My attitude towards the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has always been one of casual indifference, but this year’s enshrinement of the band Yes has changed my perspective.
I now despise it.
I have no particular enmity towards the band—in small doses I like their best stuff just fine—but their election sets a terrible precedent. It turns out that Yes, who will be inducted on April 7, has a few enthusiastic fans in Washington, D.C., and some of them used their lobbying and public relations skills to help the band get elected.
That they succeeded is dispiriting. As anyone who’s spent time in D.C. knows, government is not the main industry in this town: That crown goes to the countless flacks, lobbyists, and political intelligence folks who spend their time trying to influence the goings-ons in government. Or, failing that, convincing their clients that they are doing so. The smaller these professions are, the better off society is, and I find it distressing that their black arts worked in a cause so tangential to public policy. I’d rather not think about what other dastardly things this crowd will feel emboldened to take on next.
But my interest in the Hall of Fame outcome goes beyond mere resentment: along with many other pasty-faced professionals who matriculated in the 1980s, I happen to be a big fan of The Replacements, a band that was originally nominated for the Hall of Fame with Yes but that failed to receive enough votes for enshrinement. Unlike certain Yes aficionados, we Replacements fans are perfectly fine with our band remaining on the outside of the Hall, for the band’s history and accomplishments encapsulate the essential spirit of rock and roll perhaps more than any other American band, and an award would–if anything–diminish its achievements.
They got a record contract while they were still teenagers: bassist Tommy Stinson had just turned 13 at the time. They spent the next decade touring nonstop, with the occasional respite to record an album. This relentless schedule wreaked havoc with their lives—they occasionally became too inebriated to finish live shows and lead guitarist Bob Stinson died from drug and alcohol abuse at age 35—but their obsessiveness helped them hone their craft. They came to be strong musicians and exquisite songwriters, and before their dissolution they left us with a dozen or so pop gems that people will be listening to as long as anyone cares about rock and roll. Their ode to Big Star frontman Alex Chilton—another exemplar of rock and roll’s ethos, incidentally—may be the best rock song since the heyday of the Beatles and Rolling Stones.
It’s a legacy few politicians manage to achieve in their time in Washington. Or any of the rest of us, for that matter.
I’m not going to pretend that the Replacements’ fans in this town have all somehow managed to avoid selling out, but I like to think most of us realize that whether the Replacements are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is completely irrelevant to their legacy, which these days is as easy to appreciate as signing up for Spotify.
For the group to not be a part of the corporatism represented by the Hall—which Yes’s induction merely ratifies—seems altogether fitting and proper. And that’s worth celebrating, which I recommend doing this by listening to their album “Let it Be” while having a beer or three.
Ike Brannon is an economist in Washington.
