Todd Rundgren is about to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame but the rock legend has no intention of attending the official ceremony on Saturday.
During an interview with TMZ, Rundgren said he would not be present at the event or at any accompanying performances in Cleveland. Instead, he will be performing at a concert the same night in Cincinnati. Speaking about why he would be giving the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony a miss, Rundgren admitted he did not think the institution should even exist.
"I've never cared much about the Hall of Fame," he said, adding that he did not plan to "go to any special effort" to support it.
The concept of a Hall of Fame, he added, was "like a sports thing."
"You're retired from the game, all of your stats are there for everybody to judge, and they can measure you against other players in real terms — and not in subjective terms — and you're done with your career," he explained. The initiative did not work in the same way for musicians, whose "greatest aspiration is to do it for the rest of your life."
During an interview with The Repository, Rundgren echoed similar sentiments, hinting that the whole idea was pointless.
"For me, I was 35 when they started the rock hall, and I didn't really see the point of it at that time," Rundgren said. "And also was convinced, and I think history has backed that up, that when you call it the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, you have to be quite scrupulous about who you induct into it — both in terms of who should be included and in terms of who shouldn't be included."
Rundgren added, "So you get all kinds of grief about Madonna being in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ... and grief from me also about people who should have been in there and are not. Like Bettye LaVette ... who's a personal friend of mine and still performs and never stopped performing. And she had R&B hits in the '60s, but just was kind of a victim of the record industry in a way."
In recent years, Rundgren has been focusing his energy on working with other performers and songwriters, as opposed to performing almost every instrument himself, which is what he did while recording his 1972 album "Something/Anything," according to the Daily Mail. His new work ethic has made him realize he did not want to be pitted against other musicians, which is something the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame indirectly did. This was one more reason why Rundgren told TMZ he does not support the concept.
"I'm not into the whole sense that there's some sort of competition between musicians to get into it," he explained. "I kind of abhor that idea that musicians are meant to compete with each other."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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