Mike Smith, the lead singer of the Dave Clark 5 died today 2 weeks before being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This is sad but why is this a tragedy?
Here’s the rest of the story.
Last year, the Dave Clark 5 was voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on the ballot that counted but the head of the Rock Hall, who shall go nameless because he is shameless (and because I don’t want to waste the time to google his name) but who also heads Rolling Stone Magazine, chose to skip over them and induct the #6 votegetter Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5. His reason: Diversity in the Hall. There needed to be a first rap group and it needed to be black before The Beastie Boys got in as the first rap act and they are white.
As payback for last year’s slight, The Dave Clark 5 were guaranteed induction this year before there was even a vote. But as fate would have it, of course the lead singer died before being inducted. The Rock and Roll Hall of Shame should be embarrased by this. But they won’t be.
This is the same Hall of Shame that doesn’t have KISS as a member like 8 or 9 years after they became eligible. I don’t want to get sidetracked again but Kiss has more gold records than any other American band. At one point was as big as The Beatles in pop culture. I’m no statistician but I would wager than 10 times more people know who KISS is and know KISS songs than know who The Dave Clark 5 are. And, probably 50 times more than who could pick Grandmaster Flash out of a crowd; unless they’ve watched The Dave Chappell Show where he DJ’d. (In contrast, The Sex Pistols released one lousy album that know one owns and most people including me might like one or two songs off of and they were inducted last year into the R&R Hall of Shame.
I am a KISS fan, a Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5 fan, a Beastie Boy at heart, and once I googled them to find out what they sang, also a fan of some of The Dave Clark 5’s songs.
(The Beastie Boys are getting in on a technicality as well because their first real album came out in 1986 but they got credit for a truly non-existent release from like 1982 when the group had other members and didn’t even truly record under that name. They are one of my favorite artists and this is a whole different story.)
For a completely different take on why The Dave Clark 5 shouldn’t have been inducted at all click here.
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