Having covered the artists inducted into this year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the Performers category, I’ll now turn my attention to those selected for Musical Excellence.
I only recently learned the major difference between these two classifications, and it turns out it’s a big one: inductees in Musical Excellence are selected by a committee rather than being voted in by the Hall’s larger membership.
The last 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee in the Performers category is New York hip-hop band A Tribe Called Quest. Eligible since 2015, they were nominated in 2022 and 2023 before making the cut in this year’s class.
Releasing five celebrated albums during the 90s, Tribe was one of the most innovative and influential hip-hop acts, known for blending jazz into their rap compositions. The band split in 1998 but reunited in 2016 to record one last album, the critically-acclaimed We Got It from Here… Thank You 4 Your Service.
Ozzy Osbourne is the only two-time Hall of Famer in this year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class, having previously been inducted as part of Black Sabbath. Osbourne has been eligible as a solo artist since 2006 and this was his first nomination.
Given that he has found more success as a solo artist than he did with Sabbath, this seems like an easy call. The hard rock wing of the Rock Hall wouldn’t be complete without Ozzy.
Our next inductee into the latest class of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is the funk/soul band Kool & the Gang, eligible since 1995 and nominated for the first time this year. Of the eight inducted members, only two are still alive to receive the honor.
I hate to see artists make it into the Hall posthumously, especially when there have been so many opportunities to add them. Kool & the Gang should have been a shoo-in 30 years ago when these guys were all alive.
The week of December 10, 1984, saw four songs topping the Billboard Hot 100 that have already been featured on the blog. They were, in order, Billy Ocean’s ‘Caribbean Queen,’ Stevie Wonder’s ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You,’ Prince’s ‘Purple Rain,’ and Wham!’s ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.’
That brings us to #5, where R&B/funk singer Chaka Khan had her highest-charting song as a lead performer with ‘I Feel For You.’
Meet Me In Montauk 