It is common for endeavors and regions to seek to celebrate the most illustrious and successful in their histories by creating a hall of fame to honor them and to record the excellence of those people for others to appreciate and emulate.  While the list of “Halls of Fame” is immense (Yahoo search listed, as I wrote this entry, over 14 million results containing the words “hall of fame” [1]),and wikipedia lists hundreds of them, most of which I have never heard of [2], I would like to compare two different halls of fame that exist on opposite sides of excellence but only a short distance in location:  the Pro Football Hall of Fame [3] in Canton, Ohio, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame [4] in Cleveland, Ohio (both of which I have visited).

The Purpose of a Hall of Fame

The purpose of a hall of fame is to enshrine and leave a record of the achievements of those great ones who have come before.  Both of these halls of fame (and many other ones) have succeeded well in recording the memory of their inductees with busts, statistics, videos, sound recordings, and other memorabilia.  These tangible reminders of the past inform, entertain, and inspire others to remember and emulate the greatest achievers of their kind.  Both halls of fame are presumably successful financially, and the NFL hosts a yearly preseason game in Canton to open the NFL Preseason.  Each of the halls of fame induct about 5 people/groups annually, more or less and require a certain threshold of ballots (50% for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and 80% for the Pro Football Hall of Fame).

Standards For Induction

The Pro Football Hall of Fame is not entirely without controversy, but is largely respected as a reasonably fair hall of fame without too many glaring omissions or completely unqualified people (other than former NFL commissioner Bart Bell) in its inductees.  Part of this is because football’s hall of fame seems to induct others with a reasonably consistent and fair standard.  Helping with that standard is the fact that there are numerical tests that can show what the average profile of All-Pro teams is for a given position in order to have a new inductee meet or exceed the existing standard, along with a certain allowance for special candidates, a task which is undertaken by statistically minded football historians like KC Joyner [5].

It is easier to maintain high standards and defuse controversy when you have a consistent standard to judge on that is based on both data as well as narrative.  The data is the first gatekeeper, which lets through those who are without dispute the best of their time based on statistics which every field has.  In football, those stats would be yards passing, rushing, or receiving, touchdowns, points scored, tackles, sacks, and nowadays there are even more detailed stats like the yards per rushing or passing attempt of a given player.  These stats mean that evidence on effectiveness is not hard for the intelligent fan to find–since there are people willing to look at the video and collect the data to compare.  We should be thankful to such statisticians for providing the basis of a fair and impartial comparison.  For those who do not meet the lofty statistical standards in the first cut, there is always the possibility of having such a compelling personal story that they can be recognized for their influence and role taking extenuating circumstances and the more hazy aspect of “influence” into account.

Such data is available in the field of music as well.  There are many statistics about arts–gold and platinum records, single and album sales, top 40 and top 10 hits on a wide variety of music charts, and it would be foolish for those who profess to organize a hall of fame in something like “Rock & Roll” would ignore such data in favor of pure subjectivity, but such would appear to be the case.  It is understandable that one would want to limit artists to ones of “quality” but since the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame already requires 25 years of a recording career before a candidate is eligible, that should be plenty of time to separate a novelty act or fly by night group from an artist of consummate artistry and seminal importance.  One would think that, at least.

Nonetheless, a very solid Rock & Roll hall of fame could be made of artists that have been excluded from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, despite their eligibility, and it would include the following acts:  Kraftwerk, Hall & Oates, Kiss, Rush, Joy Division, New Order, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Depeche Mode, Motley Crue, “Weird Al” Yankovic, The Smiths, The Cure, ELO, Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains, Roxy Music, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Grand Funk Railroad, Duran Duran, Billy Idol, Ben E. King, The Ohio Players, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Kool & The Gang, Brian Eno, The Damned, Peter Tosh, Gang of Four, Rick James, Afrika Bambaataa, T. Rex [6], Genesis, Def Leppard, Pat Benatar, Chicago, Boston, The Doobie Brothers, The Moody Blues, Cheap Trick [7], LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, Bon Jovi [8], Big Star, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, The Replacements [9], Chic, Donovan, Donna Sumner, Giorgio Moroder [10], Bad Company, Peter Frampton, Heart, Journey, Foreigner, Public Enemy [11], and I could keep going (Bryan Adams, Dire Straits…) [12], but you get the picture.

If you made a hall of fame of snubs from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, you’d have a really awesome rock & roll hall of fame.  When 5 artists are guaranteed to make it each year and you snub these kinds of pivotal influences and successful artists, your Hall of Fame fails on a credibility level, especially when you let a guy in like Neil Diamond while neglecting some of the other acts listed above because they were not “cool enough.”  If the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame wonders why they lack credibility with even casual fans of music, the fact that there are dozens of lists of awesome bands who are snubbed yearly for induction ought to be enough.

Conclusion

Those institutions that wish to keep alive their sense of history often create halls of fame in order to remember the highest achievers and greatest influences of their fields.  This is well and proper, as it gives others a chance to reflect upon the history and tradition in one’s endeavors and areas of interest and honor the greatness that has come before us.  By comparing the credibility of the Pro Football Hall of Fame (whose snubs quickly enter the realm of the very obscure) and that of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (whose snubs could make their own awesome Rock & Roll Hall of Fame), we can learn how to honor the greats of the past without becoming consumed by personal bias and subjective judgment concerning whose deeds and achievements ought to be remembered and celebrated.  That’s a lesson we could all stand to learn better.

[1] http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=hall+of+fame&ei=UTF-8&fr=yff35ck

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_halls_and_walks_of_fame

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_Football_Hall_of_Fame

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_and_Roll_Hall_of_Fame

[5] see, for example, his book Blindsided:  Why the Left Tackle Is Overrated And Other Contrarian Football Thoughts, published by John Wiley & Sons in 2008, which includes an extensive chapter on the subject of Hall of Fame omissions far too detailed to summarize here.

[6] http://www.popeater.com/2010/10/05/rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-snubs/

[7] http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1889244_1889248_1889203,00.html

[8] http://newsroom.mtv.com/2010/12/15/rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-neil-diamond/

[9] http://blogs.pitch.com/wayward/2010/09/five_rock_and_roll_hall_of_fam.php

[10] http://www.popeater.com/2010/12/15/2011-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-snubs/#comments

[11] http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/15/most-shocking-rock-roll-hall-of-fame-snubs/

[12] http://www.wmmr.com/shows/pierre-robert/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10071839