Why Isn't Kraftwerk in The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?

On March 10th the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame will honor its latest bunch of inductees, including Madonna and Leonard Cohen. Though, one of the most influential bands in music history continue to go unrewarded. It's hard to imagine what the radio would sound like these days with out the advent of electronic music, and no one pioneered the pop possibility of electronic sound like Kraftwerk. It's a slight that challenges the integrity of the already questionable Hall of Fame.

Of course Hall of Fame denotes something different than, say, Hall of Quality and Innovation. However their website's overview of inductees mentions nothing about a solely American point of view. Kraftwerk's two entrances in the American singles charts are overshadowed by their multiple appearances on European charts. They most recently hit the UK's top 20 in 2003 (with a new version of a 20 year old song, no less).

This doesn't even speak of the continued presence of samples of the band in popular music. Kraftwerk is perhaps the most sampled band ever; a claim that's tricky to prove, but hard to argue. Their influence is so great that recently we've seen the emergence of second hand sampling. Missy Elliot's "Loose Control" liberally samples Cybotron's "Clear", which is built on Kraftwerk's Hall of Mirrors. Fergie's "Fergalioucess" is basically a mash up of two booty bass songs that both originally sampled Kraftwerk: J. J. Fad's "Supersonic" and Afrorican's "Give It All You Got". Even one of this year's nominees Madonna has used elements of "Trans Europe Express" in her "Music". More obviously, and some what outrageously, is the fact that the Hall put Afrika Bambataa on the short list of nominees (though he didn't make it in) while the man's main claim to fame is "Planet Rock". The song is revolutionary, no doubt, but it's basically rapping over the mash up of two even more revolutionary Kraftwerk records.

Though I doubt the continued snub weighs too much on Kraftwerk's collective computerized brain. The band never was much for the notion of fame, and I'd like to think they'd one up the Sex Pistols by simply sending their robots to accept. The Hall of Fame needs Kraftwerk much more than Kraftwerk needs the Hall of Fame.