Getting in as a solo act doesn’t recognize the bands someone is in though. Even if his solo albums are better, The White Stripes seem more significant, as a last big moment for guitar rock having that kind of mainstream weight. Which makes them being acknowledged by the HoF funny to me.

Because of the solo artist vs. group thing, Alice Cooper could get in again as a solo artist, with the same name. I feel like, everything else aside, he’s disqualified from that because it would confuse most people.

I was surprised when Phish performed to induct Genesis, since I’d thought Genesis got in for their later pop stuff.

1,000 people create the list of nominees and then 40 people pick the finalists. I don’t think it’s that unusual for juried awards to do something like this.

How does the nominating process work?
Each year, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation’s Nominating Committee selects the group of artists nominated in the performer category. Ballots are then sent to more than 1000 historians, members of the music industry and artists—including every living Rock Hall inductee—and the five to seven performers receiving the most votes become that year’s induction class. Even if an artist has been previously nominated, if they don’t receive enough votes from the voting body that year, they would have to be nominated again to be eligible for induction.

Who decides which performers get nominated for Induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?
Only the Nominating Committee, which is made up of a diverse group of about 40 music industry professionals including some inductees, academics, journalists – with hundreds of years of professional music experience between them, and whose passion, expertise and livelihood is all about music, can nominate artists for induction.

There’s also a fan vote.

How does the Fan Vote work?
Beginning in 2012, fans were given the chance to vote for the nominees they’d like to see inducted into the Rock Hall. The top five vote-getters in the public fan poll form one ballot, which is weighted the same as the rest of the submitted ballots.

Edit: sorry, I see that you mentioned the fan vote. Anyway, the fan vote is only meaningless if they’re fixing the vote. Otherwise it’s 1/41 of the final vote.