Here’s the open secret about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: often, the inductees are honored for an incandescent moment of brilliance, not for full, rich careers. Sure, plenty of Rock Hall inductees had lengthy, interesting careers that continued to evolve after their inductions, but there are just as many acts who are celebrated for the fleeting moments where they seemed invincible, as 2022 inductee Pat Benatar once sang.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class of 2022 is filled with several artists that fit into that category: they had a brief period of time where they were riding high, eventually returning to ground. Even the acts that maintained a cruising altitude inevitably had periods where they sped forward with greater velocity—those are the moments that make a career. Here, The A.V. Club chronicles such moments: the albums that capture the class of 2022 at their peak, that provide a reason why they’ve been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo
Best Album: Crimes Of Passion (1980)
Pat Benatar’s breakthrough and best record. Working from the blueprint Mike Chapman established with In The Heat Of Night, producer Keith Olson provides polish and muscle that define the sound of AOR at the dawn of the 1980s. “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” provides the swaggering anchor for a set that’s firmly within rock mainstream but finds time for an oddly streamlined cover of Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights,” its presence serving as a counterweight to the power ballad “Hell Is For Children”: both are evidence of how beneath their rocker guise, Benatar and her lifelong partner, guitarist Neil Giraldo, are suckers for theatrical melodrama.
Honorable mention: In The Heat Of The Night (1979)
Glam pioneer Mike Chapman draws heavily from the songbook he created with Nicky Chinn—he has Pat Benatar record two cuts from the forgotten Smokie, one from the Sweet—but he’s sharp enough to have In The Heat Of The Night touch upon all manners of album rock trends of the late 1970s. He coaxes Benatar to record a cut from “Hot Child In The City” star Nick Gilder, an Alan Parsons Project tune, and “I Need A Lover,” a boastful number from John Cougar Mellencamp that, along with “Heartbreaker,” provides Pat Benatar with a clear direction for the rest of her career.
Duran Duran
Best Album: Rio (1982)
Early in their career, Duran Duran described their sound as “Chic meets the Sex Pistols,” a vision they finally achieved on their 1982 masterwork Rio. By this point, Duran Duran assimilated their Pistols influences and turned their focus onto Chic. Throughout Rio, the new romantics blend sleek funk with atmospheric synths, tying the two sounds together through an aesthetic that presents the group as globe-trotting jet-setters—a sensibility showcased in the videos for “Hungry Like The Wolf” and “Rio.” Those visuals are so enticing they threaten to overshadow the album they accompany but they ultimately underscore how Rio remains a passport to another life, one that’s shinier and sexier than the one you already have.
Honorable mention: Future Past (2021)
Forty years after their debut, Duran Duran delivered Future Past, an album that held true to the new romantic vision they essayed in the early years yet incorporates nervy modern pop. Few Rock Hall inductees seem as vital and vibrant entering their fifth decade as Duran Duran does here.
Eminem
Best Album: The Marshall Mathers LP (2000)
Delivered hot on the heels of his blockbuster debut The Slim Shady LP, a period of time where it still seemed as if he could’ve been an enormously successful fluke, The Marshall Mathers LP gave Eminem a career by expanding his reach and deepening his outlook. Still happy to indulge in shock tactics and dirty jokes—“The Real Slim Shady” overspills with them, a manifesto for millions of other outcasts who cuss just like him—Eminem also digs into bitter self-recriminations and in “Stan” demonstrates a skill for storytelling while also displaying a surprising empathetic streak, qualities that would serve him well (if not frequently) over the course of his career.
Honorable mention: The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (2013)
Not the commercial comeback—that’d be Recovery, which had the Rihanna duet “Love The Way You Lie”—The Marshall Mathers LP 2 is a mid-career exhibition of virtuosity. It’s a record that shows Eminem relatively reflective lyrically and musically, offering nods to the past that extend way beyond the first The Marshall Mathers LP while also building upon that legacy.
Eurythmics
Best Album: Touch (1983)
Released only a matter of months after the foreboding classic “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” turned Eurythmics into international stars, Touch finds the duo broadening the palette while retaining their inherent sense of drama. Anchored with the twin masterworks “Here Comes The Rain Again” and “Who’s That Girl”—each shimmering with a sense of melancholy menace—Touch also finds space for the buoyant “Right By Your Side” and new wave funk of “The First Cut,” not to mention the icy epic “No Fear, No Hate, No Pain (No Broken Hearts),” proof that Eurythmics found plenty of textures and emotions to explore within their chilly synth-pop.
Honorable mention: Be Yourself Tonight (1985)
Revamping themselves as strutting rockers, Eurythmics got tougher and sweeter with Be Yourself Tonight, an album that contains the hard-bitten hit “Would I Lie To You,” the incandescent “There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart),” and the Aretha Franklin duet “Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves.”
Dolly Parton
Best Album: Coat Of Many Colors (1971)
Coat Of Many Colors is where Dolly Parton announced herself as a formidable singer/songwriter in her own right. At the time of its release, Dolly still served as Porter Wagoner’s duet partner, both on record and on television—Wagoner even has a couple of songwriting credits on this LP—and had a few solo records to her credit, so she wasn’t an unknown. Nevertheless, Coat Of Many Colors put her gifts into perspective, with its autobiographical title track illustrating her gift for storytelling and “Traveling Man” crackling with the sensuality so crucial to her appeal.
