I think that they will put both Beyonce and Mariah Carey on the ballot this year coming up for 2027 and I think that they will both be voted in in the same year. I really truly do.
Mariah Carey will get voted in at some point, so don't worry about Mariah, she will have her moment soon
The Rock Hall committee can probably put together another two or three ballots with seven or eight names that are more "votable" than Mariah. But there are not 40 or 50 names left that are clearly more votable than she is.
Unless the Rock Hall decides to scrape the bottom of the barrel for every possible boomer rock act, there simply are not enough stronger candidates to keep Mariah out indefinitely. Sure, they could probably still find another 20 to 40 lesser boomer rock acts, and a lot of older voters will just vote for them simply because they remember hearing those acts on oldies rock radio. But the Hall would have to nominate a large number of those acts year after year for that strategy to keep working.
Eventually, Mariah will land on a ballot with fewer than seven names that are more votable than she is, and that is probably all she needs. There will likely always be at least a few candidates who are more votable than Mariah, even ten years from now. The difficult part is finding seven or eight of them on the same ballot every single year.
So Mariah will eventually sneak in once she gets a ballot with only zero to six stronger vote getters. I would guess that happens after next two or three years at most, even assuming the Rock Hall can still construct relatively strong ballots against her for another couple of rounds. At the absolute latest, I think she would be essentially impossible to keep out by something like the 2030 or 2031 ballot.
If you told the NomCom and behind the nomination and induction process that Night Ranger is more important and worthy than the Smiths or Smashing Pumpkins or even an act like King Crimson or Thin Lizzy and that it would keep the Rock Hall relevant
You would be laughed out of the room and told to never come back
richie wrote: