KISS once again snubbed by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

[Denis]

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/stopthepresses/300607/rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-will-elude-kiss-for-11th-straight-year/

[ack1961]

Maybe they'll make the Emmett Kelly Hall of Fame for their makeup...

[Garrett]

I seen that......after some of the decisions they have made over the last decade or so....who can actually take the Hall of Fame seriously? 

[nofi]

kiss is right where they belong. is there a vaudeville hall of fame? i think the hall of fame idea is lame at best.

imo you should clean all that junk out of there and hang a picture of robert johnson and charlie patton. that's all.

[gearHed289]

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz............................ 

R&R Hall of Fame is a joke. No Rush either. Like em or not, they were both HUGELY influential bands. And Rush is behind only the Beatles and Stones in consecutive gold and platinum records.

[Pilgrim]

Any R&R Hall of Fame that doesn't have Dick Dale in it is clueless. 

[ack1961]

I agree that the R&R Hall of Fame is a complete joke.  Why anybody would be concerned about whose in it and who isn't is beyond me.

I just don't get Kiss - I never have. Tough to listen to...even harder to look at and take seriously.

In the mid 80's, I was living in Alice Springs, Australia (a town of about 25k people, dead-nuts in the middle of the continent) and I got a side gig hosting a radio show called "The Yankee Invasion" - only because I'm American, not because I was supposed to play US-based music.. There was a DJ at the station who had a daily 2 hour show dedicated entirely to Kiss. Awkward meeting - he was dumbfounded as to how any Yank could not love Kiss.

I had to bring my own vinyl in with me - he looked through my stash one day. Foghat? The Clash? Heep? Nothing rang a bell.  I think he paused at the NY Dolls, but I think all the glitter caught his eye - probably passed them off as Kiss knock-offs or something. 

The Kiss Army is a massive and dedicated group of folks, that's for sure.

[uwe]

Kiss have built a great enduring career on limited talent. That is commendable. If the RRHF was about playing and singing well, The Talking Heads should have never got there.

If you see an inclusion in the RRHF as paying homage to an artist's or group's contribution to and influence on popular music, then Kiss should have made 10 years ago already. Not including them again and again is simply petty, especially as there is very little one can really hate about Kiss. They're not the Beatles or Pink Floyd and never claimed to be. But a rock world without them would be a much poorer place.

[Blackbird]

Kiss have built a great enduring career on limited talent. That is commendable. If the RRHF was about playing and singing well, The Talking Heads should have never got there.

If you see an inclusion in the RRHF as paying homage to an artist's or group's contribution to and influence on popular music, then Kiss should have made 10 years ago already. Not including them again and again is simply petty, especially as there is very little one can really hate about Kiss. They're not the Beatles or Pink Floyd and never claimed to be. But a rock world without them would be a much poorer place.

KISS influenced a lot of us, and I'd guess were responsible in a lot of guitar sales over the years. 

[Barklessdog]

Kiss have built a great enduring career on limited talent

I thought that was mandatory for commercial success?

Less notes/ talent = more money

[nofi]

how were they influencial? does make up, pyro and dummy cabs count? really, i'm drawing a blank on this big influence thing

[ramone57]

sorry, no offense to anybody, but I have to side with the wtf crowd in regards to Kiss.  most of the people I know that are into Kiss do not play an instrument, so I'm not sure what their influence would be musically.  I know a lot of guys here dig them, but I don't think I know any other players who would admit to being a fan.  maybe a guilty pleasure but they keep their deep dark secrets to themselves.  rrhof?  who really cares who gets in or not?

[Dave W]

RRHOF may have started off being about rock and roll but went off those rails a long time ago. I mean, we could argue about whether or not soul or motown ought to qualify as rock and roll music, but when you have Louis Armstrong and Mahalia Jackson as inductees, it's hard to argue the point at all. It's really an American popular music hall of fame.

The other thing to consider is that it's allegedly about FAME. For that reason alone, KISS ought to be in. Love 'em or hate 'em, they were famous in their heyday and still are. People like Dick Dale and Link Wray will probably not get in because they weren't sufficiently famous during their peak years.

[uwe]

Dear Kiss Army Draft Dodgers,

Ask yourself, how many bands do you know that

- Were cited by Quiet Riot, Ratt and Mötley, Twisted Sister and Def Leppard (Joe Elliot counts Destroyer as one of his ten alltime favorite rock records.)as a major influence? You might not like these bands, but in the eighties they shifted tens of millions of records.

- Had their songs covered by someone outside of their genre (Garth Brooks playing Hard Luck Woman, Cher doing A World Without Heroes long after she and Chaim were no longer an item)?

- Wrote a dance floor smash hit that still fills dance/party compilations to this day and gets people move their butts to the dance floor?

- Feature a member with two bass designs (Axe and Punisher) to his credit that were not just signature versions of already existing models but from the scratch new designs? If you like, you can add the Ibanez Iceman to that list whose design was influenced by someone called (Paul) Stanley Eisen. (Hence the pronounciation name check in (E)Iceman.)

- Have taken merchandising to a point where most bands now see it as a major base of their income and depend on it to carry on making music?

- Have a bass player who discovered Van Halen?

Let's not even start with the visual influence Kiss have had on the Twisted Sisters, Marilyn Mansons, Mötley Crües, Rob Zombies and Merciful Fates of this world as well as a host of Scandinavian death metallers. Plus - by their own admission - Funkadelic/Paeliament.

And anybody accusing Gene Simmons of being a bad bass player should hone his chops on the verse bass line of Detroit Rock City first. Kiss aren't the greates musical artists by any stretch, but Gene Simmons was credible enough for in such things rather choosy Robert Zimmermann to write a song with him.

[ack1961]

Some of your points have merit, it still doesn't mean that millions of other open-minded music lovers just don't like or get Kiss...even if Joe Elliott and the other hair banders you mentioned did.

I must have missed the post where someone bashed Gene Simmons' bass playing...personally, I didn't like the 4" action figure (with retractable bat-wings) and the Kiss Twister game.  They're a marketing juggernaut thanks in large part to their bass player.

I will now admit that I have Detroit Rock City on my iPod.