Honorable mention: Trio (1987)
A highlight in Dolly Parton’s vast discography, this 1987 collaborative album with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt returned Dolly to her country roots and showcased her gifts for high, lonesome group harmony.
Lionel Richie
Best Album: Can’t Slow Down (1983)
A blockbuster that rivaled Thriller during its reign on the charts in 1983 and 1984, Can’t Slow Down found Lionel Richie moving definitively beyond the confines of the Commodores and becoming a pop powerhouse. Much of the record adheres to the softly focused middle of the road—“Penny Lover” and “Hello” are rightly adult contemporary staples—but Richie’s light touch hides how eclectic his album is. The exuberance of “All Night Long (All Night)” percolates with Caribbean rhythms and “Running With The Night” approximates a hint of cool neon new wave in its gilded textures, while “Stuck On You” is a convincing slice of country-pop.
Honorable mention: Dancing On The Ceiling (1986)
Riding high on the success of Can’t Slow Down, Lionel Richie went bigger on its 1986 sequel, Dancing On The Ceiling. His broad strokes may have led him to the silliness of the title cut but it also sharpened his bright pop-funk and power ballads.
Carly Simon
Best Album: No Secrets (1972)
The center of gravity on No Secrets is “You’re So Vain,” the slinky tear-down of a self-possessed social climber. Carly Simon’s insinuating melody is matched by the intoxicating production of Richard Perry, a situation replicated on the lovestruck “The Right Thing To Do,” which was the record’s other big hit. The pair of hits are classics of the singer/songwriter era while No Secrets as a whole is a pinnacle of 1970s studio craft, thanks to savvy Perry relying on such ace players as Nicky Hopkins, Lowell George, Jim Keltner, and Klaus Voormann.
Honorable mention: Come Upstairs (1980)
Carly Simon didn’t set trends so much as follow them and Come Upstairs is one of the more interesting examples of this, finding her attempting to connect with a bit of AOR attitude cut with stylish new wave energy. As curious as this can be—and the stiff sci-fi funk of “Them” is indeed curious, suggesting that Simon had at least heard of Devo—it’s telling that the highlight is “Jesse,” where she wraps her bitter lyrics in a sweet melody.
Musical Excellence Award: Judas Priest
Best Album: British Steel (1980)
A monumental moment in metal, British Steel ushered in the heavy metal golden age of the 1980s. The key to the record’s appeal is how it channels the pummeling power of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal into tight, hooky rockers that slice like a razor. Nowhere is this truer than on “Breaking The Law” and “Living After Midnight,” a pair of outlaw anthems that function as rallying cries to parties or rebellion—whatever fits the mood of the night.
Honorable mention: Screaming For Vengeance (1982)
In some respects, Screaming For Vengeance could be seen as a sequel to British Steel, delivering the same kind of high-octane thrills. There are differences, though, particularly in velocity and intensity, qualities that are ratcheted up throughout the record but are relaxed slightly on its big hit, “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming,” where the slower swagger manages to seem more menacing.
Musical Excellence Award: Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis
Best Album: Control (1986)
A coming-out party for Janet Jackson but also for Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, who stepped away from the Time to help her create this forward-thinking funk masterpiece. Using Prince’s synthesized funk as a launching pad, Jam & Lewis relied on drum machines, synths, and hints of rap as they brought R&B into the hip-hop era. Control was a blockbuster, generating five number-one R&B hits, all but one of which also went Pop Top Ten (“When I Think Of You,” the lone number-one pop hit, topped out at number three R&B), in the process essentially creating the sounds of New Jack R&B.
Honorable mention: Rhythm Nation 1814 (1989)
Delivered when the charts were littered with Control imitators, Rhythm Nation 1814 found Janet Jackson, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis delving into harder, funkier territory that in some ways bettered their breakthrough.
Early Influence Award: Harry Belafonte
Best Album: Belafonte At Carnegie Hall (1959)
A blockbuster upon its 1959 release, Belafonte At Carnegie Hall captured the invigorating charisma of Harry Belafonte as a live performer in a way his studio records didn’t. His warm exuberance, as evident in his stage patter as in his singing, helps draw the audience into his music, a quality that translates quite nicely on the recording. The live setting also helps showcase his acumen with folk styles that fall outside of calypso, painting a richer portrait of his talents.
Honorable mention: Calypso (1956)
The record that launched the calypso craze of the mid-1950s, Calypso opens with the immortal hit “Banana Boat (Day-O),” which turns out to be the tip of the iceberg on an LP that also includes the classics “Jamaica Farewell” and “Man Smart (Woman Smarter).”
Early Influence Award: Elizabeth Cotten
Best Album: Folksongs & Instrumentals With Guitar (1958)/Freight Train And Other North Carolina Folk Songs And Tunes (1989 reissue)
Initially released as Folksongs & Instrumentals With Guitar in 1958, that Smithsonian Folkways LP was revamped as Freight Train And Other North Carolina Folk Songs And Tunes in 1989. In either incarnation, the collection is the best showcase for the inventive steady-rolling picking of Elizabeth Cotten, one of the great folk guitarists of her time.
Honorable mention: Elizabeth Cotten Live! (1984)
Recorded when she was 85 years old, Elizabeth Cotten Live is an excellent showcase of Cotten’s skills as a performer, deserving of its win for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording in 1984. In a live setting, she sounds warm and friendly, her charisma shining through on both her guitar and vocals.