BLABBERMOUTH.NET
JUDAS PRIEST is trailing
Eminem,
DURAN DURAN,
Pat Benatar,
Dolly Parton,
EURYTHMICS and
Lionel Richie in the fan vote for this year's
Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction class.
More than one million votes have already been cast since voting began. Now through April 29, fans can vote every day through the
Hall Of Fame's
web site. The top five artists, as selected by the public, will comprise a "fans' ballot" that will be tallied along with the other ballots to select the 2022 inductees.
As of earlier today,
Eminem received 141,432 votes;
DURAN DURAN 118,593;
Pat Benatar 112,091;
Dolly Parton 95,339;
EURYTHMICS 72,543;
Lionel Richie 66,853; and
JUDAS PRIEST 64,900.
To be eligible for this year's ballot, each nominee's first single or album had to have been released in 1996 or earlier.
Inductees will be announced in May 2022. The
Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame 2022 induction ceremony will take place this fall. The date, venue, and on-sale information will be announced later.
According to the
Hall Of Fame, the
JUDAS PRIEST members that would get inducted would include current members
Rob Halford (vocals),
Ian Hill (bass),
Glenn Tipton (guitar) and
Scott Travis (drums), along with former members
K.K. Downing (guitar),
Les Binks (drums) and late drummer
Dave Holland.
JUDAS PRIEST was previously on the ballot for
Rock Hall induction in 2020, but failed to receive enough votes to make that year's class.
Having been eligible for induction since 1999,
PRIEST was also on the ballot for the 2018 class of the
Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, but was ultimately left out of the inductee list.
Back in October 2020,
Halford said that the heavy metal genre "hasn't been respected enough" by the
Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Asked in an interview with
Word In Your Ear if he was "bothered" by the fact that
PRIEST hasn't been inducted into the
Rock Hall yet,
Halford said: "Well, let's put it this way. You have all of these institutions here in America — you've got the
Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame for music; you've got the
Basketball Hall Of Fame; you've got the
Baseball Hall Of Fame;
Football — you've got all of these places where, I think essentially, it's just a really nice, cool recognition of what you've done, the work that you've done and the things that you've achieved, the place that you've been put at, and so on and so forth.
"So, am I bothered if we ever get in? Not really. But I think we do deserve to be in there. Because I look at the list of people that are in there, and I feel that we have a place. And it would not only be for
JUDAS PRIEST — it would be for British music, particularly British heavy metal music, and that's a beautiful achievement. [
BLACK]
SABBATH are in there, which is great. But I've always said that as far as what the
Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame represents, the genre of heavy metal music hasn't really been looked after enough and respected enough.
"So, I'd like to feel that eventually we will get in."
Even though artists are eligible for the
Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame 25 years after the release of their first album or single, iconic hard rock and metal bands like
PRIEST,
IRON MAIDEN and
MOTÖRHEAD have yet to be recognized by the institution, which inducted
GUNS N' ROSES in that group's first year of eligibility.
The
Rock Hall didn't induct
BLACK SABBATH until 2006, and
METALLICA followed three years later.
Rock Hall rules state that artists become eligible a quarter century after their first records were released, but the
Hall also claims that other "criteria include the influence and significance of the artists' contributions to the development and perpetuation of rock 'n' roll," which is, of course, open to interpretation.
Eligible for induction since 1999,
KISS didn't get its first nomination until 2009, and was finally inducted in 2014.
DEEP PURPLE was eligible for the
Rock Hall since 1993 but didn't get inducted until 2016.
After the 2020
Rock Hall inductees were announced in January of that year,
JUDAS PRIEST guitarist
Richie Faulkner said that it made no sense that
DEPECHE MODE,
Whitney Houston,
NINE INCH NAILS and
Biggie Smalls were going into the
Rock Hall before
PRIEST. "Hence why the
Rock Hall holds no credibility for me and never has," he tweeted.