It's the 2003 election, so you only have six more chances to get your favorites into the Hall before we bring it up to date.

Submit a ranked list of your ten most deserving artists. You may want to check out the top 100 eligible candidates. For a reminder of who's already been inducted, see the results thread.

For your top FIVE artists (at least), you must explain why they deserve to be in the HOA. You may recycle your comments from past elections if you wish, but I want us to have a context for WHY we're selecting these artists. Ballots without comments for the top five will NOT be counted!

In addition, you have the option to nominate up to three people for the Backstage Wing. This isn't required.

Deadline for ballots is Sunday, July 26, at 6:00 pm US Central time (midnight GMT).

Voting is now open. Hup two three four.

1. ABBA - "We stole them like crazy" - Elvis Costello. "Glen was a closet ABBA fan, and funny enough, so was Sid. We got rid of one ABBA fan and got another in its place." - John Lydon.
2. NINA SIMONE - Probably never was a singer who could put so much emotion in a song.
3. MISSY ELLIOTT - The most inventive female rapper in showbiz. Now that she's even rapping backwards, I'm moving her forward.
4. DEEP PURPLE - You say dinosaurs, I say institution.
5. JEFFERSON AIRPLANE - Central point in the psychedelia.
6. RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
7. CROSBY, STILLS, NASH & YOUNG
8. COLDPLAY
9. GRANDMASTER FLASH & THE FURIOUS FIVE
10. THE JESUS & MARY CHAIN

BACKSTAGE:
1. GERRY GOFFIN & CAROLE KING
2. TIMBALAND
3. ANTON CORBIJN

1. Wilco – This was the year they officially released their most audacious music, but even more audacious was the way they had previously paved the way for artists to get around the moribund record-company system to get that music out so people could hear it.

2. New York Dolls – And here they shall stay, to the bitter end.

3. Sleater-Kinney – Dazzling vocal and guitar interplay between singer-songwriters Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein, backed by the mighty noise of Janet Weiss, one of the most powerful drummers – of any gender – rock has ever known.

4. Ornette Coleman – A true visionary who, unlike far too many of his contemporaries, lasted long enough to become a living legend. Long overdue for induction!

5. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – What I said in my earlier top 5 entry about T.P. and company – they’ve lasted this long for a reason. And, again, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench transcended sideman status a long time ago.

6. Nine Inch Nails
7. Lynyrd Skynyrd
8. Sonny Rollins
9. Lucinda Williams
10. The Grateful Dead

BACKSTAGE WING
Now that Nicky Hopkins (thanks, Honorio!) and Rudy Van Gelder are both in, I’m somewhat at a loss here. I guess I’ll keep voting for Greil Marcus and leave it at that.

1. Dinosaur Jr.: You're Living All Over Me is one of my favorite albums.

2. Buzzcocks: Wire got in last week, lets try to get another old punk band in.

3. Queens of the Stone Age: They were something different; a band that never fit in with the new wave of garage rockers or the nu metal/post grunge crap on the radio.

4. The Jesus & Mary Chain: Their original drummer was Bobby Gillespie, who went on to form Primal Scream.

5. Nine Inch Nails: Created very unique atmospheric songs throughout the 90's.

6. Fugazi
7. MC5
8. Erik B. & Rakim
9. Tom Petty
10. Santana

01. Queens of the Stone Age : last year they have released my 2nd favourite album ever which includes my 3rd favourite song ever and 4 other top 200 songs. Before that they add released another top 30 albums. They are sexy, heavy, loud, subtle, moody, both rooted in an ancestral music genre and sounding totally new (well, except if you knew Kyuss but they share half of their members) with unstoppable drums and killer riffs. The voices of any member of the band is awesome and Josh Homme is just the coolest guy on Earth. Should I add that they are amazing live ?

02. Red Hot Chili Peppers : BSSM is my "madeleine de Proust" and the summit of a very decent discography

03. IAM : best band in French hip-hop history (and probably best French band ever)

04. Rage Against the Machine : Tom Morello is God (sort of)

05. Built to Spill : Perfect from now on is the most incredible discover I have made this year, the five first tracks are, well, perfect, which an intensity I have very rarely heard, goes right to my guts.

