The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2026 inductees were announced Monday, during a live, Rock Hall-themed American Idol episode mentored by 2022 Hall of Famers Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo. And while the Performer inductees include seven artists that Gold Derby predicted correctly, and six that we actually voted for, the overall class still features a few snubs and surprises.
The Performer category in fact might make for the Hall’s most Gen X-centric ceremony since 2022 (when Benatar and Giraldo were inducted alongside Duran Duran, Eurythmics, Judas Priest, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and American Idol judge Lionel Richie). Among the eight Performer inductees are soft-rocker Phil Collins, new-waver Billy Idol, British metal titans Iron Maiden, Manchester post-punks Joy Division/New Order, and chanteuse Sade, all of whom received generous airplay during MTV’s ‘80s heyday. “It’s going to be an unforgettable night,” Rock Hall chairman John Sykes, who co-founded in MTV in 1981, declared in a statement Monday.
Rounding out the Performer category are late soul star Luther Vandross, hip-hop collective Wu-Tang Clan, and another group of Mancunian alt-rock heroes, reunited Britpoppers Oasis. Collins (who was inducted with Genesis in 2010), Vandross, and Wu-Tang Clan are all first-time nominees; this was the second nomination each for both Idol and Sade, and the third for Maiden, Joy Division/New Order, and Oasis.
Shortlisted artists that were passed over this year were Jeff Buckley, the Black Crowes, Mariah Carey, Melissa Etheridge, Lauryn Hill, INXS, New Edition, Pink, and Shakira. While the fan vote does very little to move the needle when it comes to actual results (making the leaderboard’s top seven literally counts as just one industry vote), it should be noted that New Edition did top this year’s fan-vote leaderboard, and that INXS, Pink, and Shakira also made the top seven. Among these fan-voted snubs, the most surprising is arguably early-MTV darlings and first-time nominees INXS, who have been eligible for 21 years and are often cited as one of the Hall’s most glaring omissions. (Artists become eligible 25 years after the date of their first commercially released recording.)
But perhaps the most shocking snub overall this year is Carey, who has now been nominated and rejected for three years in a row, despite being one of the most successful recording artists of all time. It’s possible that some rockist voters who take issue with the Hall’s increasingly broad definition of the term “rock ‘n’ roll” refuse to take a pop star like Carey seriously, or that she simply split the vote with the 2026 ballot’s many other pop and R&B divas.
While only two women (Sade, the leader of her namesake sophistipop band, and Gillian Gilbert, keyboardist-guitarist for New Order) are being inducted via the Performer category, the committee-determined Early Influence Award, which recognizes “artists whose music and performance style have directly influenced, inspired, and evolved rock ‘n’ roll and music impacting culture,” thankfully balances out the Class of 2026 roster. This year’s Early Influence honorees include late “Queen of Salsa” Celia Cruz (one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century) as well as two hip-hop trailblazers, Queen Latifah and MC Lyte, who will join Missy Elliott and last year’s Influence honorees Salt-N-Pepa as the only female rappers in the Hall.
Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, who was nominated in the Performer category in 2021 and 2022, is also receiving a long-overdue posthumous Early Influence honor, as is the founding father of country-rock, Gram Parsons. Surprisingly, Parsons, who died in 1973, was not inducted as a member of the Byrds in 1991, and his other seminal group, the Flying Burrito Brothers, have yet to be nominated.
This year’s Musical Excellence Award, which celebrates “artists, musicians, songwriters, and producers whose originality and influence have had a dramatic impact on music,” will go to rock super-producer and Def Jam/American Recordings founder Rick Rubin (who has worked with everyone from LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys, Run-D.M.C., and Public Enemy to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lady Gaga, and the late Johnny Cash’s on Cash’s career-reviving American Recordings album series); Atlantic Records producer-arranger Arif Mardin (a 12-time Grammy winner known for his work with Phil Collins, Aretha Franklin, the Bee Gees, Chaka Khan, Norah Jones, Bette Midler, Carly Simon, and Barbra Streisand); producer Jimmy Miller (whose discography includes the formative Rolling Stones albums Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main St., and Goats Head Soup); and Philadelphia soul singer-songwriter-lyricist-producer (whose husband and musical partner, Thom Bell, received this award at last year’s ceremony). All of these honors, with the exception of Rubin’s, are posthumous.
This year’s Ahmet Ertegun Award, a non-performer honor for “industry professionals who have had a major influence on the creative development and growth of rock ‘n’ roll and music that has impacted culture,” will go to the late Ed Sullivan. The legendary host’s eponymous TV show (the longest-running such series in U.S. broadcast history) brought rock pioneers like Elvis Presley and the Beatles into America’s living rooms, shifting pop culture forever and in many ways setting the template for musical television shows like American Idol and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony itself.
This year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony will take place Nov. 14 at Los Angeles’s Peacock Theater, and — in a change of pace from the last three years, when the ceremony streamed live on Disney+ — it will be taped and will air in December on ABC and Disney+, on a date yet to be announced. In 2027, the gala will return to Cleveland.
2026 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominees
