The 2026 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Class, Ranked
The 2026 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class walks in on 14 November, and who deserved the call most is yours to rank. The only gate is the Hall's own press release. An act is here if the 13 April 2026 release inducted it in the Performer category, so the Early Influence, Musical Excellence and Ahmet Ertegun honorees, Celia Cruz through Ed Sullivan, are context, not entries. The tiers come from the Hall's final fan vote, reported 7 April 2026 after more than 9 million votes: finish in that final five and get inducted and you are the upper tier; the other Performer inductees are the lower. It is a tier, not the order: the act that finished first on that ballot, New Edition, was not inducted. The gate and the tier carry the list; the upper tier goes first, and the seeded order within each tier is the desk's opening position for your vote. Every act's entry names the nomination that got it in, and the link is one official video, its strongest case. Vote it into shape.
Luther Vandross is #1 on “The 2026 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Class, Ranked”.
- 1
Luther Vandross
Posthumous and first-ballot: Vandross died in 2005, and the Hall's final fan vote put him fifth on his first nomination, just under 733,000 votes. "Dance With My Father" is the case, the 2003 single he wrote with Richard Marx, which the Grammys named 2004's Song of the Year. Diane Martel shot the video while he was hospitalized, filling it with musicians, actors, athletes and childhood snapshots of Vandross.
- 2
Phil Collins
Already inside with Genesis since 2010, Collins finished second in the final fan vote on his first solo nomination, close to 901,000 votes. "In the Air Tonight", out 9 January 1981, climbed to second in the UK and 19th in America; the gated-reverb drum sound is what the Hall's bio singles out. Stuart Orme's video animates the Face Value cover photo until it fills the frame, then cuts to Collins in an empty room at night.
- 3
Wu-Tang Clan
Staten Island's collective got in on its first nomination, and the single that abbreviates Cash Rules Everything Around Me makes the argument: released 31 January 1994, two verses, Raekwon's then Inspectah Deck's, and the Hot 100 let it reach 60 that April. Ralph McDaniels's video begins at the projects in Staten Island and turns to champagne and Mercedes; most people on screen wear Champion hoodies and Timberlands. WuTangClanVEVO's upload is the edited cut, and its title says as much.
- 4
Joy Division/New Order
Two bands, one plaque, third nomination: the Hall inducts Curtis, Gilbert, Hook, Morris and Sumner together and says they did it "not once, but twice". "Love Will Tear Us Apart" stalled at 13 in the UK in 1980. The band filmed the video themselves on 25 April 1980 at a Manchester rehearsal studio, and it opens on the door carved with Ian Curtis' name. Deborah Curtis later had the title cut into his memorial stone.
- 5
Iron Maiden
Third time on the ballot for a band the Hall says "built the template for how heavy metal should look, sound, and tour", with Paul Di'Anno and Blaze Bayley inducted beside Bruce Dickinson. "The Trooper", Steve Harris's song about the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava in 1854, got to 12 in the UK in 1983. Jim Yukich filmed the band at Brixton Academy and cut in a cavalry battle from the 1936 film of the charge.
- 6
Oasis
Inducted on their third nomination, and the drummer they bury is on the plaque. "Live Forever", released 8 August 1994, was the band's first top-ten hit, peaking at ten in the UK. Carlos Grasso's original video has Liam Gallagher on a chair affixed to a wall, and several scenes of the band burying Tony McCarroll alive, whom the Hall inducts beside both Gallaghers. The Hall puts the 2025 reunion at "over two million tickets sold".
- 7
Sade
Second nomination, after 2024, for the four the Hall says have been the lineup since 1982, Sade Adu, Paul Denman, Andrew Hale and Stuart Matthewman. "Smooth Operator", co-written by Adu and Ray St. John and released 28 August 1984, peaked fifth on the Hot 100, 19 in Britain. Julien Temple's video casts Michael Feast as the operator, a professional criminal, apparently, who displays a gun to an interested customer and cheats on Sade with a waitress, Amanda Pays.
- 8
Billy Idol
Second consecutive year on the ballot, and guitarist Steve Stevens goes in with him. "White Wedding", released 22 October 1982, hit 36 on Billboard's Hot 100 during July 1983, then 6 in Britain when reissued in 1985. David Mallet's video stages a goth wedding with Perri Lister, Idol's girlfriend then, as the bride; the ring he pushes onto her finger is a wedding ring made of barbed wire, and the cut on her knuckle is real, at Lister's insistence.
How this list was ranked
Readers rank this list by voting items up and down. Items are ordered by reader votes.
