All things considered, this is a good ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME class, maybe even a great one, the absence of KRAFTWERK, the METERS, the SHANGRI-LAS, the SMITHS and [FILL IN YOUR OWN FAVORITE OVERSIGHT] notwithstanding. A watershed year, perhaps. Seven sentences and seven links for seven new inductees: ROXY MUSIC introduced BRIAN ENO to the world and then got better after he left, which is as Hall or Fame an achievement as any Hall of Famer has ever achieved, and made art-rock sexy, and never made anything even remotely resembling a bad album, and I disagree vehemently with your FLESH + BLOOD complaint and mildly with your MANIFESTO argument... The walls of I.M. PEI's hall are lined with singers who sounded happy even when they were sad, whereas ROBERT SMITH has made a career of sounding sad even when he's happy, which makes him and the CURE ideal candidates to be the first full-on goth heroes to break on through those walls... At her '80s and '90s peak, JANET JACKSON was pretty much the platonic ideal of futurist R&B and she sang for freedom, independence and pleasure with greater fervor (and pinpoint accuracy) than many of the men and women who preceded her into the hall, and if JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE ever wants to visit her and say he's sorry, he now knows where to find her... DEF LEPPARD is either the only bubblegum pop band that could hold its own in a fight with METALLICA or the only metal band that could comfortably share a stage with CHARLI XCX, or both, which means it will fill at least two cracks in the Hall's walls, which is awesome, but if you don't follow up and induct JUDAS PRIEST in 2020 and IRON MAIDEN in 2021 there will be earthquakes and tornadoes and volcanic eruptions like you've never seen before and it will be your fault... RADIOHEAD's summer 2001 show in LIBERTY STATE PARK in New Jersey, with the Statue of Liberty waving her torch in approval in the background, one month before 9/11 and two months after AMNESIAC completed one of the great mid-career pivots in classic rock history (please don't @ me re the "classic rock" thing), remains one of the most thrilling rock concerts I've ever seen, and nearly two decades later the band has yet to bow down or give in to anyone or anything (good luck getting THOM YORKE and company to the March 29 induction ceremony)... You can argue that if STEVIE NICKS' career didn't literally start until 1981 no one would be making a Hall of Fame case for her, but unless you're prepared to make the same argument against the similarly PRINCE-approved GEORGE HARRISON/1971 and bodily remove him from the Hall, then I don't want to hear it and you should just stand back, recognize an all-time rock and roll rasp and salute the first woman to be inducted twice... The ZOMBIES opened their second and final album (post-reunion releases do not count here) with a brash BEACH BOYS-style letter to a lover who's about to be released from prison, followed it with a WILLIAM FAULKNER homage, misspelled the name of their own album and would have faded into cult obscurity if not for the singular majesty of COLIN BLUNSTONE's tenor, and still kind of faded into cult obscurity anyway, a fate from which being the second-to-last band, alphabetically speaking, to make it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame may or may not rescue them... KANYE v. DRAKE, the publishing explainer... Mi cabeza da vueltas... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN (plus a little NETFLIX film that drops Sunday), OFFSET (maybe; things have changed in the past two weeks), ZAYN, VIC MENSA, KODAK BLACK, MITCHELL TENPENNY, the DECEMBERISTS, BIG K.R.I.T., KAREN O & DANGER MOUSE, VENOM, JARBOE, HALLOWEEN ALASKA, and the VOX LUX and SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE soundtracks... RIP the great jazz (and more) singer NANCY WILSON... Best wishes to DONNIE MCCLURKIN.