Rock N Roll is a broad term, many thing is just guitars, big riffs and things like that. But Rock N Roll is an idea that emcompasses many different genres and also the artist themselves understands the "roots" of all the genres.

John is one of those few that crosses the genres and it doesnt seem forced or done for commerical gain. Case in point John Mellencamp had a band member from the late 90's through a few albums this decade named MOE Z, he was a rapper, and also engineered, did tracks etc.. now that fit right in mainly because it didnt sound "forced" it sounded "right" others that have tried things like this have failed and it does sound "forced" case, Prince on alot of the records in the 90's including guest/rappers.

But not only that John has done this all through his career, working with Junior Vasquez in 1996 on his Mr. Happy go Lucky CD, and also John has been the first many times in working with talent such as, India Arie,MeShell, and Heather Headley who all appeared on John's albums. John cannot be held to a category, if you own his catalog of 21 albums than you clearly know that, hes hit with Pop, Rock, Blues, Dance, Rap and RB on all his records and it always makes since. Back in 2001 on John's "cuttin Heads" cd, John had one of his "boldest" songs called Cuttin Heads, which featured one of the greatest raps Chuck D every has done, which basically talked about the whole N WORD hipocracy 6 years before it was a cool thing to talk about. And John has never shyed away from Controversy either, actually he seems to welcome it or at least challenge people to think about songs and subjects. His 1987 hit "Cherry Bomb" featured a black male and white girl together, and drew threats from the KKK on mellencamps 1987 tour, in 1991 his track "Love and Happiness" was aimed at the first persian gulf war, and further political tracks, "to washington" "our country" and of course the track "Jena" for Jena 6 which will be on his new album (his 22nd) "Life Death Love and Freedom".

So maybe it was fitting that Mellencamp finally got in the HOF after 4 seperate tries and missing, maybe the HOF looked at the proof and figured it was time another artist that "knows" what its about got in.

I dig him. I wish he'd come back through Houston. I haven't seen him in 25 years.