I actually feel I was probably given more credit than I was due, because I was a novelty. I was a girl doing this.
Chrissie Hynde on R & R Hall Of Fame: “The whole thing is total bollocks”
Hynde and The Pretenders were inducted in 2005, The Pretenders' leader says, "I don’t even wanna be associated with it"
She added: “If anyone wants my position in the rock ‘n’ roll Hall of Fame they are welcome to it. I don’t even wanna be associated with it. It’s just more establishment backslapping. I got in a band so I didn’t have to be part of all that.”
“I was living a happy life in Rio when I got the call I was being inducted. My heart sank because I knew I’d have to go back for it as it would be too much of a kick in the teeth to my parents if I didn’t. I’d upset them enough by then, so it was one of those things that would bail me out from years of disappointing them. (NME)
Chrissie Hynde has joined in the conversation about the inclusivity / diversity of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame honour roll by dismissing the institution as "total bollocks."
Earlier this month, US music journalist Jessica Hopper and Courtney Love initiated a conversation about inclusion in the institution, pointing out that women musicians are seriously under-represented, making up only 8.48% of the membership. Hopper called out the disparity as "fucking grim".
"You can write the Rock Hall off as a 'boomer tomb' and argue that it is building a totem to its own irrelevance," Love wrote. "{Why should we care who is in and who is not? But as scornful as its inductions have been, the Rock Hall is a bulwark against erasure, which every female artist faces whether they long for the honour or want to spit on it. It is still game recognising game, history made and marked.
"The Rock Hall is a king-making force in the global music industry." (Consequence)
