Stephan was right. (Well done, Stephan!)

I hereby break ground for:

The Hall of Acclaim.

Modeled, loosely, on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (and the baseball Hall of Fame and other, similar institutions), the HOA will be our monument to the greatest pop artists of the last six or seven decades. Once every three weeks, we’ll induct five new artists into our Hall.

We haven’t really done anything quite like this before, and I have a lot of details to share with you. So, if you’ll bear with me, here’s the basic structure.

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The main thing that’ll make the HOA more than simply a favorite artists poll (the toes of which I don’t want to step on) is that we’ll approach it historically. Our first ballot will take place, theoretically, in the early 1960’s. For purposes of an example, let’s say 1960. This means that in the first election, when deciding who to vote for, we will take into account ONLY the recordings released by an artist prior to December 31, 1959. For the 1961 election, we’ll add 1960 releases, and so on. So, by the time we get to, say, the 1990 election, we’ll induct artists based on their work through 1989—whether they were active in the 1980’s or the 1930’s (although, by then, we’ll already have 150 artists inducted).

(1960 is kind of an arbitrary start date, but I think we should start somewhere between 1960 and 1964. Input and suggestions on our starting date is STRONGLY encouraged!)

Unlike most Halls of Fame (including the rock hall), there is no “waiting period” to induct artists. Early on, I toyed with the idea of making artists eligible, say 10 or 15 years after their first recording, or maybe their earliest recording that appears on this site. But I think it will be more interesting if, instead, artists can be inducted, even if they’re still “active” in the year in question…as long as we, the voters, decide that their work “so far” entitles them to a spot in the Hall.

I should illustrate this, I guess (this is the complicated bit, so if it’s unclear, please ask me to clarify): if we hold the first election in 1960, then, when deciding on Elvis, you can take 1956’s “Heartbreak Hotel” into account, but not 1969’s “Suspcious Minds.” For Coltrane, you can consider Giant Steps, but not A Love Supreme. And so forth—in the 1963 election, the Beatles’ only claim to consideration will be “Love Me Do,” and Bob Dylan’s case will rest entirely on his self-titled debut album. In the 1982 election, Prince and U2 will be eligible, but each of them only for their first two albums (and R.E.M. will stand or fall on the merit of “Radio Free Europe” alone).

(This will be part of the fun of it…for instance, when will the Who get in? In 1966, on the basis of My Generation? If not, will The Who Sell Out get them inducted in 1968? If not then, will it be Tommy in 1970? Who’s Next in 1972? This will be an interesting exercise for most of us, just because it’s hard to act like you don’t know what an artist will accomplish in his/her/their later career. Yes, I am really asking that when the 1970 election comes around, you think of David Bowie as the guy who made “Space Oddity,” and pretend you’ve never heard of Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust, Station to Station, and Low.)

Once the artists are elected, they’ll each have a “plaque” detailing their careers and accomplishments on a thread called “Hall of Acclaim Plaque Room”…and possibly in some kind of a Wiki if I can figure out how to do that. Plaques may include links to photos, videos, biographies, etc., but that’s a detail we can hash out later. Who writes the plaques? We all will. Each artist’s plaque will be assigned to a voter who really wants to write it—some negotiation will be necessary here, but I think we can make it work.

(Stephan, as a reward for correctly identifying what the Philadelphia Experiment is, you have first choice of a plaque!)

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Remembering the track of artist’s careers—stuff like what year Hotel California came out, which Smiths singles were released before their first album, whether Medulla came before Vespertine…this seems like a lot to keep track of. And it is. Which is why I’m not going to ask you to keep track of it. I’ll do it.

