Rock Hall: Fame or Shame?

From now until Monday, The Second Disc will be bringing out some features and opinions on Monday’s upcoming Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions. Let’s start with a column that ultimately addresses what a mixed blessing the Hall can be.

Few music-oriented entities draw so much criticism and debate as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In its 25-year history, it has inducted 165 artists into its ranks (with another five to be inducted on Monday), spurring decades-long debates about which of them were truly worthy, what constituted the nature of rock music and so on. But if some reports to be believed, the Rock Hall could continue to lose the dwindling credibility it grasps onto and turn into a legacy edition of the Grammys.

Roger Friedman, famed gossip columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, filed a story in January speculating that in 2011, the eligibility gap will be lowered from 25 years (as in, artists are up for nomination 25 years after their first release) to 20.

It’s easy to dump on Friedman’s credibility; in 2009, he was fired from FOX News for posting a review of X-Men Origins: Wolverine based on the infamously leaked workprint of the movie, in which he touched on how easy it was to find the film online. But he’s also a gadfly who seems to have good sources within the Rock Hall. In 2007 he filed a report stating that The Dave Clark Five was actually voted as the fifth nominee but then-newly designated Rock Hall chairman/Rolling Stone founder/publisher Jann Wenner decided to induct Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five (allegedly the sixth-highest vote-getter) instead. (A spokesperson denied vote fixing to the Cleveland Plain Dealer and The DC5 were inducted the next year.)

Whatever the veracity his claims may be, one may look at this potential decision with derision. Friedman’s report says the committee is sweating the shallow pool of brand-new inductees for 2011 – apparently Sting is the only definitive choice – and would change the rules to get artists like Guns N’ Roses, Green Day, Nirvana or Public Enemy into the ranks.

There are two problems with this line of thinking. One is obvious, the other less so.

Genius + Soul + Reissue = Lots of Jazz

The previously-reported reissue of Ray Charles’ Genius + Soul = Jazz has finally been given a track list by its distributor, Concord Records. Not much in the way of previously unreleased content (one vault cut), but this two-disc set will pull four Ray LPs back into print.

The package, due April 6, will feature Genius + Soul = Jazz as well as My Kind of Jazz (1970), Jazz Number II (1973) and My Kind of Jazz Part III (1975). (My Kind of Jazz was paired up with Genius + Soul = Jazz for a Rhino reissue in 1997.) It will also feature new liner notes by Wall Street Journal jazz critic Will Friedwald as well as the original liner notes for each record.

The full track list can be found below the jump.