Courtney Love criticizes the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for being “sexist at the gate” while protesting the shortage of ladies and black female artists noted by the Cleveland-based organization.
“If that’s the case few women are inducted into Rock Hall, then the nominating committee is broken,” Love wrote in a scathing piece published on Friday in Guardian.
“If that’s the case few black artists, so few women of color are being introduced, then the voting process needs to be reviewed. Music is a life force that’s continually evolving – and they can not sustain.”
The 58-year-old singer’s damning essay “Miss Narcissist” names industry pioneers and visionaries like Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Chaka Khan and Kate Bush as women who’ve been ignored by the Rock Hall nominating board and voting body for years.
Love noted that Bush, for instance, received her fourth HOF nomination last month despite being eligible in 2004.
![Chaka Khan, in the presence of the New York City Council, presents Chaka Khan with a proclamation honoring her life and achievements in Times Square on October 25.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008414949-1.jpg?w=1024)
“This 12 months Prince was introduced – deservedly, in his first 12 months of eligibility – together with Jackson Browne, ZZ Top, Traffic, Bob Seger, the Dells and George Harrison,” Love wrote.
“Co-founder and then-president of The Rock Hall, Jann Wenner (also co-founder of Rolling Stone), was introduced in person. But Bush didn’t make the list until 2018 – and still is not.”
The Post contacted representatives from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for comment.
The Rock Hall was established in 1983. Artists are eligible for induction 25 years after the discharge of their first industrial recording. Nominated ballots are sent to a world voting body of greater than 1,000 artists, historians and members of the music industry.
![Kate Bush at the champagne party at the 60th London Evening Standard Theater Awards at the London Palladium on November 30, 2014.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/kate-bush-422.jpg?w=682)
Thanks Netflix’s Stranger Things Bush’s 1985 hit “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” was given a second lease of life and prolonged her influence to a recent generation of fans.
“Never mind that she was the primary woman in pop music history to write all of the songs on her million-selling debut album,” Love added of Bush and her 1978 album The Kick Inside.
“It took Rock Hall over 30 years to introduce Nina Simone and Carole King,” she continued. “Linda Ronstadt debuted in 1969 and have become the primary female stadium headliner, but was introduced with Nirvana in 2014.”
She added, “Most egregiously, Tina Turner was introduced as a solo artist three a long time after making the grade alongside her tormentor, Ike.”
Love – former lead singer of Hole and widow of the late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain – also claimed only 8.48% people inducted into Rock Hall, and only nine of the 31 board members are women.
“Why are women so marginalized by Rock Hall? …” she asked. “Creating canon at Rock Hall not only reeks of a sexist vigilante, but of deliberate ignorance and hostility.”
![Inductee Carole King takes the stage at the 36th Annual Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony on October 30, 2021 in Cleveland, Ohio.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008414942-1.jpg?w=1024)
“The induction affects artists’ ticket prices, their performance warrants, the standard of their reissue campaigns (in the event that they resume at all),” Love argued. “These opportunities are life-changing – the difference between touring in aftermarket casinos opening up to a second-rate comedian and starring at respectable festivals.”
Love also argued that the 2023 nominees, revealed in early February, “remind every year how extraordinary a girl have to be to get into the old boys’ club”, as this 12 months’s nominees class included more women than ever.
Bush, Cyndi Lauper, Missy Elliott, Sheryl Crow, Meg White of the White Stripes, and Gillian Gilbert of Recent Order are all potential candidates.
“If Rock Hall is unwilling to look at the ways it replicates the violence of structural racism and sexism faced by artists within the music industry, if it cannot properly honor what visionary female artists have created, innovated, revolutionized and helped popularize music . music – well, let it go to hell in a handbag,” concluded Love.
She shared the article Instagram on Fridaytagging The Guardian and claiming “@guardian censored my poem “RUNNED BY A BOARD CONSISTING OF THE MOST YEARLY MUSIC, VIRTUAL BLACK HOLE OF HELL.”
She continued: “I’ve never used the word ‘marginalized’ to refer to 51 percent of the world’s population (censored by a girl! Is that why people use substack?),” she asked a preferred blogging platform.
The Post contacted representatives from Love and The Guardian for comment.