Chrissie Hynde Blasts ‘Total Bollocks’ Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Count Chrissie Hynde among the artists who are exasperated by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

The Pretenders frontwoman, who was inducted into the Hall in 2005, aimed at the institution in a new post on Facebook.

“If anyone wants my position in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, they are welcome to it. I don’t even wanna be associated with it,” she wrote. “It’s just more establishment backslapping. I got in a band so I didn’t have to be part of all that.”

Hynde then went on the detail the dread she felt when she found out she would be inducted.

“I was living a happy life in Rio when I got the call I was being inducted,” she recalled. “My heart sank because I knew I’d have to go back for it as it would be too much of a kick in the teeth to my parents if I didn’t. I’d upset them enough by then, so it was one of those things that would bail me out from years of disappointing them (like moving out of the U.S.A. and being arrested at PETA protests and my general personality). Other than Neil Young’s participation in the induction process, the whole thing was, and is, total bollocks.” Hynde ended her post by asserting the Hall has “absolutely nothing to do with rock ‘n’ roll and anyone who thinks it is is a fool.”

The Pretenders’ leader is the second notable rocker to recently criticize the Rock Hall. In a lengthy op-ed in The Guardian on Friday, Courtney Love decried what she described as “sexist gatekeeping.” The Hole leader – who spoke at the 2014 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony when her husband, Kurt Cobain, was inducted posthumously with Nirvana – pointed out that just 8.48% of inductees have been women (a number first identified by Future Rock Legends). Love further noted that such notable artists as Big Mama Thornton, Kate Bush and Chaka Khan are still awaiting enshrinement.

“If so few women are being inducted into the Rock Hall, then the nominating committee is broken. If so few Black artists, so few women of color, are being inducted, then the voting process needs to be overhauled,” Love wrote. “Music is a life force that is constantly evolving – and they can’t keep up.”