06. Foo Fighters :

07. Kyuss

08. System of a Down

09. Supergrass

10. N*E*R*D*

1. WILCO. I saw there was a Sky Blue Sky thread, but this has been a crazy week so I didn’t really sit down and think through a coherent response. I think SBS is excellent, but (similar to In Rainbows), I’d like to let it settle for another couple years before I’m prepared to dethrone YHF, which, after all, is the bump that puts them at the top of my ballot now.
2. NINE INCH NAILS. We are now in the era when Johnny Cash famously covered Trent’s work. In another couple of years, we get to Richard Cheese.
3. JESUS AND MARY CHAIN. Every time I think about giving up, they get very close to getting in.
4. JEFF BUCKLEY. Still amazed he’s not in…I assume it’s down to the “only one classic album” thing. But what an album.
5. PRIMAL SCREAM. My new personal hope for the HOA is that the Grateful Dead will be the #1 on the eligibles list of acts who did not get in. That seems to me fitting and proper. To accomplish that, Scream needs to be admitted (also, I think they merit it, even if I’m not very enthusiastic about Screamadelica).
6. RICHARD AND LINDA THOMPSON
7. BUZZCOCKS. Wire’s in, so I’m bringing these guys back, especially since they’re getting some more interest.
8. THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS. Since I introduced them into the conversation back in the late 80s, I suppose it was kind of chickenshit of me to stop voting for them. Mea culpa; here they are, and I’ll be happy if they make it.
9. JEFFERSON AIRPLANE. I thought I’d choose a worthy pre-1977 act that I like. I seriously dislike CSNY, Skynyrd is fun but ideologically unsound (to a point that interferes with my ability to enjoy them), Rod Stewart is Rod Stewart, Deep Purple sets off my prog alarm and, despite several attempts, I just can’t get into Ornette. So, I’ll push the Airplane, the best thing to come out of the whole Haight-Ashbury thing…should have gotten in WAY before Janis, imo.
10. LUCINDA WILLIAMS

I’ve dropped the Verve. Sorry about that, but we’ve got all of the front line of Britpop in the Hall, with the arguable exception of Manic Street Preachers and maybe Elastica.

01. WILCO: avant-garde country? Sequencers and fiddles? (and why not?). Although it was recorded before the 9/11 (but not released by a coward record company) their last album displays the perfect sounds for our times of confusion, the post 9/11 period and the ashes of American flags.
My favourite album: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002).
My Top 5 Songs: Jesus, etc. (2002), Pot Kettle Back (2002), She’s a Jar (1999), I Got You (At the End of the Century) (1996), Ashes of American Flags (2002).

02. BELLE AND SEBASTIAN: just seen them opening for Radiohead last week (I’m talking about July 2002) and their sound was like (strawberry) ice-cream, refreshing our ears under the stifling heat.

03. COLDPLAY: every time we use the word “stadium” beside a music style (pop, rock, whatever) we use it on a pejorative way, but it must be very difficult to please simultaneously the people filling a stadium and the critics writing for (snob) music magazines. And Coldplay just made it, their last album topped the 2002 list of NME.
My favourite album: A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002).
My favourite song: Yellow (2000), In My Place (2002), Clocks (2002).

04. YO LA TENGO: I Got It.

05. QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE: I’m not a big fan of hard rock, but I respect any hard-rock band that escapes the metal ghetto and is able to get respect from the critics and the audiences not likely to like this kind of music. And that’s exactly the case of QOTSA.
My favourite album: Songs for the Deaf (2002).
My favourite song: No One Knows (2002), Go With the Flow (2002) (awesome clip!), Feel Good Hit of the Summer (2000).

06. JEFF BUCKLEY.
07. KYLIE MINOGUE.
08. LUCINDA WILLIAMS.
09. SUPER FURRY ANIMALS.
10. THE MAGNETIC FIELDS.

And at the backstage:
01. DAVE FRIDMANN.
02. JIM O’ROURKE: an ubiquitous name of the alternative and experimental scene, he produced or worked with a varied set of artists, including improvisation pioneers like Derek Bailey, krautrock experimentalists like Faust, pop bands with avant-garde edge like Stereolab, inquisitive alt-country bands like Wilco or noise-rock seminal acts like Sonic Youth (in fact he recently joined the band as fifth member). Favourite song: WILCO I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (2002).
03. ANTON CORBJIN.

