Over the past month I have been following KISS and their induction into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. The KISS fans or what is known as KISS Army have fought for years to get the band inducted into the hall while members of the committee including loud mouthed music critic Dave Marsh have fought equally as hard to keep them out because of a hatred of the band and their music. You would think the fans and the band would be happy about this having honor. But when the hall announced that only Ace Frehley, Peter Criss, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons would be inducted as part of the band. This would mean exuding members from other line-ups such as Eric Carr, Vinnie Vincent, Bruce Kulick, Mark St. John and the two current members Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer who have both been with the band since the early 90's. This angered both Simmons and Stanley who said that they would not perform because of this. When the fans heard this many of them were angry with Gene and Paul thinking that were screwing over the fans. At first I sided with the fans having not looked into why KISS was not performing. This was until I realized that the hall was bending the rules for other groups. On the hall's Facebook page the group "Inducted: KISS 2014 inductee into The Rock n Roll Hall Of Fame" had posted a long statement which they had taken from the Facebook page of former nomination committee member Jeff Tamarkin.  Here is just part of that statement: 

 "As much as I despise KISS, Paul Stanley is actually correct when he says that the R&R Hall of Fame bends its rules at whim. He cites the Grateful Dead's induction and his take on that is 100% accurate. I was on the Hall's nominating committee when the Dead were being inducted. Jon Landau, Bruce's manager and one of the big shots at the Hall, asked me to find out from the Dead which members they wanted included. The word came back from their spokesman: "all or none." And so Robert Hunter, their chief songwriter who was never an official band member, was inducted along with, I think, 11 or 12 others. That even included Vince Welnick, who had only been playing keyboards with them for several years."

Like one of my earlier posts where the hall decided to induct the backing bands of some artists but not others this just shows you how screwed up they are. If Tom Petty gets his backing band inducted then so should Bob Marley and Frank Zappa. The same is true for The Grateful Dead. If the Dead gets all their members included then so should KISS and Fleetwood Mac. I chose Mac because they are one of the more well known cases where this has happened. Here is a link to an article about Bob Welches snub during Mac's 1998 induction ceremony. 

 http://blog.cleveland.com/pdextra/2012/06/rock_and_roll_hall_of_fame_snu.html   

While I don't consider my self a huge fan of KISS or their music I think that what the hall is doing to them and what they have done to other bands is a huge disgrace and makes their organization look bad.