Let's talk about The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, shall we?

Why? Because I'm sick of it. What In The World is the point of the rock and roll hall of fame? Oh, why yes, we have to honor those musicians, engineers, producers, song writers, and joint rollers, who have "in some major way, influenced the music industry through the genre of rock music."

In whose opinion? Sure as hell not mine. If it were, you could scratch a bunch of inductees off the list. Let's start with Rod Stewart. Gone. See ya later Black Sabbath. Bye-bye AC/DC, Van Halen, Genesis, Talking Heads, Elton John.

I could go on. But I think I'll let Johnny Lydon show you what's on his mind:

The Sex Pistols got invited to the hall in 2006 and succinctly declined. And they're right. The thing is a joke. In baseball, we have a hall of fame into which one is elected based on, theoretically anyway, a set of statistics that are kept of a game that has changed, rules-wise, very little in over 100 years. I'm not saying that the baseball hall of fame is perfect, because it ain't. Jim Rice? Uhhh, I don't think so. But I am saying that with baseball we have a set of accomplishments that are measured today as they were ten years ago, fifty years ago, even a hundred years ago. It wasn't any easier to get a fastball over the plate in 1923 than it is today, or to hit one over the fence in 1959 than it is today. Today's guys can be fairly stacked up against yesterday's guys pretty objectively, if not fairly.

But the problem that the rock and roll hall of fame presents for music—and there are so few problems with music, in my mind, that that in-and-of-itself blows the cover off the rock and roll hall of fame right there—is that there is no objective "statistic" on which to compare today's top artists with yesterday's. So we're basically letting a few guys subjectively tell us who has had the most influence on this moving target of a genre we describe as rock and roll.

My list of first-year inductees would be different than yours. And my neighbor's. And his grandmother's. And her great uncle's. OK. You get the point. Tom Waits is going to be inducted this year. Are you kidding me? He, for me, would have been in the year it opened. Those acts I mentioned above saying they should not be in? I like all of them a lot. In fact, some of the best albums of ALL TIME were recorded by some of them. But then again, the best baseball player I've seen in person is Larry Walker. He may never get into the baseball hall of fame. (I've seen Tony Gwynn, Ozzie Smith, Pedro Martinez, Greg Maddux, and many more, so don't argue that I've just not seen enough live baseball to weigh in.)

I should also mention that one of the dudes whose idea it was to even start a rock and roll hall of fame in the first place is Ahmet Ertegün, who, along with Herb Abramson, founded Atlantic Records back in the 1947. Atlantic Records is only responsible for some of the best music ever recorded. Ray Charles. Aretha Franklin. Led Zeppelin. Otis Redding. Sam and Dave. Big Joe Turner. Ertegün was a genius. But not all the ideas of a genius are genius.

In the end, music is such a subjective thing that there's no way to fairly enshrine one into a music hall of fame. We each have our own. Everyone's idea of who's important musically is unique. And that's a REALLY good thing. Otherwise there would be one radio station. And we would all listen to the same thing, because we would all like the same thing.

Maybe I'm over-simplifying the whole thing.

But no.

No, I'm not.