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benefits of the induction to the rock and roll hall of fame

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The Beastie Boys. Rufus with Chaka Khan. Guns N' Roses. Heart. The Cure. Do you know these artists? They are among the 15 nominees who, if chosen, will join likes of Elvis, Madonna, the Eagles and hundreds of other music luminaries in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Do you think this year's nominees are good choices?
In "Battle of the Bands (and Egos) for the Rock Hall of Fame," Janet Morrissey writes about the qualifications artists must meet to be inducted, and the potential benefits that come to the chosen:

For the inductees, the reward can be enormous. Weekly record sales for a performer or band leap 40 to 60 percent, on average, in the weeks after selection, says David Bakula, a senior vice president at Nielsen SoundScan. While winning a Grammy often helps one album, a nod from Cleveland can lift an entire back catalog.

These days, labels and artists need all the help they can get. The music business is worth half of what it was 10 years ago, and the decline doesn't look as if it will slow anytime soon. Total revenue from shipments of CDs, DVDs and other music products in the United States was $6.85 billion in 2010, according to the Recording Industry Association of America; in 2000, that figure topped $14 billion.

But the path to the hall of fame can be long and difficult. Controversy surrounds the selection process, which is shrouded in secrecy.

What is known is that a nominating committee of about 30 music critics, entertainment lawyers and recording executives winnows the field each year to 15 artists. Then another committee, this one of about 500 people, including past winners, selects five inductees. Artists can qualify for a spot 25 years after their first recording, which means that performers from the 1980s now have a chance to rank up there with Elvis. (The winners to be announced this week will be inducted at a ceremony next April.)

With fame and money at stake, it's no surprise that a lot of backstage lobbying goes on. Why any particular act is chosen in any particular year is a mystery to performers as well as outsiders - and committee members say they want to keep it that way. The Bee Gees were passed over 11 times before being inducted in 1997; some fans and managers say the long wait reflected an anti-disco bias within the selection committees. And despite 27 studio albums and 45 years of touring, as well as a style that would influence many other artists, Alice Cooper was passed over 16 times before finally being inducted this year.

"When I wasn't being nominated, I played it down all the time," Mr. Cooper says. "But it really does make a big difference."

Students: Tell us what you think about the current nominations for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Whom would you choose and why? Do you think the rule that artists are eligible for nomination 25 years after their first recording is a good one? Why or why not? What artists of today do you think will find themselves in the Hall of Fame in the future? Do you agree there are biases against certain genres, sounds or artists that have kept worthy artists from being nominated or inducted? If so, should there be "halls of fame" exclusive to certain genres?

For fun, take the Rock Music quiz that accompanies the related article.

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

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What Artists or Bands of Today Are Destined for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

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The Beastie Boys. Rufus with Chaka Khan. Guns N' Roses. Heart. The Cure. Do you know these artists? They are among the 15 nominees who, if chosen, will join likes of Elvis, Madonna, the Eagles and hundreds of other music luminaries in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

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Whether or not you think Taylor Swift, pictured above, will be one of them, which of today's musicians or bands do you think will still be popular in the years to come? Why? Which artists who are currently hot do you think will be forgotten?
In "No More Kid Stuff for Taylor Swift," Jon Caramanica writes about Taylor Swift's evolution as a pop artist:

Ms. Swift, now eight years removed from her debut single, has become one of the most important pop artists of the last decade. But her evolution has been purposefully slow, making sure not to leave behind any of the young women who hold her up as a paragon of beauty, talent and civility. That she did this as a country singer was both savvy - the genre demands morals in a way pop doesn't - and also, ultimately, limiting.

It was never a question of whether Ms. Swift would become a pure pop star; the only question was what sort. She's without precedent: not as a country star looking for something bigger, but as a pop singer trying hard to maintain an air of innocence. Any young woman who's tried to own similar space has done it by making choices - of subject matter, of outfits, of public melodrama - that Ms. Swift has gone out of her way to avoid. (You could make a case that Adele has skipped these steps too, but her music was never young and therefore never had to find a way to grow up.)

