Announcing our first ever online petition...sign it now!
Yesterday morning, long before most of you were probably even awake, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced the nominees for the 2012 class of inductees. Unfortunately, Al did not make the cut for the eighth year in a row.
The big news is that Guns N' Roses has been nominated in the group's first year of eligibility--and they are generally being regarded as a shoe-in for immediate induction. Al and the band had dressed up as GNR early in the "UHF" music video. Al was also this close to parodying Roses' cover of "Live and Let Die" for the Off the Deep End album as "Chicken Pot Pie," but Paul McCartney reluctantly refused to grant Al permission because of the former Beatle's strong vegetarian beliefs...so the song became a concert-only classic for the better part of the decade.
The only other act to be nominated in its first year of eligibility is hip hop duo Eric B. & Rakim...even though they had never scored a top twenty album or top forty single. Al, meanwhile, has had seven top twenty albums and three top forty singles--because "fame" shouldn't ever be about popularity.
Also noteworthy is that a number of female artists have been nominated for the first time ever after various years of eligibility to justify--err, coincide with the museum's current "Women Who Rock" exhibit. Leading the pack are Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, who are nominated for the first time since first becoming eligible in 2005. Of course, Al famously parodied Joan's biggest hit, "I Love Rock n' Roll," as "I Love Rocky Road," the song that helped get Al signed to Scotti Bros. Records in 1982. Joan was reportedly less than pleased with Al's version (while her management were rather cold to our campaign a few years back), but the song's writer--Jake Hooker--continues to be a supporter of Al's, even signing our first paper petition back in 2004.
Another major female act nominated for the first time is none other than the sisters of Heart, who have been eligible since 2001. In his earliest of days, Al parodied the sisters' "Crazy on You" as "Throw Gravy on You," a part of a food-themed medley called "More Songs About Food" that aired a scant number of times on the live Los Angeles version of The Dr. Demento Show in 1979.
Other artists being nominated for the first time include the Cure (eligible since 2003), blues legend Freddie King (eligible since 1981), Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan (eligible since 1997 with that lineup), the combined lineups of both Small Faces and Faces (eligible under the former since 1990), and the Spinners (eligible since 1986). Museum president Terry Stewart once told us via form letter that one of the problems the Rock Hall nominations face is that there are simply too many eligible acts that haven't been nominated yet. Why would there be such an ever-increasing backlog?
Oh, here's why. Returning nominees this year include Beastie Boys (marking the third year they've been nominated), Donovan (second year in a row), Laura Nyro (third year in a row), Red Hot Chili Peppers (second year), Donna Summer (fourth year), and War (second year). So, sorry eligible acts that have yet to be given a nod, artists who have never had any hits or made any real impact (Nyro) and artists who simply cannot get enough final votes (Summer) need to be nominated again and again year after year instead of you. One thing our campaign prides itself in is that it has yet to really parrot the old "Oh, the Rock Hall is such a fixed, biased thing and this one person has all the say and boo-frickin'-boo-hoo, etc." gripe, but it's really hard to keep our head above the proverbial water when we have to hear about how Laura Nyro is supposedly a bigger and more essential part of the rock and roll genre than the hundreds of mainstream, successful acts yet to receive a nomination.
So at least for our campaign, it's on to 2012. Admittedly, this past year of campaigning was a little on the slow side, as a great deal of attention for us was on getting a distribution deal for our video documentary, Yankoheit 27. It's times like these where we really need the fan base to step up and write and send their heartfelt letters to the Rock Hall Foundation. It should be something a fan would want to do at any time, not just specifically during scheduled campaign "projects."
But as we've announced on our web site main page and on our Facebook page (and really, why haven't you "liked" us yet??), for our next big campaign project we are doing our very first online petition! This isn't something we enter into lightly, as it seems that the Internet is chock full of online petition for causes large and small. It can get downright tiring to see yet another issue that one must type their name and city in to "support." Our campaign had wanted to avoid online petitions for just that very reason. But this is 2011 and we wanted something a little more interactive and "web 2.0-y"; something that can be easily passed around in order to quickly gain support from new fans. And with Al's Alpocalypse album closing with a track called "Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me"...well, the temptation to finally do something that can be forwarded seemed too great.
We've also added an element to make our petition all the more unique and meaningful. Our petition is being hosted on Care2.com, the premier petition site for political, social, and cultural causes. For every 500 signatures our petition receives, Care2's partners at Trees for the Future will plant a tree in a part of the world that sorely needs one, be it in a Third World country or even parts of the United States. It's our little way to offset the real-world physical "damage" huge paper petitions like our last one have done to the environment. It's perhaps the most socially conscious undertaking ever connected to Weird Al's name, and we hope this provides some incentive for fans to want to help and spread the word.
If you haven't signed it yet, please do so now: www.allthingsyank.com/petition
Click the link, sign it, and then pass the URL along to every single person that you know. It really couldn't be any simpler. We'll also need fans to volunteer to spread the word at concerts on Al's currently underway Alpocalypse Tour.
Also, on October 23--Al's birthday--we'll be hosting our Third Annual Make the Rock Hall "Weird" Tweet-In on Twitter, in which we ask Twit-savvy fans to send tweets to the Rock Hall's official Twitter address to urge them to induct Al. Amazingly, our Tweet-In has just been reported on by none other than the Washington Post!
And of course, in December we will be releasing our long-awaited documentary, Yankoheit 27. The DVD will be an exclusive on Amazon, and although we don't have the details ironed out just yet, we MIGHT figure out a really cool way to release it beforehand to allow everyone and anyone to watch it. Stay tuned for that.
But for right now, SIGN THE PETITION...click, sign, forward! Click, sign, forward! Click, sign, forward!
Let's make this our campaign's biggest year ever!