Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Inductees: Chicago, NWA, Cheap Trick, Steve Miller

Artists are eligible for inclusion in the Cleveland, Ohio-based Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25 years after the release of their first recording.

Five veteran rock and rap acts will be inducted into the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame in 2016. Ballots are then sent to more than 600 artists, historians and music industry figures who make the final selection. Joel Peresman, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation president and CEO, said that a smaller nominating committee made it easier for rock bands from the ’70s to be nominated and inducted.

The 2016 induction ceremony will be held in NY on April 8.

Miller, Cheap Trick and Chicago all won the first year they were nominated. This is the verdict of the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame, an institution that singles out bands and individual artists for their “unquestionable musical excellence” without exactly making a rush to judgment.

Cheap Trick, Chicago, and Steve Miller were nominated for the first time, whereas N.W.A. and Deep Purple had previously been up for the nod, but didn’t receive enough votes.

The guitar riff for Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” remains one of the most recognizable in rock history. Just as divisive as their careers were, so too are the responses to N.W.A.’s induction into the Hall of Fame. So many people were opinionated about N.W.A. I think everyone now at this point, no matter how you feel about us, understands what the group actually did and what it means to modern music. Deep Purple, a band that has been snubbed for over 25 years, is finally getting into the Hall. Their hard-core tales of life on the street on songs like “F- the Police” made them a provocative chart presence in the late 1980s and influenced an empire of other acts. As the Rock Hall said in their press release, they have stayed consistent over their nearly forty years “Remaining interesting, sometimes hilarious, in that way is also pretty much unparalleled – and indispensable to understanding them”.

Chicago was the top choice among the fans, collecting more than 37 million votes and registering more than 23 percent of ballots cast by the general public.