Tell Me Something Good

Wait, what, they nominated seven women for the ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME (11 if you count the GO-GO'S as five women, which they are)? They nominated four Black women? They nominated FELA? And, wait, did you say the Go-Go's? They nominated three pioneering acts from three different parts of the musical spectrum who have a combined total of zero US chart hits, one of whom is, wait, did you say Fela?!?

Please excuse me while I wait for my head to stop spinning, 24 hours later, from the best Rock Hall of Fame ballot in years if not decades, a ballot that suggests someone in the Cleveland institution that's based in New York has decided to listen to years if not decades of complaints about inequities and imbalances on the institution's walls. Representation matters. Listening matters. For the first time in memory, this year's induction ceremony might matter to people who have heretofore felt excluded from the party.

Whether it actually does, as always, is in the hands of the Hall's thousand-ish voters, who haven’t always been as open to the full rainbow of pop music as the much smaller nominating committee is. By my count, there are roughly one and a half locks in 2021: JAY-Z, who's a kind of hip-hop classic rocker, and FOO FIGHTERS, who are a music supervisor's ideal classic rocker and who, with all due respect to the talented and genuinely good human who leads them, don't need a plaque now or anytime soon. But the vote could go something like, oh, Jay, Foos, TODD RUNDGREN, the Go-Go's and the NEW YORK DOLLS, and a handful of the same old people would be thrilled and a few million of everybody else would wonder why they ever thought they should care. Please don't do that, voters.

All 16 nominees are worthy. They always are. The nom com, no matter who's on it, has ears. But this year those ears got especially big and generous. The Go-Go's ("We are the first all-girl band that wrote their own material and played their own instruments to be really successful") were a punk-inspired pop band who really did change the world. CAROLE KING, already in the Hall as half of the King-Goffin songwriting team, went on to become one of the great '70s singer-songwriters and a godmother to scores of songwriters-turned-artists across countless genres today. Her nomination came on the 50th anniversary of the release of this. TINA TURNER's already enshrined, too, as half of a performing team with a husband whose name was "synonymous with domestic abuse." She freed herself from him in 1975. Voters can give her—and pop-rock classics like this—her own space, again, in 2021. (See also: Turner's spiritual descendant MARY J. BLIGE, who'll be at the top of the ballot, alphabetically.)

Fela Kuti, the NY Times' BEN SISARIO informs us, would be the second African in the Rock Hall. The first was South African TREVOR RABIN, inducted with prog-rockers YES. As the king of Afrobeat (singular; add an "s" to the end and you're in a different world in a different century, though you'll still be in Nigeria), Fela created a mesmerizing, continent-shaking, polyrhythmic dance music out of strands of DNA from JAMES BROWN, American jazz and traditional Nigerian music. As a fearless anti-government activist, he was more of a rock and roll spirit than anyone else on this ballot, metal gods IRON MAIDEN included. Iron Maiden would be a good choice, too.

Over to you, voters. And shoutout our friend JOHN SYKES and his crew at the Rock Hall. This is the first ballot on his watch. A-plus.

It's Cold in This House

During a Zoom panel Wednesday afternoon on the MORGAN WALLEN affair and the deep, systemic issues it has exposed, manager/publisher TIM BLACKSMITH and journalist ANDREA WILLIAMS had some suggestions for what Wallen could do right now. Blacksmith said Wallen, who had been invisible since he was caught on video yelling the N-word outside his house 11 days ago, could talk to his fans directly. Williams said he could tell them "he's OK with the punishment; he's OK doing the work." An hour after the panel, which was open to the public and got at least some attention in real time on TWITTER, ended, Wallen did exactly that, breaking his silence with a raw, homemade INSTAGRAM video. He apologized at some length, said he had been drunk, and asked his fans to stop defending him: "Please don't. I was wrong." Wallen didn't announce any intention to donate royalties from his second album, which has been #1 in the country for four weeks, to charity, as had also been suggested. But earlier in the day, JASON ISBELL, whose "COVER ME UP" Wallen covers, said he would do that with his own earnings.

If he is to reclaim his career, Wallen has a long way to go. But more important, so does the music industry. The panel discussion, hosted by the BANDIER PROGRAM's BILL WERDE, was pointedly not about Wallen. It was about the country community and the music business in general. It was about the centuries of ugly history before any of us got here, about education and accountability, about jobs and mentorship, and about the considerable time it may take to begin healing. And though it wasn't about one man, you walked away understanding that, apology or not, one man has a lot of work to do himself and his music shouldn't be anywhere near the radio for a long while to come. It's going to take some time. It has to take some time. Don't try to rush it. Please don't.

Dot Dot Dot

AUDIOMACK, the hip-hop-heavy free streaming service whose user base is almost entirely under 34 years old, has started reporting its numbers to BILLBOARD's charts, including the HOT 100 and BILLBOARD 200. Audiomack's VANESSA WILKINS says that will help "certify the achievements of countless artists whose previous success has never been represented fairly and accurately"... The sale of TIKTOK's US operations to ORACLE and WALMART (remember when that was front page news?) is off, at least for now, and the US government, under PRESIDENT BIDEN, is no longer demanding it happen (paywall)... SONY/ATV has rebranded as SONY MUSIC PUBLISHING... The much-debated BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN JEEP commercial, "The Middle," was pulled from the internet three days after debuting during the SUPER BOWL. The reason: The Boss is facing a DWI charge stemming from a November arrest. But the particulars of the charge are murky. Also unknown for now: whether he was driving a Jeep.

Rest in Peace

WAYLON JENNINGS drummer RICHIE ALBRIGHT.