2022 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees Include Eminem, Dolly Parton

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has announced its 2022 class of inductees, and it’s sure to irritate purists with a strict definition of “rock”: Eminem, Dolly Parton, Duran Duran, Lionel Richie, Pat Benatar, Eurythmics and Carly Simon will be inducted this year in the Performers category.

Beyond that, as Rolling Stone reports, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, as well as Judas Priest, will receive the Musical Excellence Award; Harry Belafonte and Elizabeth Cotten will be honored with the Early Influence Award; and attorney Allen Grubman, producer Jimmy Iovine and Sugar Hill Records founder Sylvia Robinson will each be presented with the Ahmet Ertegun Award.

“This diverse group of inductees each had a profound impact on the sound of youth culture and helped change the course of rock & roll,” John Sykes, Chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, said in a statement. “Their music moved generations and influenced so many artists that followed.”

Looking at the list of this year’s inductees, it’s obvious that they are indeed diverse — so much so that only a handful could really be classified as rock artists. Dolly Parton herself initially politely declined her nomination on the grounds that she doesn’t make rock music, but the legendary country singer later changed her mind.

“It was always my belief that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame was for people in rock music,” she recently told NPR. “I have found out lately it’s not necessarily that. But if they can’t go there to be recognized, where can they go? And so I felt like I was taking away from someone that maybe deserved it certainly more than me since I never considered myself a rock artist. But obviously, there’s more to it than that.”

If you ask us, all this is further proof that it’s time for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to change its name to something more reflective of the diverse group of artists it contains. What’s wrong with simply the Music Hall of Fame?

This year’s induction ceremony will be held on Nov. 5 at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. It will air on a later, yet-to-be-announced date on HBO and HBO Max.