For the third year running, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame revealed its annual inductees on American Idol, with Ryan Seacrest and Rock Hall of Famer Lionel Richie announcing the Rock Hall’s Class of 2026 on the show’s Monday (April 13) night episode.
Of the 17 artists who were nominated for the Rock Hall this year, here’s who made the cut. In the performers category, the inductees are: innovative pop-rock hitmaker Phil Collins; New Wave punk Billy Idol; heavy metal gods Iron Maiden; post-punk-turned-dance pioneers Joy Division/New Order; Britpop icons Oasis; sophisticated R&B group Sade; smooth R&B legend Luther Vandross; and culture-shifting hip-hop collective Wu-Tang Clan.
But that’s not all. Queen of salsa Celia Cruz; Afrobeat architect Fela Kuti; hip-hop boundary-breaker Queen Latifah; rap pioneer MC Lyte; and country rock godfather Gram Parsons enter the Rock Hall with the early influence award. Philly soul songwriter Linda Creed (“The Greatest Love of All,” “Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart)”); producer Arif Mardin (Bee Gees, Bette Midler, Norah Jones); producer/musician Jimmy Miller (Steve Winwood, The Rolling Stones, Motörhead); and producer Rick Rubin (LL COOL J, Beastie Boys, Johnny Cash) are in via the musical excellence award. Finally, Ed Sullivan—whose groundbreaking variety show The Ed Sullivan Show introduced Americans to live performances from Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Jackson 5 and more—receives the Ahmet Ertegun award.
The 2026 induction ceremony will take place Nov. 14 in Los Angeles, to be aired on ABC and Disney+ in December.
Once this year’s induction is completed, everyone from the 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ballot will have been inducted. The last time that happened was 2015, when Lou Reed’s induction marked the ‘completion’ of the 2000 ballot.
The induction of post-punk outfit Joy Division and dance-rock pioneers New Order together marks the third time the Rock Hall has seen fit to salute two bands with overlapping members at the same time, following Parliament/Funkadelic in 1997 and The Small Faces/The Faces in 2012. (Similar-ish, the Rascals were inducted in 1997 as The (Young) Rascals.)
Eight of the marquee names in the Class of 2026 are being inducted posthumously: Luther Vandross (died in 2005), Celia Cruz (2003), Fela Kuti (1997), Gram Parsons (1973), Linda Creed (1986), Arif Mardin (2006), Jimmy Miller (1994) and Ed Sullivan (1974). Of the late inductees, Parsons died the youngest—he was only 26 years old when he died of a drug and alcohol overdose. Cruz was the eldest, making it to 77 before dying of complications related to cancer. Just last year, Creed’s frequent songwriting partner, Thom Bell, was posthumously inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
So who was on the 2026 ballot who didn’t make it in this year? That would be The Black Crowes, Jeff Buckley, Mariah Carey, Melissa Etheridge, Lauryn Hill, INXS, New Edition, P!NK and Shakira. Interestingly, New Edition won the 2026 fan vote but failed to make the Class of 2026; while the fan vote contributes to the final tally, it is not the deciding factor. Fan vote runner-up Phil Collins did, however, make the grade this year.
Additional reporting by Paul Grein.
