Courtney Love and Chrissie Hynde have spoken out to criticize the lack of women and diversity in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The museum, located in Cleveland, Ohio, documents the most notable figures in rock music, and has existed since 1983.
It has faced criticism over the years for several reasons, including the selection process not being transparent enough or being made by non-musicians, as well as debate over who is inducted and if there are too many inductions.
Love and Hynde are the latest stars to speak out to condemn the lack of diversity and the low number of female rock stars that have been inducted into the coveted Hall of Fame.
Love, who is best known as the lead singer of Hole, wrote an impassioned op-ed in the Guardian pointing out just how much harder female stars have to work to gain recognition in the "boys club" environment of rock and roll music.
Referencing Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who recorded her hit song 'Strange Things Happen Every Day' but didn't get inducted to Rock Hall until it was "publicly shamed" into including her in 2018 and the fact that just 8.48 percent of those recognized being female at all, Love called out the selection process.
She explained: "Why are women so marginalized by the Rock Hall? Of the 31 people on the nominating board, just nine are women. According to the music historian Evelyn McDonnell, the Rock Hall voters, among them musicians and industry elites, are 90% male."
Love added: "You can write the Rock Hall off as a 'boomer tomb' and argue that it is building a totem to its own irrelevance. Why should we care who is in and who is not? But as scornful as its inductions have been, the Rock Hall is a bulwark against erasure, which every female artist faces whether they long for the honor or want to spit on it. It is still game recognizing game, history made and marked."
The singer also referenced the speed at which male stars have tended to be inducted - as soon as they are eligible, 25 years into their career - while female and non-white stars have seemingly been made to wait decades longer to receive the same accolade.
"If so few women are being inducted into the Rock Hall, then the nominating committee is broken. If so few Black artists, so few women of color, are being inducted, then the voting process needs to be overhauled," Love suggested. "Music is a lifeforce that is constantly evolving – and they can’t keep up. Shame on HBO for propping up this farce.
"If the Rock Hall is not willing to look at the ways it is replicating the violence of structural racism and sexism that artists face in the music industry, if it cannot properly honor what visionary women artists have created, innovated, revolutionized and contributed to popular music – well, then let it go to hell in a handbag."
Hynde, the lead singer of The Pretenders, also concurred with Love, sharing her own statement on the matter on her official Facebook account.
She wrote: "If anyone wants my position in the rock ‘n’ roll Hall of Fame they are welcome to it. I don’t even wanna be associated with it. It’s just more establishment backslapping. I got in a band so I didn’t have to be part of all that.
"I was living a happy life in Rio when I got the call I was being inducted. My heart sank because I knew I’d have to go back for it as it would be too much of a kick in the teeth to my parents if I didn’t. I’d upset them enough by then, so it was one of those things that would bail me out from years of disappointing them. (like moving out of the USA and being arrested at PETA protests and my general personality).
"Other than Neil Young’s participation in the induction process, the whole thing was, and is, total b*****ks.
It’s absolutely nothing to do with rock ‘n’ roll and anyone who thinks it is is a fool."
Inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2023 will be announced in May with the ceremonies taking place in the autumn.
Here's hoping we see fairer representation for females and artists of color this year.
