Oh, Manchester, So Much To Answer For

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five are IN the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, y'all. You can see their induction by Jay-Z and performance here. The performance, a medley, is messy and shambling, and altogether marvelous. (The Furious Five haven't performed together in nearly 15 years.) It opens with a turntable exhibition from Flash, who's still got it - hell, he never lost "it."

The rest of last night's inductions/performances were pretty good, too, and there should be no doubt that all 5 members of this year's class of inductees are well deserved. Van Halen were the biggest, greatest, loudest rock band in the world for a good decade; the Ronettes sang like angels in black leather and left a glorious lipstick smudge on rock; Patti Smith truly is the high priestess of rock (post-Tina Turner, at least); and R.E.M. changed plenty in the '80s (and to a much lesser extent, '90s), including practically inventing "college rock" for better and worse.

I've got more thoughts on the HOF itself, and why I care about it a lot (to the surprise of many), which I'm in the process of trying to crystallize into paragraph form. Soon, I hope.