At the beginning of each voting period, I’ll post a list of the Top 50 artists, based ONLY on their recorded output at that point (I use the same formula Henrik uses for his artist rankings—thanks again, Henrik!). For the curious, using this system, the top twenty artists for the 1960 election (remember, based on their work through 1959 only) are:

1. Elvis Presley
2. Miles Davis
3. Chuck Berry
4. Frank Sinatra
5. Buddy Holly & the Crickets
6. Little Richard
7. Thelonious Monk
8. Ray Charles
9. Sonny Rollins
10. Duke Ellington
11. Hank Williams
12. Ella Fitzgerald
13. Charles Mingus
14. The Everly Brothers
15. Bo Diddley
16. Jerry Lee Lewis
17. Count Basie
18. Muddy Waters
19. Dizzy Gillespie
20. Billie Holiday

In addition, for each artist I’ll list the six highest-ranked albums and six highest-ranked songs they’ve released to that point. Basically, for every year, I’ll give you a thumbnail discography of the top 50 artists (who haven't been inducted yet).

This is the part that took me some time to put together, and will be the reason why this project will be much more labor-intensive (for me) than bracketology and Survivor. For every election, I’ll have a whole lot of new data to input to create the list of top 50 candidates.

Sorry for the giant-sized post. Later this week, I’ll give you the details of how I envision the voting process, and a few other things. If anyone has any suggestions about how the HOA will work, I’m eager to hear them!

But I think that’s quite enough to be getting on with for now.

I assume we don't vote for Robert Johnson or the other bluespeople before the folk/blues revival of the 60's comes along, right?

Wohoo. I love it. I'm sure you know which artist I'll pick, and I think the post is really complete. I'm going to bed now, perhaps some more questions or suggestions tomorrow.

This is awesome! I hope it doesn't boil down to bickering about who will get in during which year, but I think the fact that we get to induct 5 artists every year guarantees that all of the heavy favorites will get in eventually.

One small thing- Prince had released 4 albums before 1982! I don't think he warrants consideration until 1980 at the earliest, but there may be some For You and Prince fans out there!

Almost all of my favorite Prince songs come before 82 or after 91. I realized that when making my compilation. I think the 90's could have been his peak years if he would have left the lame rap verses out of the music.

This sounds great! I imagine that we'll set HOF standards in the 60's that we'll have to consider when voting in the 70's and beyond, and it will be interesting to see how long it takes 1-2 album bands to get in. Cool! Three weeks between each year? Won't that take a few years to finish?

Assuming around 45 years, then it would take about 3 years. Maybe shorten that to 2 weeks?

Anyway, I love the idea. Sounds great to me, although I won't be voting until the late '60s since I don't really know too much about stuff before 1960 (jazz and early rock/blues isn't my thing).

Oh, I love Prince's 1978-81 period, as well as his 90s work! I just think that his peak era definitely was from 1980-95.

Prince deserves to get in on "When You Were Mine" alone.

I don't know if Controversy is enough to get him in, it might take a few more years... but that song is amazing and I can't believe I didn't include it on my 1981 list. Right now I'd probably put it at #1.

Yeah. I agree.

1. mismaiome, that's an interesting question about the old blues guys. Robert Johnson is #29 among pre-1960 artists (I'll post the full list once we decide what year we're actually going to start), and in all cases, I'm using release dates given on this site. However, it is true that in the real 1960, as opposed to our imagined 1960, almost nobody outside of folk archivists (and, presumably, blues singers) knew who Johnson was. If anyone would like to reflect that in their vote, I think that would be appropriate.

2. In my hastily-assembled examples, I was just using releases mentioned on AM...I forgot about (and, in fact, have never heard) For You and s/t. But this discussion already highlights one fun thing about the HOA--at what point does an artist's body of work merit inclusion (personal opinion: I doubt I'll be voting for Prince until the '83 election, when 1999 will count for the first time...I think Controversy's cute but kinda wet).

3. I see two votes, from John and Penguin, for a shorter voting period (2 weeks instead of 3). I think that could work...in the "speculation" thread, I suggested a week of discussion followed by two weeks of voting, but I don't see any reason not to make it one week of discussion and one week of voting. Other thoughts?

I'm glad the HOA is already stirring discussion (I almost wrote "Philly" instead of "HOA," but after today we never need to speak of Philly again).

And so to bed.

Now that I look back on the 1981 Excel file I really feel bad that I could have put it in the top ten. Sorry, Moonbeam.

