The Shortlist Organization announced today the 2007 finalists for the Shortlist Music Prize:

• Arcade Fire -- Neon Bible
• Burial -- Untrue
• Feist -- The Reminder
• Justice -- †
• LCD Soundsystem -- Sound of Silver
• M.I.A. -- Kala
• Spoon -- Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
• Stars -- In our Bedroom After The War
• Wilco -- Sky Blue Sky
• Working for a Nuclear Free City -- Businessmen & Ghosts

The Shortlist Music Prize (fair warning: it's an awful website) is where "the worlds most creative recording artists honor their peers," so it is a good (but not perfect) indicator of what current artists are listening to, and could therefore be a measuring stick for future Rock and Roll Hall of Famers. Something to keep an eye on in the years to come if they can get the right "Listmakers" (i.e. no more radio DJ's).

For the past couple of years, the good folks over at A List of Things Thrown Together Five Minutes Ago (ALLOT5MA) have been grading various artists' Rock Hall credentials using a method adapted from baseball analysis. The original Keltner list was developed by the brilliant baseball analyst Bill James to help determine which baseball players deserve to be in Cooperstown. ALOTT5MA adapted the list of questions for the Rock Hall (shown here from their analysis of Metallica):

1. Was Metallica ever regarded as the best artist in rock music? Did anybody, while Metallica was active, ever suggest that Metallica was the best artist in rock music?
2. Was Metallica ever the best artist in rock music in its genre?
3. Was Metallica ever considered the best at its instruments?
4. Did Metallica have an impact on a number of other bands?
5. Was Metallica good enough that it could play regularly after passing its prime?
6. Is Metallica the very best artist in history that is not in the Hall of Fame?
7. Are most bands who have a comparable recording history and impact in the Hall of Fame?
8. Is there any evidence to suggest that Metallica was significantly better or worse than is suggested by its statistical records?
9. Is Metallica the best artist in its genre that is eligible for the Hall of Fame?
10. How many #1 singles/gold records did Metallica have? Did Metallica ever win a Grammy award? If not, how many times was Metallica nominated?
11. How many Grammy-level songs/albums did Metallica have? For how long of a period did Metallica dominate the music scene? How many Rolling Stone covers did Metallica appear on? Did most of the bands with this sort of impact go into the Hall of Fame?
12. If Metallica were the best band at a concert, would it be likely that the concert would rock?
13. What impact did Metallica have on rock history? Was it responsible for any stylistic changes? Did it introduce any new equipment? Did it change history in any way?
14. Did the band uphold the standards of sportsmanship and character that the Hall of Fame, in its written guidelines, instructs us to consider?

Obviously not every question can be answered objectively (and thus won't provide definitive answers), but it does provide a useful guide when trying to figure out the worthiness of artists who may be on the bubble.

Check out their analysis of Donna Summer (yes), Madonna (absolutely), Chic (no), Duran Duran (yes), John Mellencamp (bubble, but yes), The Replacements (yes), Depeche Mode (no), Phil Collins (no), and of course, Rush (no). You can browse all of those and more right here. Hopefully the actual Rock Hall voters give as much thought into their choices as these guys do.

The results from the annual Cleveland Plain Dealer Rock Hall poll have been announced, and John Mellencamp was the leading vote-getter for the 2008 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The other four artists who "won" are Madonna, the Dave Clark Five, Donna Summer, and the Ventures. Although the Plain Dealer poll received just 170 ballots, the results are very similar to the Future Rock Hall poll (which is still open with over 2000 ballots already cast). The only difference between the polls is that Future Rock Hall voters prefer the Beastie Boys over the Ventures.

Official Rock Hall ballots were due on Monday this week with the winners to be announced in January.

The 500+ members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Voting Committee will be receiving their 2008 ballots soon. They will be instructed to vote for exactly five out of the nine nominees, since only five will be inducted in March. Future Rock Hall is the only place you will find an accurate representation of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot which puts you in the position of a Voting Committee member.

For the 2007 ballot, Future Rock Hall voters accurately predicted four out of the five inductees.

