Written by Jon Williams
Last week
the 2019 slate of inductees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was announced.
This year’s class comprises seven bands and solo acts: Stevie Nicks, Janet
Jackson, Def Leppard, the Cure, Radiohead, Roxy Music, and the Zombies. The
induction ceremony will be held on Friday, March 29, 2019, at the Barclays
Center in Brooklyn, New York. Here is a brief look at each of the acts joining
the ranks of the Hall’s famous and influential members.
Stevie
Nicks is the first woman to be inducted twice, as she is already included
as a member of the band
Fleetwood
Mac, inducted in 1998. Her solo career, which is being honored this
time around, began with the release of the album
Bella
Donna in 1981. Driven by the hit “Edge of Seventeen” as well as
collaborations with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (“Stop Draggin’ My Heart
Around”) and Don Henley (“Leather and Lace”), it hit number one on Billboard’s
album chart. Since then, she has continued to tour and record with Fleetwood
Mac while maintaining a stellar solo career as well, releasing eight studio
albums under her own name, most recently
24
Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault in 2014.
Janet
Jackson will take her place in the Hall alongside her famous brothers as a
member of this year’s class—the Jackson 5 were inducted in 1997, and Michael
Jackson joined as a solo artist in 2001. From an obviously musical family,
Janet’s entrance into the world of entertainment actually started with acting.
Still, she couldn’t escape the world of music, beginning her recording career
as a teenager. Her breakout came with her third album,
Control,
released in 1986, shortly before her 20
th birthday. She has gone on
to record eleven albums, with the most recent being 2015’s
Unbreakable.
Def
Leppard was one of the biggest rock bands in the world in the 1980s, but
they have refused to be defined or constrained by the “hair metal” label. Forming
in the late ‘70s, their debut album
On
Through the Night came out in 1980.
Pyromania
(1983) and
Hysteria
(1987) were two of the biggest albums of the decade, dominating the charts and
spawning a number of singles. The band suffered through such tragedies as
drummer Rick Allen losing his left arm in a car accident and the passing of
guitarist Steve Clark, and their star dimmed as pop metal declined in
popularity as grunge ascended. Nevertheless, they have persevered, continuing
to tour and record to this day. Their latest album, the self-titled
Def
Leppard, came out in 2015.
The
Cure formed around the same time and have undergone a number of lineup
changes in their forty-plus years, with frontman Robert Smith being the only
constant member. Their debut album, 1979’s
Three
Imaginary Boys, kicked off a rather prolific career that saw them
release thirteen albums in thirty years, culminating in 2008’s
4:13 Dream (currently unavailable).
While the Cure has not released an album since then, the band has been touring,
and there are plans to record and release new music in 2019 in celebration of
the fortieth anniversary of their debut.
Radiohead is
the “newest” act of this group, forming in 1985 and bursting onto the scene
with the single “Creep” in 1992. That landed on their 1993 debut album
Pablo
Honey, the first of their nine albums, the newest of which is 2016’s
A
Moon Shaped Pool. The band has continued to experiment and evolve
throughout their career and the accolades have followed, winning the Grammy
Award for Best Alternative Music Album three times. Their most recent release
is a
20th
anniversary edition of their 1997 album
OK
Computer with new tracks, and members Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke
have also gained acclaim in the world of film music.
Roxy
Music is a highly influential art rock band that came together in 1970 and
released their self-titled
debut
album in 1972. Their recording career lasted just ten years, but they put
out eight albums in that time, the last being
Avalon
in 1982. Since then, the band has been an on-again off-again venture, with the
individual members often contributing to lead singer
Bryan
Ferry’s solo albums. That was the case with 2010’s
Olympia (currently unavailable), originally conceived as a Roxy
Music album and even featuring
Brian
Eno for the first time since 1973’s
For
Your Pleasure, but eventually released under Ferry’s name.
The
Zombies are the oldest act joining the Hall in 2019, forming in 1961. The band
put out just two albums in the 1960s—their
1965
debut and 1968’s
Odessey
and Oracle. They disbanded around the time of that second album’s
release and didn’t reunite until 1991, when they recorded the album
New World (currently unavailable) and
then split again. Singer Colin Blunstone and keyboardist Rod Argent got back
together in 1999 and have continued to tour and record since, with their most
recent album being 2015’s
Still
Got That Hunger.
In 2019
these musicians will cement their legendary status as they join the ranks of
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and your music-loving patrons will want to
discover or re-discover their catalogs. Make sure you have plenty of their
incredible tunes available—use the links above or SmartBrowse on our website to
find their albums as well as concert films and other related media we have
available.