I don't think the rankings on the site make sense for pre-LP artists. Billie Holiday is at least as good as Elvis, in more practical terms - and probably much better.

"Controversy" will kick your ass with those boots and that trench coat!

In all seriousness, I'm just glad to see some love for this amazing song. A permanent fixture in my top 20 songs of all-time!

I wish the other AMers liked Prince as much as we do! Probably the greatest solo artist ever.

Probably? Bah!

schleuse, my friend, what a great idea !
Looks like that game was tailored-made for me, although it won't surprise anyone if I say that 1960 is much too late for a starting date.
How could we choose only 5 artists before 1960 then one per year after ?
But I understand that we are a minirity if pre-1960 lovers. Proof is that they're already chatting about 1980's and Prince
That means that I'll still vote for pre-60 artists in the following years I guess, which after all is not so bad given the poor quality of the very early sixties compared to 1956-58

Schleuse, you keep amazing us.

If we start in 1960 that means we'll start with the artists from 1959. That means we will have 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962 and 1963 (assuming nobody thinks Dylan or the Beatles deserve to be induced purely based on 1963 output) for artists pre-1963. That's 25 artists (and perhaps a few more in the following years), not enough for you nicolas?

As far as the time goes, 1 week of discussion and 1 week of voting is probably good, even though it'll still take almost 2 years. But that's OK.

Schleuse, I am so happy that you found Acclaimed Music!

Stephan : you are right

Schleuse you are a wonder, what a great idea this is - let me applaud you

*applauds*

Will artists only be eligible for inclusion if they appear on the AM lists? Should I abandon all hope for two of my top ten bands right now? (Memphis Jug Band and Spike Jones & His City Slickers)

1. “I don't think the rankings on the site make sense for pre-LP artists.” I agree, mismaiome. Well, they make some sense, but they’re designed for post-1954 music, and, to quote myself, they’re more of a blunt instrument for earlier stuff. Anyone who wants to vote for Billie over Elvis will get no argument from me.

2. nicolas, if I was only doing this for my own amusement, I’d probably start in 1954—but there are probably only three or four of us with the patience to wait that long until 1965. As Stephan notes, if we start in 1960, we’ll have four or five years of a pretty clear field to induct older artists (the early sixties were drab, drab, drab).

3. “Will artists only be eligible for inclusion if they appear on the AM lists?” Absolutely not, Harpo. If you want to vote for the inimitable Spike Jones, I’ll be the one applauding you!

This sounds like a lot of writing, but it should be interesting to follow along.

Are your voting rules going to modeled after the Baseball Hall of Fame?

Which artist will be the Bill Mazeroski of the AM Hall of Fame?

We're still using Maz as the analogy? Didn't he get into the Hall? If you mean unfairly excluded, the line starts behind Ron Santo.

As for the amount of writing involved, it may seem daunting, but the longer voting period should help. And nobody has to write a plaque if they don't want to...I figure people would rather write about artists they actually like rather than flaming poor Frank Zappa or something.

The voting format, which I'll try to post either today or tomorrow, is more like the rock and roll Hall (5 artists get in automatically every year) than the baseball Hall (75% of votes required). The baseball Hall's rules have always seemed bizarre and Byzantine to me.

BTW, I chose five artists per year because that's what the rock hall does, but I'm not married to that number.

At that rate, we'd have about 250 artists by the time we get to the present, which seems OK to me.

If we do four per year, we'll end up with 200.
If we do three per year, we'll end up with 150.

I really wouldn't want to go any lower than that--200 seems reasonable, but 150 looks pretty small to me.

The mad scientist does it again...

Sounds great, schleuse. (sorry for the late reply here -- I just got back from a trip to the armpit of the US midwest). I'm looking forward to contributing to this.

This sounds great.

Now, what's that smell? Oh, it's chicken, and I'm about to eat it!

If I had to vote I'd probably go with 200. We do need some sense of exclusiveness, 250 is quite a lot. Then again, there's a huge amount of artists as well.. ah, I don't know.

Great idea, schleuse. You can count on me for this (exciting) new game.

