Chrissie Hynde has joined in the conversation about the inclusivity / diversity of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame honour roll by dismissing the institution as "total bollocks."
Hynde's band, The Pretenders, were inducted into the Rock Hall in 2005.
Earlier this month, US music journalist Jessica Hopper and Courtney Love initiated a conversation about inclusion in the institution, pointing out that women musicians are seriously under-represented, making up only 8.48% of the membership. Hopper called out the disparity as "fucking grim".
Yesterday, March 17, The Guardian published an Op Ed by Love titled Why are women so marginalised by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? with a strapline reading 'The canon-making doesn’t just reek of sexist gatekeeping, but also purposeful ignorance and hostility.'
"You can write the Rock Hall off as a 'boomer tomb' and argue that it is building a totem to its own irrelevance," Love wrote. "{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 honour or want to spit on it. It is still game recognising game, history made and marked.
"The Rock Hall is a king-making force in the global music industry."
Hynde later took to Facebook to share her own thoughts on the matter.
"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."
Speaking about her own induction, she added:
"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 bollocks,” she signed off. "It’s absolutely nothing to do with rock ‘n’ roll and anyone who thinks it is is a fool."
The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame has yet to issue a response on the topic.
