My philosophical objection is related though distinct from my ideological one. If rock shouldn’t be supported by the state, it also doesn’t need anything like an official hall of fame (even one that might provide shelter and a working bathroom for the presumably now-homeless Hall & Oates). Rock provided the very soundtrack for the baby boom generation’s long, tedious slog against the regimented, bourgeois expectations of their parents. Tune in, turn on, drop out, and all that. And yet it’s the baby boomers—especially Hall of Fame and Rolling Stone mag founder Jann Wenner, arguably the archetypal example of ‘60s-style pseudo-rebellion against the status quo—who felt a need to create the ultimate arbiter of establishment value. Who knew that all those freak flags being flown back in the day were really surrender flags and that rock stars were just as desperate to be certified as “hall of famers” as football players and professional bowlers?

When Jean-Paul Sartre was offered the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964 (the year the Beatles invaded America), he refused it, saying that he rejected official honors and that he didn’t want to be “institutionalized,” lest his writings lose some of their power. To date, there have been a handful of rock-and-roll refuseniks who have followed the French Stalinist’s lead and said no on principle. Jerry Garcia boycotted the Grateful Dead’s induction because he thought the idea of a rock hall was stupid. In 2006, the Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten faxed a note on behalf of the band declining the honor. “Next to the SEX-PISTOLS,” it read, “rock and roll and that hall of fame is a piss stain.”