Voting for this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is open and one artist is absolutely running away with the competition right now.
Over one million votes have already been received with more than two months left until voting closes. The top five artists selected by the public will comprise a “fans’ ballot” that will be tallied with the other ballots to select the 2022 inductees.
To be eligible for the 2022 ballot, each nominee’s first single or album had to have been released in 1996 or earlier. And there’s one clear winner at the time of writing: Eminem has 146,741 votes, around 20,000 votes more than his nearest competitor.
He’s currently followed by English 80s pop group Duran Duran (124,852), U.S. pop-rock singer Pat Benatar (117,508), country icon Dolly Parton (99,326), and synth-pop duo Eurythmics in the top five.
Other notable names with a lot of votes include Queen of Twitter Dionne Warwick (41329), hip hop legends A Tribe Called Quest (41360), new wave pioneers Devo (43515), alternative rockers Rage Against the Machine (52285), and heavy metal band Judas Priest (68220).
You can vote every day via the official Hall of Fame website until April 29th. The inductees will then be announced the following month. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2022 induction ceremony is set to take place later in the year, with the date and venue to be announced soon.
Judas Priest will be hoping that this is finally their year. They’ve been included on the ballot before and Rob Halford has spoken about how he believes the heavy metal genre “hasn’t been respected enough” by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His band mate Richie Faulkner also once tweeted his frustration that the likes of Whitney Houston, Depeche Mode, and Biggie Smalls had made it into the Hall of Fame before Judas Priest.
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While Eminem clearly has a lot of backers, one man probably not on board with his nomination is controversial rocker Ted Nugent. The outspoken artist recently decried the artists who have been inducted into the Hall of Fame before him, including Grandmaster Flash.
“Why isn’t a band like Triumph in there, but Grandmaster Flsh is?! That’s just dishonest,” he said. “Why are Patti Smith, ABBA and Madonna in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but not STYX?! Are you kidding me?!”
