'80s Rockers Snubbed By The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame

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In 1983, Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun and Rolling Stone magazine co-founder Jann Wenner created the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. The hall's raison d'être is the celebration of the most influential names in music, as voted for by around 500 top industry figures. By some metrics, it's one of the most prestigious institutions in the industry. The hall's first inductees in 1986 included Chuck Berry, James Brown, Buddy Holly, and Elvis Presley. Over the years, the list has expanded to include everyone from The Beatles and The Beach Boys to Outkast and the Beastie Boys.

But the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has also been controversial. Some argue that as a commercial enterprise, it shouldn't be taken seriously as a historical institution at all. More importantly, others have claimed that in the 40-plus years of its existence, the hall has been biased in selecting inductees, overlooking huge names for years despite their critical and commercial impact. Here are just five acts from the 1980s that have been snubbed by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame time and time again.

One of the most egregious snubs in the history of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — according to many metalheads at least — is Iron Maiden, the legendary British group that dominated the metal scene during the 1980s. Formed in the mid-1970s in East London, Iron Maiden went through several line-up changes before the 1982 album, "The Number of the Beast," made the band a force to be reckoned with in the world of heavy metal. Soon enough, the gang found itself at the center of the "satanic panic" that gripped the U.S. thanks to the group's imagery, especially that of its corpse-like mascot, Eddie. He features on almost every album cover and in the band's live shows, and concerned parents believed their children were being converted by devil worshippers.

As always, the notoriety only served to increase Iron Maiden's appeal. The band easily became the go-to for listeners looking for unadulterated heavy metal throughout the 1980s, which is when it released its most classic material. Iron Maiden's influence has been incalculable, with heavy hitters such as Metallica — a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee in 2009 — taking cues from the group. However, despite two nominations, Iron Maiden has never made the cut, despite outrage from fans and prominent industry figures. Notably, Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello called the omission an "egregious oversight" on "The Eddie Trunk Podcast."

The ultimate bad boy band of the 1980s, Motley Crüe is perhaps more notorious for the off-stage controversies of its members than its music. The group's theatrical brand of hair metal is inseparable from the decade with which it's most associated, and for fans, the band is one of the most notable of the era. Indeed, Motley Crüe's commercial appeal is undeniable — yet the gang has never been nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

With platinum-selling albums including 1985's "Theatre of Pain" and 1989's "Dr. Feelgood," Motley Crüe attracted a mass audience of people looking for simple, fun, and entertaining party music. And with Motley Crüe, a band of party animals, they got it. The group has consistently filled arenas and attracted renewed attention with the biography "The Dirt," which was later the basis for a hit 2019 biopic. Yet despite fan outcry, founding member Nikki Sixx has expressed indifference to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. "I think people get too worked up about the RRHF," he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "If you get in that's cool and if not, it's not a big deal. It's not some elite club that defines you. It's an award. None of us hopefully make music just for awards."

The Smiths occupy a special place in the annals of British indie rock. Formed in Manchester, U.K., in 1982 by frontman-lyricist Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr, the band lasted for just five short years before imploding in acrimony in 1987. But by then, the group had established itself as one of the most singular voices out there. Over the course of four studio albums, scores of singles, and a couple of influential compilation albums, The Smiths' utterly unique guitar sound and sardonic lyrics — which are also often also achingly romantic — made it the focus of a huge cult following of lovelorn '80s teenagers, and the band has been something of a rite of passage for adolescents ever since.

At the time, The Smiths' commercial success was mainly felt in the U.K., but as the years have passed, its influence on bands across the globe has become increasingly evident. The music of The Smiths underpinned much of the Britpop movement, with fellow Manchester rock juggernaut Oasis citing Morrissey and Marr as influences, while Morrissey's cutting lyrics and unapologetic working-class background can be seen reflected in the work of Pulp's Jarvis Cocker. In the U.S., Death Cab For Cutie, The Killers, and Modest Mouse — which Marr briefly joined — all arguably owe a debt to The Smiths. The band has been nominated for induction twice, for the 2015 and 2016 years, but failed to garner enough votes for entry.

Manhattan-based alternative rock band Sonic Youth proved to be one of the most innovative groups in the New York no wave scene in the early 1980s. Founded by guitarists-vocalists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo and bassist-vocalist Kim Gordon, the group deployed a combination of avant-garde techniques to take alternative rock in new directions. Sonic Youth blazed a trail with its noisy and dissonant experiments that led the way for the grunge movement that would emerge a decade later. The band's 1983 debut, "Confusion Is Sex," placed it at the vanguard of what guitar music was capable of. Later Sonic Youth albums released that decade, notably 1988's "Daydream Nation," are considered perennial alt-rock classics.

However, despite being eligible for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame since 2008, Sonic Youth has never once been nominated. Over the decades and down the years, the group has worked with a wide range of artists and has continued to be a touchstone for new generations of musicians. Whether the Hall of Fame will one day recognize this remains to be seen.

Another band that was hugely influential on the 1990s grunge movement is the Pixies. Formed in 1986 at the behest of frontman Black Francis and lead guitarist Joey Santiago, the pair then recruited bassist Kim Deal and drummer Dave Lovering to form the band's classic line-up. The Pixies utterly transformed the sound of alternative rock in the late 1980s, notably pioneering the use of "soft-loud" dynamics that would later be used to great effect on Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." The group's lyrics often leaned on the themes of violence, mutilation, and twisted love, delivered in an unexpectedly wide range of styles from screaming to the sweet interplay of the voices of Francis and Deal. The band created its own evocative world that was perfectly reflected in its sonics, which were by turns both harsh and accessible.

The Pixies has inspired everybody from Nirvana to Radiohead to The Strokes — and even Rock & Roll Hall of Famer David Bowie, who was effusive in his praise of the band. Bowie recalled (via Rock and Roll Garage): "The first time I heard the Pixies it would have been around 1988. I found it just about the most compelling music outside of Sonic Youth, in the entire '80s. In America, they just didn't ignite people the way they ignited them in Europe. There was such a lot of sludge in America at the time, I think [the] Pixies had a real hard time pushing their way through to the surface." Nevertheless, the Pixies are still awaiting a nomination.