Phil Collins, Luther Vandross, Oasis, Billy Idol, Iron Maiden, Sade, Wu-Tang Clan, Joy Division and New Order will join the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year at its annual induction ceremony, the organization announced Monday evening. The news was revealed on “American Idol” by Lionel Richie, a judge on the TV talent show who was himself inducted into the hall in 2022.
The 2026 class of inductees — set to be welcomed Nov. 14 in a ceremony at the Peacock Theatre in downtown Los Angeles — represents a broad array of styles and genres, including hip-hop, R&B, Britpop, heavy metal and post-punk. Yet the group contains only two women: the Nigerian-British soul singer Sade and New Order’s Gillian Gilbert; that result is likely to attract criticism after years in which organizers have sought to diversify the hall’s ranks along race and gender lines.
Three of the new members — voted in by a group of more than 1,200 musicians, executives, historians and journalists — are joining the hall after being nominated for the first time: Vandross, the R&B star whose voice was prominently sampled in Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy-winning “Luther”; Wu-Tang Clan, the boisterous rap group that recently undertook what it called a farewell tour; and Collins, who’s getting in as a solo act after being inducted as a member of Genesis in 2010. (An act becomes eligible for induction 25 years after the release of its first commercial recording.) The remaining inductees had all been previously nominated.
Artists nominated for the 2026 class who didn’t make the cut include Mariah Carey, Shakira, Lauryn Hill, Melissa Etheridge, INXS, New Edition, Pink, the Black Crowes and the late Jeff Buckley.
Several other musicians will be honored at November’s ceremony. Celia Cruz, Fela Kuti, Queen Latifah, MC Lyte and Gram Parsons will receive the hall’s Early Influence Award, while the Musical Excellence Award will go to Linda Creed, Arif Mardin, Jimmy Miller and Rick Rubin. The television impresario Ed Sullivan is to be honored with the Ahmet Ertegun Award, a commendation for non-performers named after the late Atlantic Records co-founder who started the Rock Hall with Rolling Stone magazine’s Jann Wenner in the mid-1980s. These are posthumous honors for a number of recipients, including Vandross, Cruz, Kuti, Parsons, Creed, Mardin, Miller and Sullivan.
The 2026 ceremony in L.A. will be filmed and shown in December on ABC and Disney+. Organizers said 2027’s event will take place at the hall’s home in Cleveland.
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