Cast your 2008 Rock Hall ballot here!

Future Rock Hall has announced its prediction of the 2008 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominations: Metallica, Madonna, Sonic Youth, Beastie Boys, Afrika Bambaataa, The Stooges, The Dave Clark Five, Chic, John Mellencamp, The Cure, and Kraftwerk. Check out the full story here.

Cleveland Scene recently took a look at the future prospects of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and found that it's as clear as mud.

[T]he Rock Hall's future [is] as sketchy as a Detroit Avenue hooker on meth. The Hall's website claims that one of its goals is "to recognize the contributions of those who have had a significant impact on the evolution, development, and perpetuation of rock and roll." But how will it measure that? By record sales? Innovation? Will there be quotas for gender and race, as well as genres like hip-hop and techno? Or is it just one big popularity contest?

Scene called and asked, but Rock Hall spokeswoman Margaret Thresher didn't have a response. "Good question," she said.

The answer is that without a concrete definition of rock, there is no science to make the induction process flawless. Outside of Nirvana, the next decade doesn't boast many safe picks. Even Madonna will be a controversial inductee, seeing as the pop diva never released a rock record in her entire career.

Then there are the guys who sold out arenas, only to end up on the cheesy VH1 rock docs -- the Poisons and New Kids on the Blocks of the world. No one would claim they were innovative or had any staying power (NKOTB didn't even rawk!). But they defined musical eras and sold gobs 'n' gobs of records (even though they now make up 90 percent of the stock at the Record Exchange).

How will this shadowy induction committee weigh those guys against, say, the Replacements and Dinosaur Jr. -- artists that aren't household names and never graced the cover of Rolling Stone, but created whole new genres and birthed hundreds of new bands?

They go on to take a look at ten artists' chances for future induction:

• Judas Priest - too scary
• Guns N' Roses - likely
• Captain Beefheart - too "out-there", but deserving
• Sting - too schmaltzy
• Black Flag - deserving, but too atonal
• Alanis Morissette - influential, but in a bad way
• Dr. Dre - probably with N.W.A., but not solo
• John Mayer - watered down Clapton
• Kraftwerk - should be in, but too German?
• Babyface - the 1990s' Phil Spector

Astute fans of Future Rock Hall will notice that the Induction Chances formula has been adjusted to better reflect an artist's odds of ever being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

The Onion's A.V. Club has taken a stab at predicting which artists will someday be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Let's take a look at their predictions and how they compare to the Future Rock Hall induction chances.

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The A.V. Club predicts these artists will get in:

Artist	A.V. Club Odds	FRH Chances
Madonna	2-1	83%
John Mellencamp	2-1	62%
Beastie Boys	3-1	83%
Pearl Jam	3-1	81%
Public Enemy	5-1	74%
Coldplay	5-1	61%
The Replacements	6-1	61%

The A.V. Club is pretty safe with these predictions even though their odds should be much higher.

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The A.V. Club predicts these artists will be "on the bubble":

Artist	A.V. Club Odds	FRH Chances
Tupac Shakur	8-1	45%
The Smiths	8-1	73%
Dave Matthews Band	9-1	51%
New Order	10-1	72%
Pavement	12-1	65%
Oasis	13-1	71%
The Flaming Lips	15-1	58%

Again, the A.V. Club underestimates the chances these artists have. Remember, the Rock Hall voting committee will eventually be represented by a generation of music experts who grew up in the 80's and 90's, and will have a keen understanding of the significance of these artists. It may be 20 years, but it will happen.

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This last group won't make the cut, according to the A.V. Club:

Artist	A.V. Club Odds	FRH Chances
Hüsker Dü	25-1	66%
XTC	40-1	55%
Yo La Tengo	50-1	47%
De La Soul	100-1	40%

Future Rock Hall and its users have much more confidence that the Hall of Fame will someday recognize these artist than the A.V. Club does.

Overall, the A.V. Club chose an excellent sample of artists to highlight, the majority of whom will likely be in the Rock Hall within 25 years.