E Pluribus Unum

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame unveiled its 2007 class of inductees Monday:

• R.E.M. -- check.
  
• Van Halen -- check.
  
• Grandmaster Flash -- check.
  
• The Ronettes -- check.
  
• Patti Smith -- check.

Monday’s announcement leaves Iggy Pop and his groundbreaking Michigan band 0-for-6 at the rock hall. Six times nominated by the committee that crafts the annual ballot; six times rejected by the 600-some voters -- critics, historians, industry figures -- who select the inductees.

[...]

It isn’t just hometown parochialism to rue the omission of the Stooges, along with their 1960s contemporaries and fellow Detroit rabble-rousers the MC5: Both groups are widely -- and zealously -- heralded as the founding fathers of punk and heavy metal, and many of their followers are already enshrined in the solemn upper room at the hall’s Cleveland museum.

Someone yanked Iggy's pull-rope in the mid-sixties and he's been snarling in fury and excitement ever since.

(HT to Miss Julie)