The nominations for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026 are in, and the list contains Phil Collins, Lauryn Hill, Mariah Carey, Oasis, Pink, the Black Crowes, Jeff Buckley, Melissa Etheridge, Billy Idol, INXS, Iron Maiden, Joy Division/New Order, New Edition, Sade, Shakira, Luther Vandross, and the Wu-Tang Clan.
The inductees will be announced in April alongside the acts receiving the Musical Influence Award, the Musical Excellence Award, and the Ahmet Ertegun Non-Performer Award. The annual ceremony will take place in the fall.
“This diverse list of talented nominees recognizes the ever-evolving faces and sounds of rock & roll and its continued impact on youth culture,” says John Sykes, chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation. “Induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is music’s highest honor, and we look forward to celebrating the class of 2026 this fall.”
To qualify for this year’s ballot, each nominee’s first single or album had to have been released in 2001 or earlier. Ten of the 17 nominees (Buckley, Collins, Etheridge, Hill, INXS, New Edition, Pink, Shakira, Vandross, Wu-Tang Clan) are on the ballot for the first time. They’ve all been eligible in prior years.
This is the third nomination for Carey, Iron Maiden, and Joy Division/New Order, and the second for the Black Crowes, Oasis, Sade, and Idol.
If Iron Maiden get in, odds are fairly decent they won’t show. “I actually think the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is an utter and complete load of bollocks, to be honest with you,” Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson said in 2018. “It’s run by a bunch of sanctimonious bloody Americans who wouldn’t know rock & roll if it hit them in the face. They need to stop taking Prozac and start drinking fucking beer.”
Liam Gallagher of Oasis has expressed similar sentiments. “As much as I love Mariah Carey and all that, I want to say: Do me a favor and fuck off,” he told The Sunday Times in 2024. “It’s like putting me in the rap hall of fame, and I don’t want to be part of anything that mentally disturbed. Besides, I’ve done more for rock & roll than half of them clowns on that board, so it’s all a load of bollocks.”
But when a fan on X asked what he’d do if they got last year, he wrote, “Obv go and say it’s the best thing EVER.” (If he pulls that move, he’ll join a long of acts — including Cher, Rush, and Def Leppard — who sang a very different tune about the Hall of Fame once they actually got in.)
The induction ceremony would be an opportunity for Collins to make a rare live appearance, the Black Crowes to take the stage with estranged drummer Steve Gorman, and Joy Division/New Order to appear with ex-bassist Peter Hook for the first time since he left the band in 2007.
“It will be a difficult awards ceremony if we get there, but as my wife said, we’ve got to rise above these things … and be nice and be courteous and think the best,” Hook told Billboard in 2023. “Maybe this is the olive branch that we may need to end the injustices that were done with New Order in the end. It’s a very strange position to be in but, y’know, we’re not the first group that’s been ostracized by each other, and we won’t be the last.”
