Cher and Dave Matthews Band Among 2024 Rock Hall of Fame Inductees
And they’re part of one of the largest induction classes ever.
We don’t need no hateration or holleration when we tell you the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced its inductees for the 2024 class, with eight acts making the final cut from the shortlist: Mary J. Blige, Cher, Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Kool & the Gang, Ozzy Osbourne, and A Tribe Called Quest. While that octet encompasses the standard Performers category, the class doubles in size due to the inclusion of various backdoor inductees. Alexis Korner, John Mayall, and Big Mama Thornton are being recognized with the Musical Influence Award; Jimmy Buffett, MC5, Dionne Warwick, and Norman Whitfield have been tapped for the Musical Excellence Award; and Suzanne de Passe is receiving the nonperforming Ahmet Ertegun Award. That’s 16 names in total — definitely not 4 — making this one of the largest Rock Hall induction classes ever. The ceremony will occur October 19 in its Cleveland homeland and will once again be livestreamed on Disney+. A prime-time special is also set to air on ABC at a later date.
Most of this year’s genre-kaleidoscopic performers have actively campaigned for their Rock Hall inductions. Most conspicuously, Foreigner utilized Mick Jones’s stepson, Mark Ronson, to enlist a bevy of famous musicians in support of the band. (We’re not being immodest: Even Paul McCartney got involved.) Kool & the Gang rolled out similar video testimonials from peers and collaborators. Frampton, Blige, Dave Matthews Band, and Osbourne — who now joins the illustrious two-timers club as a solo artist and a Black Sabbath member — have also heavily encouraged followers to participate in the Rock Hall’s fan vote on their behalf. “I’ll definitely be doing some ‘please vote for me’ stuff on social media,” Frampton told us in February. “I’ve had criticisms of the decisions of who should be nominated.”
The lone wolf in the pack is none other than Cher, who firmly stated in 2023, “I wouldn’t be in it now if they gave me a million dollars” and that the organization “can just go you-know-what themselves.” (Start making bets if she’ll reverse course and show up now that it’s free of certain co-founding scourges.) Additionally, Dave Matthews Band’s induction comes four years after their infamous fan-vote win snub. Despite winning the vote by a substantial margin, the band was left out of the 2020 class, which served as the first (and only) time such a winner wasn’t inducted the same year. Matthews went on to joke he would become the Rock Hall’s parallel to soap star Susan Lucci. But, like his little ant friends, he just kept marching on to glory.
Related