Geddy Lee of Rush performs in front of a crowd of close to 100,000 fans on July 15, 2010 as part of the Quebec Summer Festival in Quebec City.Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press
As usual, the announcement of the new class of inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame draws attention to the artists excluded, along with the ones soon to be enshrined. We have some ideas on which musicians deserve a future invitation to that mammoth glass pyramid on the Cleveland shore.
In: Guns N' Roses
Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone magazine are still hating Rush, unaccountably. Don't make us come down there and have Geddy Lee scream in your ear – the banshee-voiced Torontonian makes Axl Rose sound like a dove cooing in comparison.
In: Red Hot Chili Peppers
We're okay with the funk-rocking Californians, but, please, give it away, give it away, give it away now to Deep Purple, the proggy rockers who invented "dun dun DUN, dun dun DUN NUN / dun dun DUN, dun dunnnnn."
In: Beastie Boys
Nothing against the punky New York rappers, but the hip-hop legends of Public Enemy are more deserving. But just as a nation of millions couldn't hold back Chuck D and company in 1988, the hall of fame voters will be seeing the light soon enough.
In: Laura Nyro
While we have no quarrel with the soulful songstress Nyro, there's an argument to be made for Linda Ronstadt. Yes, Chuck Berry wrote Rock and Roll Music, but nobody sang it better than the lady on the roller skates – "It's gotta be Ronstadt music, if you wanna dance with me."
In: Small Faces/Faces
An awkward double enshrinement, given that the British bands shared members but not styles. It would make just as much sense to retroactively add Blind Faith to Cream's 1993 induction. And how about New Order and Joy Division?
In: Donovan
Hippie-dippie mister Mellow Yellow makes it ahead of the folk icons Odetta and Canada's Bruce Cockburn? If we had a rocket launcher, we'd make the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame pay.
Brad Wheeler