Using the Top 100 Artists on Billboard's Top 200 as a predictor for the Rock Hall - Or Why the Charts Don't Matter?

In 1996, Billboard magazine published a list of all albums to have charted, and the list was updated in 2005. Though I have not read the updated version, I found the top 100 artists listed as part of the Future Rock Hall blog and sincerely thank one Roy for providing the list for me to analyse. Future Rock Hall has previously said that a successful singles career is simply not sufficient grounds for being inducted to the Rock Hall.

Being far more familiar with album than singles charts, I have ever since reading that study been curious about whether the top album artists on Billboard are likely to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Notable about the list below is that much more than the top singles artist list mentioned earlier, none of the artists are remotely recent: there is no Whitney Houston, no Janet Jackson, no Bon Jovi, no R.E.M., no Duran Duran, even no John Cougar Mellencamp. Only Mariah Carey and Garth Brooks remain ineligible as of the 2010 induction, and I do not imagine that very much will have changed in this direction since 2005.

It must be noted that most of the artists who are not Hall of Famers have most of their album sales from compilations of singles rather than original albums, which is why a number of pre-Billboard artists can be seen below. It is however true that some artists in the Hall of Fame with large cults (Morrison, Zappa, the Grateful Dead) also have sales from compilations that are vital to their place here. So does James Brown.

Of the 100 artists listed below

• forty-nine are Hall of Famers as Performer, which is a somewhat better success rate than with the singles charts.
• three are Hall of Famers in a category other than Performer (marked with † for Non-Performer inductee and ‡ for Early Influence inductee)
  
• but of the remaining forty-eight as few as seven (marked with #) have received serious discussion from the Nominating Committee, and it is not likely even these seven will get in soon.

On paper, this list is no better a predictive tool than the singles list and one cannot recommend it as a predictive tool, although there exist prospect of improvements if compilations could be excluded (a virtually impossible task).

The complete list, with links to those not in the Hall of Fame as a Performer, is:

1. Elvis Presley
2. Frank Sinatra
3. The Beatles
4. Barbra Streisand
5. The Rolling Stones
6. Johnny Mathis
7. Elton John
8. Bob Dylan
9. Neil Diamond#
10. The Temptations
11. The Beach Boys
12. Eric Clapton
13. Ray Conniff
14. Willie Nelson
15. Ray Charles
16. Rod Stewart
17. Mantovani
18. Aretha Franklin
19. Paul McCartney
20. David Bowie
21. Prince
22. James Brown
23. Pink Floyd
24. Andy Williams
25. Lawrence Welk
26. Neil Young
27. Bee Gees
28. Chicago#
29. The Supremes
30. Henry Mancini
31. The Kingston Trio
32. Jimmy Buffett
33. Herb Alpert†
34. Kenny Rogers/First Edition
35. Jimi Hendrix
36. Aerosmith
37. Stevie Wonder
38. The Grateful Dead
39. Roger Williams
40. Fleetwood Mac
41. The Ventures
42. Led Zeppelin
43. Van Morrison
44. George Strait
45. Nat "King" Cole‡
46. KISS#
47. Linda Ronstadt#
48. Metallica
49. Johnny Cash
50. Billy Vaughn
51. Bruce Springsteen
52. Diana Ross
53. Barry Manilow
54. Queen
55. Santana
56. The Who
57. Garth Brooks (eligible 2014/2015)
58. Madonna
59. Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship/Starship
60. U2
61. Dionne Warwick
62. Billy Joel
63. John Denver
64. Rush
65. Mitch Miller
66. Michael Jackson
67. James Taylor
68. Harry Belafonte
69. The Isley Brothers
70. Alabama
71. The Lettermen
72. The Eagles
73. AC/DC
74. Nancy Wilson
75. Marvin Gaye
76. The Doors
77. Jethro Tull#
78. Dolly Parton
79. Tony Bennett
80. The Kinks
81. Dean Martin
82. The Monkees
83. Joan Baez
84. Journey
85. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers/Tom Petty
86. Glen Campbell
87. Gladys Knight and the Pips
88. Earth, Wind and Fire
89. The Moody Blues#
90. Frank Zappa
91. Mariah Carey (eligible 2015/2016)
92. Anne Murray
93. Steve Miller Band#
94. Enoch Light
95. Cher
96. Carole King†
97. Hall & Oates
98. Elvis Costello
99. Carly Simon
100. Bob Seger

Please note that some of the links are defective as the artists do not have a Future Rock Hall page. They are there for consistency only and do not worry if you are redirected to the main Future Rock Hall list.