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Is the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame finally getting diverse? Find out by watching the Nov. 5 ceremony when it airs on HBO Nov. 19 at 8 p.m. ET (also streaming on HBO Max and broadcast on SiriusXM’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Radio channel 310 and Volume channel 106).
There’s some evidence the Hall is broadening its umbrella: The 2022 slate includes one true rock act and entries from country, rap, synth-pop, New Wave, folk-pop and R&B-pop.
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Metal act Judas Priest and rap pioneers Jimmy Jam, 63, and Terry Lewis, 65, get the Musical Excellence award. Calypso/pop singer, actor and activist Harry Belafonte, 95, and the late folk/blues musician Elizabeth Cotten are this year’s Early Influences. And the Ahmet Ertegun Award will be given to music attorney Allen Grubman, Interscope Records founder Jimmy Iovine and the late Sugar Hill Records founder Sylvia Robinson.
Here are the seven performers who’ll be inducted this year and why they matter:
Belter Pat Benatar and her husband, guitarist Neil Giraldo, delivered some of the 1980s’ most aggressive rock hits, from “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” to “Love Is a Battlefield” and “Treat Me Right.” A trained mezzo soprano with a strapping voice, she was the first woman (and Giraldo, 66, the first guitarist) to appear on MTV when their cover of the Young Rascals’ “You Better Run” was the new channel’s second video in 1981 (after The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star”). That same year, Benatar, 69, won the first of four consecutive Grammys for best female rock vocal.
Duran Duran, named after Jane Fonda's nemesis in 1968’s Barbarella and shaped by Roxy Music and David Bowie, combined catchy pop, glam rock and fashion swagger in such influential ’80s hits as “Hungry Like the Wolf.” Their sexually explicit “Girls on Film” video was banned in England and edited for MTV in the U.S. When similar synth-driven acts faded in the ’90s, Duran Duran modified its sound and teamed with modern producers to remain relevant.