Maz is an example of the questionable induction. Phil Rizuto would also work.

I agree on Santo being the poster boy for unfair exclusion.

Which brings me to Pete Rose and Joe Jackson. I wonder if there is any sort of "rock crime" that could exclude an otherwise deserving member?

Anthony, it sounds like you were in my neighborhood.

Rock crime? As in "My Ding-A-Ling"?

I don't know about Santo. His career wasn't long and he was rarely great. But he did have a great OBP and a good glove. I just can't go with a corner infielder who didn't even hit 400 homeruns. I'd say Tim Raines and Bert Blyleven deserve to be in and everybody else that's eligible and not in, shouldn't be.

@Harpo: Exactly!

John, Santo’s at the top of the list because third basemen are underrepresented (and, to be honest, his health ain’t good, and it would be a shame if he got in posthumously). Blyleven’s my #2. Rock Raines is certainly the best eligible player not in the hall, but he’s only been eligible for what, five months? He’s got time to muster support.

Paul, who knows who the borderline cases will be? I’m sure there will be weak years…if I have to pick one, I’ll put early money on Depeche Mode (sorry again, Henrik).

And Chuck Berry recording “My Ding-a-Ling” is like Ty Cobb spiking players—it’s really bad, but the overall body of work makes up for it. The Joe Jackson equivalent would be Milli Vanilli, and the Pete Rose equivalent would be…I dunno, Elton John and Billy Joel?

Joe Jackson: Justin Timberlake: Great performer but will always be associated with one thing.

Pete Rose: Hard to make a comparison since rock fans and the HOF tend to be very forgiving for the sake of art. But, if anybody still gets kicked around like Charlie Hustle it's gotta be George Michael.

I would say that Bert Blyleven is the most deserving candidate out right now.

To me, the people in the edge in this competition that might not make it would be the rap artists. I don't think they get too much appreciation around here (I know I don't often give them proper credit). Looking around the Top 200 or so artists, the highest ranked acts probably not to get in look like Missy Elliott and the Grateful Dead (at least that's my perspective). This is especially with the Dead, who never had an album better than 15th in a year (according to AM).

A few questions and ideas:

1. I think we should stipulate that the person assigned to write the plaque for an inducted artist must have voted to induct that artist.

2. Speaking of voting- I think a similar format to the Artist survivor should be used, whereby each poster votes for 5 artists. We could tweak the point totals, perhaps, but it seems to be a good guide, especially as we are inducting 5 artists per year.

3. A question- when the plaques are written, should they be written to reflect only the material released prior to their induction? For instance, if David Bowie gets in for say, 1973, should the plaque not mention Low or Scary Monsters, etc.? In a way, that would be more honest, but I think it may detract from the plaques in general, particularly for artists who are inducted in their first year of eligibility.

The plaques could always be updated later.

Wouldn't the Pete Rose comparison be Kenny Rodgers?

I suppose that the baseball analogies are funny and accurate, but to me is like you were talking about Chinese medieval literature.

Who will be the Liu Ji of the AM hall of fame?

For me too, sounds like chinese.

As usual Schleuse idea looks great, but well this time I don't think I would take part in it before... well, in the best case around 1973, in the worst case 1990 !

Anyway, I understand that before inducting an artist we should take into account only the albums he released in the previous years... but can we take into account what people influenced by it did later ? Well of course a great album is great whatever other artists sounds like, but influence is often a part of the acclaims.
For instance we could induct Black Sabbath in 1973 because they have released 4 great albums, especially their second which almost define a new musical genre ; or should we wait let's say around 1985 to induct them for those albums & all the great albums from bands they influenced ?
Same question for Massive Attack, Grandmaster Flash etc.

LonesomePanda, your question is relevant (I don't know the answer) but the examples made me confused. Aren't Black Sabbath, Massive Attack and Grandmaster Flash good examples of artists who were better than their followers?

I don’t know why I’m responding in numbered lists on this thread…just a lot of ground to cover, I guess.

