The mayor of Cleveland announced today that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will return to Cleveland for the 2009 event after a 12 year absence. If all goes well, it could return every three years.

It was promised in 1997 that the ceremony would return to Cleveland regularly as a part of a rotation that would include New York, Los Angeles, and London. Obviously this never happened since the ceremony has been held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York every year except for the one year Cleveland hosted (and L.A. hosted in 1993).

You can check out a list of artists who will be newly eligible in 2008 (for the '09 inductions) right here.

Update:

When [Rock Hall Museum President Terry] Stewart was asked if the inductions were guaranteed to come to Cleveland every three years, he said having future ceremonies here would be contingent upon the success of the 2009 event.

He quickly was interrupted by the mayor.

"It is guaranteed," [Cleveland Mayer Frank] Jackson said. "We intend to make this work. . . . It will be here in '12 and it'll be here in '15 and it'll be here in '18 . . . I want you to understand: It is going to happen. It will work."

Stewart didn't argue the point.

Holding the ceremony in Cleveland every year would be impractical because many record companies and other key Rock Hall benefactors are based in New York, [Rock Hall Foundation President Joel] Peresman said.

"We need to be able to have it there to get their support," Peresman said. "We're talking about the businesses and we're talking about the corporations that have supported the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame from the beginning."

For 20 of the past 22 years, the ceremony was held in New York. Besides the temporary move to Cleveland a decade ago, the inductions were held in Los Angeles in 1993.

For future ceremonies, the foundation isn't looking beyond New York or Cleveland, Peresman said.

The gala here tentatively is scheduled for a Saturday night in March 2009, although the venue has not been chosen. The Rock Hall plans to reveal more details in the spring.

The 2008 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees were announced today. Congratulations to Madonna, Leonard Cohen, John Mellencamp, The Ventures, and The Dave Clark Five. They will all be honored at the induction ceremony in New York City on March 10, 2008. Much more on the 2008 winners here.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will announce today the five artists who will be enshrined in Cleveland in 2008. As you know by now, the nominees are Afrika Bambaataa, the Beastie Boys, Chic, Leonard Cohen, The Dave Clark Five, Madonna, John Mellencamp, Donna Summer, and The Ventures. Mellencamp and The Ventures have claimed to have already received word they will be inducted.

Keep checking the 2008 Inductees page for the latest updates and news.

According to seattlepi.com, The Ventures are a 2008 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee. Bandleader Don Wilson said the band received an email from the Rock Hall saying, "The Ventures are definitely in."

The official announcement of the 2008 Inductees is tomorrow.

Future Rock Hall predicts the 2008 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees will be:

• John Mellencamp: Even before Mellencamp himself leaked his own induction last week, he was the runaway leader in the Future Rock Hall poll, landing on 81% of the ballots.
• Madonna: The biggest superstar on the 2008 ballot was likely an easy choice for Rock Hall voters. Madonna will become one of the elite "first ballot Hall of Famers" if she's enshrined in this her first eligible year. Future Rock Hall voters placed her on 75% of their ballots.
• Beastie Boys: In recent years, the Nominating Committee has demonstrated an eagerness to include hip hop in the Rock Hall. There are few rappers who can match the Beastie Boys musical diversity and sustained popularity. Future Rock Hall voters didn't show any hesitancy in enshrining them before some of the other pioneers of hip hop, earning 68% of the votes.
• Leonard Cohen: One of the surprise 2008 nominees, Leonard Cohen will likely be inducted after receiving his first nomination since becoming eligible 15 years ago. Cohen's appearance on the ballot was undoubtedly championed by influential Nominating Committee member Anthony DeCurtis, who as a "Cohen devotee," was commissioned last year to write liner notes for reissues of Cohen's first three albums. In the Future Rock Hall poll, Cohen finished sixth, with 53% of the vote.
• Donna Summer: Even though she has been eligible since 1999, this is Donna Summer's first appearance on the Rock Hall ballot and it will likely be her last. If the official results mirror those of Future Rock Hall, she should be one of the top five vote getters. She was voted in on 60% of the ballots.

Over 2200 Future Rock Hall voters cast their ballots in the 2008 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame poll. The top five vote getters are John Mellencamp, Madonna, the Beastie Boys, the Dave Clark Five, and Donna Summer. [Last year, FRH voters accurately predicted four out of the five inductees.] The poll results are just one of the factors that go into Future Rock Hall's induction forecast, but there is agreement on four out of five (will the fifth spot go to Leonard Cohen or the DC5?).

Even though Future Rock Hall is predicting the other four nominees won't make the cut in 2008, it isn't difficult to make a case for their induction: The Dave Clark Five were at the center of the 2007 voting controversy, suggesting they were just a few votes short of induction; The Ventures may appeal to older voters who want to recognize the 60's instrumental rock kings; Chic have been on the ballot four times now, the most of any of the 2008 nominees; and Afrika Bambaataa is an historic figure in the birth of hip hop.

