Kraftwerk, Green Day, N.W.A among Rock Hall nominees

The 15 nominees for next year’s Rock Hall of Fame induction have been announced with a few entries already raising eyebrows.

Nine Inch Nails, The Smiths, Bill Withers and Green Day have been nominated for the first time, with Green Day nominated in its first year of eligibility (acts are eligible years after releasing their first single or album and no later than 1989).

German synth outfit Kraftwerk, seminal hip-hop collective N.W.A., blues artist Stevie Ray Vaughan, Sting, whose band The Police were indicted in 2003, and Motown group The Marvelettes are also nominated.

“Rock and roll incorporates the styles of so many different kinds of music and that’s what makes this group of nominees – and this art form – so powerful and unique,” justifies Joel Peresman, President and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation.

However the late Lou Reed, who was inducted in 1996 with the Velvet Underground, is the top pick for music critics.

“This nomination acknowledges not just the significance of his solo career, but the huge influence he exerted on younger generations of artists, which became movingly clear with the outpouring of grief around the world after his death,” said Rolling Stone contributing editor and autobiographer Anthony DeCurtis.

Inductees are chosen by an assembly of more than 700 artists, historians and music-industry professionals; the public can vote via RollingStone.com and RockHall.com before December 9. Their top five artists will be included in a fans’ ballot, which when drawn counts as one single vote.

The induction ceremony will be held in Cleveland on April 18 2015.

View the full list of Rock Hall nominees below

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
The racially mixed Paul Butterfield Blues Band blasted off from the Windy City with a wall-of-sound fueled by Butterfield’s inspired harmonica and lead guitarist Mike Bloom­field’s explosive lead guitar – at that moment, American rock and roll collided with the real South­side Chicago blues and there was no turning back.

Chic
Chic’s founding partnership consisted of songwriter-producer-guitarist Nile Rodgers and bassist Bernard Edwards (1952-1996), abetted by future Power Station drummer Tony Thompson (1954-2003). They rescued disco in 1977 with a combination of groove, soul and distinctly New York City studio smarts.

Green Day
Fueled by the manically prolific imagination of lyricist, guitarist and lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong, Green Day are the perennial punk adolescents, true to the ethos of every basement and garage-rock band that preceded them.

Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts created a potent mix of hard rock, glam, punk, metal and garage rock that sounds fresh and relevant in any era. Their biggest hit, “I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll” (Number One in 1982) is a rock classic – as pure and simple a statement about the music’s power as Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven.” The honesty and power of their records make you believe that rock and roll can change the world. As Jett once described rock and roll: “It’s a feeling thing, it’s emotion. You don’t think about it. If you start thinking rock ‘n’ roll, you’re fucked. That’s when you’re homogenized. That’s when it’s boring. And that’s when it’s bullshit.”

Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk is the foundation upon which all synthesizer-based rock and roll and electronic dance music is built. Founded in Düsseldorf in 1970 by the band’s two core members, Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider, the group was a part of a new wave of musicians in Germany collectively referred to as Kosimsche Musik (cosmic music) who explored the intersection of rock and roll and the avant-garde.

The Marvelettes
Though they were overshadowed at Motown by the much longer-lived Supremes and Martha and the Vandellas, nevertheless the plaintive girl group harmonies of the Marvelettes – the original foursome of Gladys Horton, Katherine Anderson, Georgeanna Tillman and Wanda Young – deserve their rightful spot in rock history.

N.W.A.
N.W.A is one of the most important groups in hip-hop history. Their aggressive, boundary smashing, don’t-give-a-fuck perspective was made clear by their name, which stands for Niggaz Wit Attitude. Their most famous single was “Fuck The Police,” a minimalist classic that described the frustration and anger young black men felt toward the LAPD, years before the Rodney King riots broke out. Some call them the Beatles of hip-hop because of their massive influence, sonic power and their place as a launching pad for several critical solo careers.

Nine Inch Nails
Trent Reznor is a study in contradictions: a self-described “computer dweeb” with sharply defined biceps; he makes music that juxtaposes the brutal and delicate, chaos and order, nihilistic despair and spiritual rapture. With Nine Inch Nails he has taken the sounds and sights of transgressive art — monkey messiahs, shiny boots of leather, serial killers — into the mainstream, transmuting alienation into community.

Lou Reed
With the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed created music that ranked him among the Beatles and Bob Dylan in terms of both importance and influence. Every alternative movement that arose from the late 60s until his death in 2013 – from punk to grunge and beyond – owed Reed an essential debt.

The Smiths
The Smiths lasted only five years (1983-87), releasing four extraordinary studio albums, yet the tentacles of their influence remain strong even today.

The Spinners
One of the world’s most beloved R&B vocal groups, the Spinners were a hit-making machine at Atlantic Records, where they came to define the Philadelphia Sound that dominated pop and urban radio and dance clubs in the 70s.

Sting
More than three decades into his eminently successful career as a solo artist, Gordon Sumner AKA Sting remains as committed to his music as he is to the many social activist causes he supports.

Stevie Ray Vaughan
The singer and guitarist, whose life was cut short by a helicopter accident in 1990, invoked the awe of collaborators David Bowie, Jeff Beck and B.B. King. The studio and live LPs released during the last seven years of his life etched SRV into Stratocaster immortality and influenced the next generation of blues guitarists.

War
War broke out in the late 60s, when interracial Los Angeles audiences welcomed the band’s steamy mix of blues and soul, rock and R&B, built on a strong Afro-Latin foundation, similar to Santana’s recipe.

Bill Withers
In a recording career that lasted only 15 years, Bill Withers mastered the vocabularies of the acoustic singer-songwriter, R&B, disco and even mainstream jazz, while maintaining a distinctive personality as a composer and vocalist.