1. Moonbeam, you’re way ahead of me; you must vote for an artist to write their plaque. And I’m not real sure how we’ll handle writing a plaque for an artist in mid-career…but I note that we have the advantage of having the plaques online, rather than cast in bronze and hung on a wall (this is why I was thinking Wiki).

2. Lonesome Panda, great question. I think every voter’s going to have to figure out a solution to the “greatness-vs.-influence” question. For my part—and this may be tortured reasoning—when I cast my 1960 ballot I’m going to pretend it’s 1960, but I’m not going to pretend I’m a 1960 person. Even if it doesn’t “count” in 1960 that Chuck Berry will eventually influence Keith Richards and Billy Zoom, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t listen to Chuck Berry with 21st-century ears (which, after all, are the only ears I have).

I’m guessing that didn’t make a lick of sense. Maybe it was translated from medieval Mandarin prose. By Roger Maris.

Wu Cheng'en is easily the best known of them all

For purposes of Hall of Fame voting, greatness and influence should go hand in hand, in that we are only rewarding positive influences who likely achieved their influence through their greatness.

In other words, I don't need Billy Zoom to tell me that Chuck's guitar sounds great. That's just reinforcement. Chuck's there on his merits, my ding a ling notwithstanding.

Well Henrik, I think they are better than most of their followers, but for me only Black Sabbath are better then all of their followers.

My thoughts on the ballots:

I haven’t made up my mind about the size of the ballots. I know I’ll require that you vote for five artists, but I’m thinking about allowing a voter’s option to include ten or twenty if you really want to.

And—say it with me—You Have To Explain Your Choices. Tell us why your chosen artists deserve the very modest form of immortality offered by the HOA.

The ballots, not to mention the field, of potential electees, are larger than ever in this project, which is why I’m giving each “round” two weeks instead of one (seems like the consensus is for shorter voting periods, so we’ll work with two weeks, not three as I suggested initially).

TWO IMPORTANT POINTS:

1. As I mentioned in my initial post, I’ll be posting the top 50 not-yet-inducted artists prior to each voting period. However, it is NOT the case that only the top 50 artists listed in a given “year” are eligible! You can vote for anyone you like, as long as they’ve released music prior to the current election year. I’m only limiting my preview lists to 50 artists for the sake of my own sanity—if there’s an artist not in the top 50 you think deserves inclusion, I figure you can suss out their discography yourself.*

2. When choosing artists, you certainly may take into consideration recordings not listed on this site (although if you do, I’ll appreciate it if you tell us what records you have in mind).

* - Exception: I’m disallowing classical music. No Beethoven, Debussy, or Wagner; that would make the HOA too schizophrenic. I will allow Gershwin, since he’s on the site, and by extension I suppose I’d have to take Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hammerstein, etc. The general rule for pre-1954 music is that it has to be either a) an artist listed on this site, or b) an artist working in a tradition that feeds directly into the stew of country, pop, gospel, jazz and R&B which became rock and roll in the early 1950’s.

(Spike Jones’ gonzo big band definitely counts, for instance. Jazz and swing—even as filtered through Spike’s demented musical sensibility—certainly influenced rock and roll.)

I'm interested to hear everyone's thoughts on the voting process.

And I haven't seen any objections to starting in 1960. Speak now or forever hold your peace about that starting date...if nobody objects, I'll post the full top 50 eligible artists for the first ballot in a few days. I'm still not planning to start until July 1, but I figure some of you may want time to review the candidates.

I think you've got it down and I can't think of anything I'd change. I appreciate how well you plan these! It took me at least a few weeks to figure out what I was doing on Beatles Survivor.

Very good to see this start looks very interesting. Have finally taken it all in.

One point I will make in terms of not knowing who Robert Johnson was in 1960 and having a ballot that reflects this is that this will mean a similar fate for The Velvet Underground, Nick Drake and Big Star. Think that we have to assume that we’ve all had fair access to all music available at that point (or at least we all have the internet in 1960) else we will be restricting ourselves greatly through fear of being too realistic (would American posters know about John Peel favourites like The Fall, The Wedding Present, T.Rex and so on.)

