This year's list of nominees to rock music's sacred hall is the most hip hop-friendly to date, with pioneers Public Enemy and N.W.A. earning nods in their inaugural year of eligibility.
Older first-time "Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame" nominees were far less edgy, including the critically disfavored art-rock band Rush and the second-tier heavy metal mainstays Deep Purple.
Also enjoying a maiden try at enshrinement is the classically oriented rock band Procol Harum, blues guitarist Albert King and the Motown act The Marvelettes.
The list also includes several rejects from just last year — Heart, Joan Jett, and Donna Summer — and other prior nominees, including the Paul Butterfield Blues Band; electro-visionaries Kraftwerk; New Orleans-based band, The Meters; satirist/Oscar winner Randy Newman; and disco touchstones Chic.
Summer has been up five times before. Chic holds the current record for prior rejections at seven.
It's unlikely Public Enemy or N.W.A. will need so many ballots to get in.
In its 1980s heyday, Public Enemy created one of hip-hop's most sonically innovative sounds, full of dense samples and assaulting beats that captured the defiant heart of New York. The band, which included Chuck D, Flavor Flav and Professor Griff, also stood among rap's most politically confrontational acts, with seminal videos directed by Spike Lee and a hit album called "Fear of a Black Planet."
N.W.A. offered a West Coast version, with seminal tracks like "Straight Outta Compton" becoming the soundtrack of disenfranchised Los Angelinos.
To be eligible for this year's list, artists had to release their first recording no later than 1987.
Inductees will be announced in early December.
The 28th Annual Rock n Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be held April 18 in Los Angeles, returning to Tinseltown for the first time since 1993.
