Ego is a powerful thing. It’s what makes singers think it’s OK to demand a dressing room full of white doves with their tea stirred anti-clockwise. It’s why hundreds upon hundreds of godawful albums have been made in the name of people’s “art”. It’s responsible for at least 98 per cent of Kanye West.
If there’s one group of people that have ego to spare, it’s musicians, and if there’s one thing that ego bloody loves, it’s a massage. That’s why awards shows are historically capable of doing the seemingly impossible: dangle that gleaming gold carrot of industry recognition and formerly feuding bands start kissing and making up like nothing was ever wrong.
The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame ceremony, which takes place annually in the USA, is one of the finest examples of this. The ceremony is held in great regard, inducting music’s finest, five at a time, into Noah’s great musical ark. The list of bands that have reunited for the ceremony is impressive: Led Zeppelin, Cream, Talking Heads, The Police. In 2014, the remaining members of Nirvana performed with a selection of female vocalists including Lorde and Kim Gordon, even patching things up with Courtney Love for the sake of a nice evening.
Which gets us to musing on next year’s ceremony – due to take place in April 2016. Alongside stalwarts of the longlist including NWA and Chic, who’ve both been nominated several times but failed to get enough votes to be inducted, a little group called The Smiths are up for nomination. Though the group were first nominated in 2014 and just missed out, it seems unlikely that the committee will trip up twice, meaning that the band will likely find some quite important invites in the post come spring.
You see where we’re going with this by now… And sure, likelihood is that hell will freeze over before Morrissey, Johnny Marr, Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke step on a stage together given the very public slanging matches, court battles and general unpleasantness that’s occurred between various parties over the years. But stranger things have happened, and they’ve happened on that very stage.
The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame is an old-school doffing-of-the-cap to the medium’s most revered masters – and Morrissey no doubt counts himself among that category. While an awards event seems anathema to much of The Smiths’ indie sensibilities, the traditionalism of the event’s gravitas and glory – a world away from Ant & Dec at the Brits – actually fits the singer’s inclinations pretty well. For the rest of the band, it’s a musician’s musician award that shoos away fads in favour of real, time-tested talent. Plus, they’ve only got to play about two songs at the ceremony.
Will it happen? Probably not. Can we dream? Most certainly. And who knows, maybe in a blaze of righteous glory and recognition, April 2016 will be the time The Smiths finally let the fans get what they want.