Madonna Entombed In Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame

Madonna might not be rock, or especially roll, but she is fame - and one in three's all you need to get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame these days.

Last night, Madonna was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with other young upstarts like The Dave Clark Five, John Mellencamp, Leonard Cohen, The Ventures and Little Walter. But Madonna was the real Rock and Roll Hall of Fame headline-grabber, because she's one of the only inductees ever to still be as iconic and popular and relevant as ever at the time of her induction.

So, yeah, Madonna's got all the money and fame and influence and spots in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but can she say she's the 45th most powerful blog in the world according to a Sunday newspaper? No. No she cannot.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame gets an awful lot of attention for what's basically a ropey old tourist trap that effectively celebrates the gradual loss of artistic merit that comes with age and has a set of needlessly complicated admission procedures.

Every year, like clockwork, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees will be scrutinised for their perceived level of rock and roll credibility against a set of non-inductees. For instance, The Stooges aren't in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but The Ronettes are. Does that mean that The Ronettes are more rock and roll than Iggy Pop? And now Madonna is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame too. Is it rock and roll to be a rollerskating granny in a nauseating leotard?

It doesn't matter now, because Madonna is now a stone-cold part of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and so everything Madonna has ever done is now officially rock and roll. That's right - starring in Andrew Lloyd-Webber musicals about sad Argentinians, forcing Willem Dafoe to perform cunnilingus on you in a car park, having arms that look like human scrotums stuffed with live eels and being married to Guy Ritchie are all now undeniably rock and roll.

And, according to the New York Times, Madonna - having been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Justin Timberlake - decided to use the opportunity to spread a message of peace. Well, OK, not exactly peace:

Madonna, calling herself a “control freak,” … started one of the longest speeches given at any Hall of Fame ceremony. Among the people she thanked were naysayers: “The ones that said I was talentless, that I was chubby, that I couldn’t sing, that I was a one-hit wonder,” she said. “They pushed me to be better, and I am grateful for their resistance.”

Great. Maybe she'll give us a cut of her fortune as a thank-you, then. The big no-talent, one-hit-wonder, sausage monkey.

Although there's been a bit of a stir that Madonna was whisked through the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's labyrinthine nomination process first time round while other, arguably more influential, artists are left out time and time again, it's probably for the best. Because if Madonna's new album Hard Candy is all as rubbish as that leaked Four Minutes single of hers, then Madonna will be lucky to get into any Hall Of Fame that isn't exclusively for middle aged ladies who still think it's OK to dress like teenagers from now on.

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Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inducts Madonna - New York Times