The official results will be announced by the Rock Hall on December 13th. Keep checking Future Rock Hall for all of the latest 2008 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame news.

For the past couple of years, the good folks over at A List of Things Thrown Together Five Minutes Ago (ALLOT5MA) have been grading various artists' Rock Hall credentials using a method adapted from baseball analysis. The original Keltner list was developed by the brilliant baseball analyst Bill James to help determine which baseball players deserve to be in Cooperstown. ALOTT5MA adapted the list of questions for the Rock Hall (shown here from their analysis of Metallica):

1. Was Metallica ever regarded as the best artist in rock music? Did anybody, while Metallica was active, ever suggest that Metallica was the best artist in rock music?
2. Was Metallica ever the best artist in rock music in its genre?
3. Was Metallica ever considered the best at its instruments?
4. Did Metallica have an impact on a number of other bands?
5. Was Metallica good enough that it could play regularly after passing its prime?
6. Is Metallica the very best artist in history that is not in the Hall of Fame?
7. Are most bands who have a comparable recording history and impact in the Hall of Fame?
8. Is there any evidence to suggest that Metallica was significantly better or worse than is suggested by its statistical records?
9. Is Metallica the best artist in its genre that is eligible for the Hall of Fame?
10. How many #1 singles/gold records did Metallica have? Did Metallica ever win a Grammy award? If not, how many times was Metallica nominated?
11. How many Grammy-level songs/albums did Metallica have? For how long of a period did Metallica dominate the music scene? How many Rolling Stone covers did Metallica appear on? Did most of the bands with this sort of impact go into the Hall of Fame?
12. If Metallica were the best band at a concert, would it be likely that the concert would rock?
13. What impact did Metallica have on rock history? Was it responsible for any stylistic changes? Did it introduce any new equipment? Did it change history in any way?
14. Did the band uphold the standards of sportsmanship and character that the Hall of Fame, in its written guidelines, instructs us to consider?

Obviously not every question can be answered objectively (and thus won't provide definitive answers), but it does provide a useful guide when trying to figure out the worthiness of artists who may be on the bubble.

Check out their analysis of Donna Summer (yes), Madonna (absolutely), Chic (no), Duran Duran (yes), John Mellencamp (bubble, but yes), The Replacements (yes), Depeche Mode (no), Phil Collins (no), and of course, Rush (no). You can browse all of those and more right here. Hopefully the actual Rock Hall voters give as much thought into their choices as these guys do.

Just days after John Mellencamp leaked his own induction, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame moved up its official announcement of the 2008 Inductees by a month to Thursday, December 13th. It is then that we'll find out who will take the remaining four slots in the 2008 class.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer's John Soeder also reports there will be inductees in the Non-Performer and Sidemen categories, which haven't been given out since 2003. No word on whether or not there will be a Lifetime Achievement recipient this year.

The 2008 Rock Hall Induction Ceremony will be held March 10th at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. Presumably, AOL's spinner.com will be webcasting the ceremony once again, but that hasn't been announced yet.

The 2008 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ballots were due in New York on November 26th, and we know that John Mellencamp will be enshrined into the Hall, but this year some outspoken voters have protested the selection of nominees by not voting at all. Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle music critic, decided not to send in his ballot this year for the first time. Jon Bream, another Rock Hall voter from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, could only bring himself to vote for Madonna and no one else.

What is going on here? There was clearly a growing animosity towards the Rock Hall shortly after the nominees were announced in September, but rock fans have been complaining about the process for years without generating a revolt among the insiders. Selvin, himself a former Nominating Committee member, writes:

Over and over again, the elitist committee of 50 record company executives and rock critics who do the nominating come up with a list that reflects their East Coast, intellectual biases, and, year after year, the voting body of FM radio disc jockeys picks the most mainstream possible candidates and votes them in. Hence James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Bob Seger, Jackson Browne ...

If enough voters send in blank ballots, or don't vote at all, perhaps the Nominating Committee will get the message that placing only nine artists on the ballot for five slots just isn't enough choice.

Both Selvin and Bream list artists they would have liked to have had the chance to vote for this year. (Check out Future Rock Hall's list of eligible artists here.)

Joel Selvin's list: "Steve Miller, Kiss, Iggy Pop, T. Rex, Joan Jett, Jeff Beck, Tom Waits, Burt Bacharach, Ben E. King, Yes, Genesis (Peter Gabriel, too), Doobie Brothers, Roxy Music, Metallica, Neil Diamond, Todd Rundgren, Ry Cooder, Albert King, Billy Preston, et cetera, et cetera."

Jon Bream's list: "Neil Diamond, Kiss, Tom Waits, Alice Cooper, Linda Ronstadt, the Doobie Brothers, Genesis, Roxy Music, Jeff Beck, Steve Miller, Moody Blues, Hall & Oates, Rush and the Replacements, to name a few."