We could pretend to be a secret organization of extremely knowledgeable music connoisseurs who can inadvertently see a small little ways into the future, tarot & coffee reading included.

We could have a worldwide mailing list, regularly exposing each other to the Latest New Big Thing, or even the Latest New Old Thing. It could work.

Really exciting idea, Schleuse. The only idea I might throw out there (though I don't know if it is necessary)is to maybe induct 10 artists the first year. I have no idea how the voting might shake out but my thinking is that artists like Elvis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, and maybe even Jerry Lee Lewis have already done enough by 1960 to get in, and maybe by inducting 10 some other early genres might get represented that might not otherwise. I believe the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame did this the first few years.

Again tremendous idea and am looking forward to it.

Can we vote for studio musicians, songwriters, producers, chorists or anything related to music even if it is not for their own release ? The obvious examples would be Phil Spector or Burt Bacharach but I guess there would be some other (like those girls who sing back vocals on half of the Motown tracks).

Interesting question, Lonesome. I'm inclined to say no, but...well, what do the rest of you think?

I believe the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has a separate "wing" for sidemen in order to give them their due. Maybe for producers and DJs and managers too, I don't know. Perhaps we could do something like that as a side project...a "non-performers" wing for the likes of Spector and Bacharach and Alan Freed and Lester Bangs and Bertis Downs.

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Thanks, everybody, for all the enthusiasm and the nice things you've said about the HOA. I wouldn't be doing it without Henrik's brilliant site, and the whip-smart forum community that's grown up here--and this means you.

I strongly encourage allowing time pre-1960s. The birth of rock and jazz's greatest evolution both occurred in 1955-1959, plus there is tons of other glorious music made in decades previous. Maybe we can do whole decades at a time, or chunk it like this?:

1920s
1930s
1940s
1950-1955
1956-1957
1958-1959

Just a thought from someone who loves some of the old stuff.

Again, sorry for the delay...my life's been absolutely crazy lately, but seems to be simmering down now. A bit.

sonofsamiam (if you're still reading this), I get where you're going with pre-1960 artists, I'm sympathetic to how you feel, and I appreciate the "chunking" you did for pre-1960 eras.

Personally, though, I like the symmetry of having one election = one year. And again, as Stephan noted above, if we start in 1960, even at our modified rate of four artists per year, that's 20 artists before we hit 1965. And if, say, Leadbelly hasn't made it in by then, he still stays eligible; for all I know, he could get in in 1988.

I want the HOA to broadly reflect the kinds of music which Acclaimed Music showcases.

Tell you what; in a little while, I'm going to start a new thread, as promised, with the top 50 eligible artists for a starting year of 1960. Let's see what everyone thinks (and remember, you can vote for ANY artist, on the list or not).

schleuse -- before we get full-swing into this adventure (and since you're running the show here), any ideas on how the prize should be awarded? Best plaque? MVP (or "MVC" - most valuable commentator)?

Sorry; for those of you who aren't aware, the "prize" I'm referring to is a $20 iTunes gift card... which I know isn't really anything to get excited over, but it's just a little something that might entice someone to put a bit of extra effort into the game, or maybe something to lend a smidge of legitimacy (not that any of the Mad Scientist's games need it), or... maybe just my own penance for being a twat on occasion over the past year on AM.

And sorry for discriminating against any of you non-iPod users (or anti-Apple, anti-Steve Jobs people), but dems da brakes.

Best-written plaque sounds OK, if that's what you'd like. Since you're the money, you should probably be the judge as well...

Actually, scratch that idea. I wanted to offer something of a prize, but $20 is a mere pittance (and in real money, wouldn't even be enough for a couple gallons of gas nowadays), and besides, there's going to be 200 and some odd plaques and it seems rather unfair to choose one as the best.

I'm just looking forward to this, especially reading Paul's Hank Williams plaque, Schwah's Bjork, Moonbeam's Prince, schleuse's R.E.M., etc. (it's safe to say that these ones are pretty much claimed already). I can do Oasis, right? hah.

Hank is no shoe-in, but I'll take a stab at the plaque if he makes it.