1. Lynyrd Skynyrd - one of the greatest southern rock bands and probably the best hard rock band not yet inducted (apologies to deep purple)
2. Richard (& Linda) Thompson - an undersung guitar god
3. Queens of the Stone Age - resurrected the commercial & critical viability of hard rock
4. Drive-By Truckers - resurrected the, well, at least critical viability of southern rock...it was utterly unfashionable in 2001, and in some ways, it still is
5. The Magnetic Fields - a brilliant and prolific songwriter
6. Ryan Adams
7. The Blue Nile
8. Jackson Browne
9. Warren Zevon
10. Dwight Yoakam

backstage

1. Jay Dee (J Dilla)
2. Timbaland
3. Marley Marl

1. Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head makes them the best band of the decade so far.

2. Red Hot Chili Peppers - By the Way isn't exactly a classic, but it gives them a sufficiently large enough body of work to justify second.

3. Daft Punk

4. Foo Fighters

5. Rage Against the Machine

6. Queens of the Stone Age - As if hard rock wasn't prevalent enough on my list.

7. Wilco - I did the "Save them for after Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" thing too, though I didn't envision them being quite this low.

8. The Roots - The best band in hip-hop ever, they proved rap concerts don't have to suck, they're from Philly, and ?uestlove seems like the coolest dude ever.

9. Interpol - Channeling their inner Joy Division, rather successfully.

10. LCD Soundsystem - I know, it's too soon.

1. Wilco - Saved them for after YHF. Their previous albums were all at least decent, Summerteeth was very good, and YHF is just amazing. Perfect album for the times.

2. Jeff Buckley - Before this hall is done, he will be in. Eventually.

3. The Verve - I'm stubborn and I will continue to vote for The Verve.

4. Coldplay - Solid band achieved a great album with A Rush of Blood, too bad it's downhill from here.

5. Primal Scream - I'm not a big fan but I do think thy ultimately deserve inclusion in the hall. If the Eagles could do it, so can Primal Scream.

6. Belle and Sebastien
7. Interpol
8. Daft Punk
9. Dinosaur Jr.
10. Nine-Inch Nails

Here we go again

1. THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS - There's only two songs in them, but they just wrote the third. Don't know where they got the inspiration or how they wrote the words. They've spent their whole lives just digging up their music's shallow grave, for the two songs in them and the third one they just made.

2. HANDSOME FAMILY - "This is why people OD on pills, and jump from the Golden Gate Bridge. Anything to feel weightless again." Never mind Bob Dylan, Rennie Sparks should get the Nobel Literature Prize.

3. MANIC STREET PREACHERS - My love alone is not enough, not enough, not enough. I need somebody's help here.

4. JEFFERSON AIRPLANE - Please, please listen to them. It's taken so long to come true, and it's all for you. All for you.

5. A-HA - Couldn't bother looking up suitable lyrics, but they are perheps the best (and definitely most successful) band to come out of Norway ever. Forget Take On Me, that's mediocre 80s stuff, but check out the amazing amount of killer tracks hidden on their albums. I've Been Losing You is one of the best songs ever made.

6. 22-PISTEPIRKKO
7. DAFT PUNK
8. RICHARD AND LINDA THOMPSON
9. COLDPLAY
10. MANSUN

1. Siouxsie and the Banshees- The Banshees reunited in 2002 for a mesmerizing tour. It's too bad I wasn't into them yet. Hopefully another 7-year itch is due!

2. Kylie Minogue- 2002 was the year that I feel for Kylie... hard! She's managed to become my favorite artist of the 2000s (per Henrik's formula), and she opened up the world of pop music to me again. She might take over number 1 next week with the release of Body Language.

3. Janet Jackson- She's my favorite artist in the entire list, but she gets absolutely no love from anyone but me here, so I'm trying to give a few of my more likely long shots a chance!

4. Grace Jones- I'm still bedazzled from seeing her 6 months ago. Talk about a great concert!

5. Missy Elliott- Under Construction isn't my favorite album of hers, but it adds to her legacy.

6. Donna Summer- I dusted off Bad Girls this week to give it a spin. What a great album! Some of the tracks toward the end sound like precursors to synth pop acts like Yazoo.

7. Annie Lennox

8. Joan Jett

9. Kim Wilde

10. Gary Numan/Tubeway Army

1. The DIVINE COMEDY
2. BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB
3. Rufus WAINWRIGHT : great vocalist and songwriter, even if IMO his best work was his first album
4. LYNYRD SKYNYRD
5. Jeff BUCKLEY : now I think he should be in
6. Dick ANNEGARN
7. WILCO
8. Alvin Youngblood HART
9. The STREETS
10. QOTSA