gained prominence in the 21^st century, and The White Stripes should be part of that process. Rock on.

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