NEW YORK (AP) – Eminem, Boy George, George Clinton, Sheryl Crow, Janet Jackson, the Doobie Brothers, NWA and Alanis Morissette are among the nominees for the 2025 class at the Songwriters Hall of Fame, an eclectic group of rap, rock, hip-hop and pop pioneers.
Joining them on the ballot are Bryan Adams, with radio staples like Summer of ’69 and Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman? and Mike Love of the Beach Boys, hoping to get in 25 years after band founder Brian Wilson. Co-lead singer of the pop-music group Bread David Gates is also looking for entry.
The Hall annually inducts performers and non-performers alike, and the latter category this year includes Walter Afanasieff, who helped Mariah Carey with her smash All I Want for Christmas Is You; Mike Chapman, who co-wrote Pat Benatar’s Love Is a Battlefield; and Narada Michael Walden, the architect of Whitney Houston’s How Will I Know and Aretha Franklin’s Freeway of Love.
Eligible voting members have until December 22 to turn in ballots with their choices of three nominees from the songwriter category and three from the performing-songwriter category. The Associated Press got an early copy of the list.
Several performers are getting another shot at entry, including Clinton, whose Parliament-Funkadelic collective was hugely influential with hits like Atomic Dog and Give Up the Funk, and The Doobie Brothers – Tom Johnston, Patrick Simmons and Michael McDonald – with such classics as Listen to the Music and Long Train Runnin. Steve Winwood, whose hits include Higher Love and Roll With It, has also been on the ballot before.
Hip-hop this year is represented by Eminem – whose hits include Lose Yourself and Stan – and NWA members Dr Dre, Eazy E, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella. Already in the Hall are hip-hop stars like Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg and Missy Elliot. Tommy James, with hits including Mony Mony, Crimson and Clover and I Think We’re Alone Now, has also earned a nod.
If Jackson, whose 1989 album Rhythm Nation was a landmark, gets into the Hall, it will be more than two decades after her late brother Michael.
The Canadian songwriter Morissette, whose influential Jagged Little Pill has won Grammys, Tonys, Junos and MTV awards would also add to the Hall’s rocking women. (Glen Ballard, who helped produce and write the album, is already in.)
As would Crow, the All I Wanna Do and Everyday Is a Winding Road singer-songwriter, is having a critical resurgence after being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2023. Boy George lifts the flag for ’80s New Wave with the Culture Club hits Karma Chameleon and Do You Really Want to Hurt Me.
Other nominees for the non-performing category include Franne Golde, who co-wrote Selena’s Dreaming of You; Tom Douglas, who wrote country hits for Tim McGraw, Lady Antebellum and Miranda Lambert; Ashley Gorley, fresh off his co-writing smash I Had Some Help by Post Malone and Morgan Wallen; and Roger Nichols, who co-wrote The Carpenters’ We’ve Only Just Begun.
They join Rodney ‘Darkchild’ Jerkins, who contributed to the hit The Boy Is Mine by Brandy and Monica; Sonny Curtis, former member of the Crickets who wrote and performed the theme song for The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Love is All Around, and British composer Tony Macaulay, who wrote Build Me Up Buttercup.
The Hall also put forward three songwriting teams: Steve Barri and PF Sloan, who wrote Secret Agent Man; and Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter, who penned the Four Tops hit Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got); and Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, who wrote the Percy Sledge tune Out of Left Field.
The Songwriters Hall of Fame was established in 1969 to honour those creating the popular music. A songwriter with a notable catalogue of songs qualifies for induction 20 years after the first commercial release of a song.
Some already in the hall include Carole King, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Brian Wilson, James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Lionel Richie, Bill Withers, Neil Diamond and Phil Collins. Last year saw REM, Steely Dan, Dean Pitchford, Hillary Lindsey and Timbaland inducted. – Mark Kennedy
