Courtney Love has publicly called out the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for its dismal proportion of women inductees, with some help from her once-private communication of the same sentiment to Dave Grohl.
With the hashtag #FixTheRockAndRollHallOfFame, Love shared music critic Jessica Hopper's tweet criticizing the organization for boasting about its Women's History Month programming in celebration of "#WomenWhoRock." The musician applauded Hopper for doing the math, reiterating her calculations that, in its 37 years of existence, women have made up only 61 (8.48 percent) of 719 Rock Hall inductees.
Musicians are eligible to be nominated for induction only 25 years after their first release, and Love further pointed out that Foo Fighters "were nominated 4 secs later," while the likes of Nina Simone and Carole King took an additional five years each into their eligibility window to be nominated — something she also expressed in a text to Grohl, of which she included a screenshot in the tweet.
"Have fun at Rock Hall Dave," she wrote. "Make sure and hold the seats of Tina Turner & Carole King, both who have been eligible for over 30 years!" Foo Fighters were nominated — and consequently immediately inducted as first-time nominees — into the Rock Hall in 2021, the same year Turner and King finally made it in.
With the hashtag #FixTheRockAndRollHallOfFame, Love shared music critic Jessica Hopper's tweet criticizing the organization for boasting about its Women's History Month programming in celebration of "#WomenWhoRock." The musician applauded Hopper for doing the math, reiterating her calculations that, in its 37 years of existence, women have made up only 61 (8.48 percent) of 719 Rock Hall inductees.
Musicians are eligible to be nominated for induction only 25 years after their first release, and Love further pointed out that Foo Fighters "were nominated 4 secs later," while the likes of Nina Simone and Carole King took an additional five years each into their eligibility window to be nominated — something she also expressed in a text to Grohl, of which she included a screenshot in the tweet.
"Have fun at Rock Hall Dave," she wrote. "Make sure and hold the seats of Tina Turner & Carole King, both who have been eligible for over 30 years!" Foo Fighters were nominated — and consequently immediately inducted as first-time nominees — into the Rock Hall in 2021, the same year Turner and King finally made it in.
Hopper's original tweet drew attention to the fact that 8.48 percent is even worse than some other very sad contemporaneous women in music statistics, including women-on-country-radio numbers (10 percent) and the number of women headlining major festivals (13 percent).
She added that women artists languish past their eligibility year for induction by 18 years on average — a statistic driven up by the likes of Simone, King, Dolly Parton and Joan Baez all taking 30-plus years to be inducted after they became eligible.
Scrolling this inductee tracker https://t.co/UGksRvJg8D I did v rough math. The avg number of years women artists languish PAST their eligibility year for induction is around 18 YEARS. That Nina Simone, Carole King, Dolly, Joan Baez all took 30+ years drives that up.👀
— Jessica Hopper (@jesshopp) March 10, 2023
Parton was among last year's Rock Hall inductees, which also included Eminem, Duran Duran, Lionel Richie, Carly Simon, Eurythmics and Pat Benatar. Of this year's 14-act nomination pool, there are five women: Kate Bush, Missy Elliott, Meg White (the White Stripes), Cyndi Lauper and Sheryl Crow.
