{"id":490590,"date":"2019-09-26T15:42:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-26T21:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=891089"},"modified":"2019-09-26T15:42:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-26T21:42:00","slug":"john-sykes-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fames-new-steward-talks-halls-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/music-news\/john-sykes-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fames-new-steward-talks-halls-evolution\/","title":{"rendered":"John Sykes, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame\u2019s New Steward, Talks Hall\u2019s Evolution"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame<\/a> announced that Rolling Stone<\/em> founder Jann Wenner would be stepping down from his longtime post as chairman next year, the big question was whether changes would be on the horizon for the storied institution. John Sykes, iHeartMedia\u2019s president of entertainment enterprises, pledges that there will be.<\/span> \u201cIt will continue to evolve. Because if it doesn\u2019t, it will become irrelevant,\u201d Sykes tells Rolling Stone<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Sykes will succeed Wenner \u2014 who founded Rolling Stone <\/em>in 1967 and co-founded the Hall of Fame in 1983 before taking over as its head following founding chairman Ahmet Ertegun\u2019s death in 2006 \u2014 on January 1st of next year. He spoke about his plans for the foundation\u2019s scope, ambitions, and future legacy.<\/p>\n

How does it feel to be taking the reigns from Jann?
<\/strong>I feel like I\u2019ve known Jann since I was 15 years old. I\u2019m incredibly honored to follow in his footsteps because he was an icon to me when I first saw his name on the masthead of Rolling Stone<\/em> when I was 15. He still is, today. He\u2019s been an iconic figure in my life since I was only living on an allowance. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is an incredible success story: Jann and Ahmet overcame insurmountable odds in the Eighties with no money, nothing but an idea, and they built it into a cultural institution. If you take a step back and look at it, the Hall of Fame has become the Cooperstown of rock and roll \u2014 it took hundreds<\/span> of years for that to happen in baseball, and they did it in three decades for rock music.<\/span><\/p>\n

So where do we go from here? What\u2019s the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame\u2019s relevance for modern music audiences and what\u2019s its future?
<\/strong>We\u2019re in the music business and music leads change in our culture. Nothing stays the same in music. Therefore, really the institution that honors it has to evolve with all the music. Just like hip-hop is very much a part of the Hall of Fame now, everything we do \u2014 the board members we have, the events we build on \u2014 have to reflect a changing culture without ever disregarding or turning our backs on the ideals and fundamentals of the Rock Hall.<\/span><\/p>\n

How do you reckon with the brand\u2019s name being inextricably tied to rock and roll, in a time when the genre isn\u2019t nearly as present in pop culture?
<\/strong><\/span>I\u2019ve always thought that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame \u2014 having been involved in it myself for 25 years now \u2014 is no longer about a single genre of music. It\u2019s about a spirit that connects with young people. Jon Landau, who heads up our nominating committee, always reminds us each year at our induction meetings that Berry Gordy put on every single one of his Motown the words \u201cthe sound of young America.\u201d I think that\u2019s what it\u2019s all about \u2014 the sound of young America.<\/span> It will continue to evolve. Because if it doesn\u2019t, it will become irrelevant.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cWe have to look and feel like the artists that come into our hall. That\u2019s just the natural transition.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There has been criticism of the Hall of Fame under Jann\u2019s tenure as an institution that plays favorites or denies entrance to certain types of music. How do you plan to contend with that?
<\/strong>I think Jann, Ahmet and [Sire Records founder] Seymour [Stein] built an incredible Hall of Fame that reflected the state of music in the time that the institution was built. And Jann himself has said that it\u2019s time to evolve. His work has been to make 1.0 and it\u2019s time to take the hall to 2.0.  T<\/span>hat means a more diverse board, that means more women, people of color, people who reflect the kind of music that\u2019s now being inducted. We have to look and feel like the artists that come into our hall. That\u2019s just the natural transition. To Jann\u2019s credit, the first year of induction had Sam Cooke, Jeff Barry, Ray Charles \u2014 it could\u2019ve just been a bunch of rock bands. Jann\u2019s view is that he\u2019s done his job and gotten it to this level, and it\u2019s time for the next generation to take over and grow it. It was his idea to step down and pass the torch.<\/span><\/p>\n

So do you envision the Hall of Fame stepping more into broader conversations in music?<\/strong>
<\/span>What we\u2019ve done so far is focus on building a group of inductees that have made it credible enough that all artists want to be part of it. They understand we really take the process very seriously and look at the artists that have truly impacted culture. We want to be involved in the broader conversation, yes \u2014 but only as it relates to what music truly shapes the lives of young people. Anything beyond that, we\u2019re not interested, because there\u2019s probably someone else who can do that.<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s been the biggest takeaway from your time on the board and from working with the founders? How does that affect what\u2019s next?
<\/strong>What Jann taught all of us is that you really lead with your passion. None of us get paid for this \u2014 I\u2019m still keeping my day job and running a division of iHeartRadio. Jann was financially secure from the day he thought about the Hall of Fame. It wasn\u2019t about the money; It was about preserving this incredible music and culture. I remember when he and the others wanted I.M. Pei to do the museum. I<\/span>n some ways, that\u2019s so counterintuitive to rock and roll \u2014 but it was also a way to tell the world that rock and roll was serious business, and what better way to hire the man who designed the addition to the Louvre? Jann understood how to keep it pure, but legitimize it in the eyes of culture.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moving forward, as far as goals for the foundation: The obvious goals are to continue to financially support the museum in Cleveland, which is a separate board, and work closely with the museum to create state-of-the-art exhibits but also really take advantage of technology and social platforms available to take the Hall of Fame beyond Cleveland into every single house, car, and iPhone in America. But most important is to build out<\/span> the board of the foundation \u2014 board members that really reflect diversity in music right now. That, to me, is hopefully what i\u2019ll be able to contribute in the next year of the hall: a hall of fame that really is a mirror to the incredible change in music that\u2019s coming out now.<\/span><\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced that Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner would be stepping down from his longtime post as chairman next year, the big question was whether changes would be on the horizon for the storied institution. John Sykes, iHeartMedia\u2019s president of entertainment enterprises, pledges that there will be. \u201cIt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-490590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-music-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-21 15:35:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KQZR - The Reel","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}