Radiohead, a droning rock group from the 90s, was voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year. But now Thom Yorke, who leads the group, tells Variety he won’t be attending the ceremony on March 29th in Brooklyn.
The reason? Yorke has a commitment nine days later in Paris.
Not uncoincidentally, Radiohead’s only hit was called “Creep,” which sounds a lot like The Hollies’ “The Air That I Breathe.”
Radiohead was not a top vote-getter in the online fan vote this year. They received only 140,458 votes. The top voter favorite was Def Leppard with over 500,000 votes. Four of the top 5 winners of the fan vote– Def Leppard, Stevie Nicks, The Cure, and The Zombies — were all voted in for induction.
Radiohead was shoved into the induction list by either Jann Wenner or the nominating committee because they were the most “modern” or recent nominees. They were put in at the expense of the missing top 5 fan votee, Todd Rundgren, as well as dozens of other more deserving artists. (Rundgren is so unpopular with the committee and with people at large that he was skipped over on purpose.)
Frankly, the RRHOF should just revoke Radiohead and substitute Peter Wolf and the J Geils Band. No one would object. But once again Wenner has been hung by his own petard.