Instead, Ms. Swift has had to find other ways of growing up. "Red" (Big Machine) is by any measure a transitional album, showing Ms. Swift grasping for what her next stage is going to be, and trying to become a sort of pop superstar that currently doesn't exist. Released on Monday, "Red" is expected to sell over a million copies in its first week.

Students: Tell us about the pop stars, bands or other musicians you think are good enough, and smart enough, to keep evolving, and to still matter years from now:

What individual artists or bands do you think will stand the test of time? Why?

Do you think Taylor Swift is one of them?

Which currently popular musicians do you think will be soon forgotten?

What do you think it takes to stay relevant and popular? What musicians of the past can you give as examples?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

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What Current Musicians Do You Think Will Stand the Test of Time?

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Whether or not you think Taylor Swift, pictured above, will be one of them, which of today's musicians or bands do you think will still be popular in the years to come? Why? Which artists who are currently hot do you think will be forgotten?

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Ever hear a wicked good song on the radio? Wish you could write one just as good? This article is just for you! Find a theme to your song. First off, you need to figure out what you want your song to represent. Will it be a song about love...

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Contests

One of this year's winners wrote about school lockdown drills. Related Article Credit... Alec Soth/Magnum, for The New York Times

Update | Read the work of _________ this year's 10 winners here and this year's runners-up here.
For the past four years we've invited students to write short editorials about issues they care about, and each year thousands take up the challenge.

Students often start with thoughtful questions from their own lives: Why is my school's athletic program better funded than its music program? Why do we hide in the corner of our classroom during active shooter drills? Why don't my classmates stand during the Pledge of Allegiance? And they develop sophisticated, sincere and well researched answers in response.

Students look at the nation's and world's problems and hunt for solutions - to improve the plight of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in China, for example, or to reduce recidivism rates for U.S. prisons.

We really like this contest because it asks students to look closely at their world and find something, large or small, they want to change. So, if you don't like being last in line all the time because your surname starts with "Z," then take a stand. If you want more characters in books and movies to be more like you, then write about it. If you want society to be less wasteful or more tolerant, then tell the world. Change starts with noticing, thinking critically, and starting meaningful conversations - and that's what these students have done in their editorials.

But winning this contest? It's no easy task being selected as a winner out of 7,895 entries, a record. How do you make your writing stand out from the piles of other editorials submitted to our contest - especially when you have no more than 450 words to get your point across?

Here's one way: Start strong. Grab our attention in the first few sentences, but don't take too long to state your argument.

Here's another: Pick a fresh topic, or a new angle on a popular topic, and be very clear about what you are arguing. Often when students narrow in on a specific concern, their editorial becomes more persuasive.

What else? Write with an original, confident voice and avoid formulaic language and structure. And if appropriate, acknowledge, and deftly dispatch, counterarguments.

Below, we list 10 winners, 15 runners-up and 45 honorable mentions. We also include a PDF of all the finalists, including 58 who made the cut to the third round of judging, but didn't quite reach the winner's circle.

Starting May 22, we will be publishing one of the Top 10 essays each weekday in posts that we hope you will spread on social media, hang on school bulletin boards and perhaps even use as "mentor texts" for next year's contest.

Thank you for participating - and we hope you'll take part in our Summer Reading Contest, starting June 16.

_________

Each category below lists our favorites in alphabetical order by title. Where titles were missing, we came up with our own.
Top 10 Winners
" A Psychedelic Cure?" by Reagan Briere, age 16
" In Nothing We Trust" by Francesca Kelley, age 18
" Leave the Citizens to Their TV Shows" by Yijia Hu, age 17
" Losing the Internet" by David Scharts, age 15
" Reform the Prison, Then the Prisoner" by Katherine Leonard, age 16
" Stopping Bullets With Locked Doors and Silence Is Already Pulling the Trigger" by Daina Kalnina, age 15
" The Anguish of the Rich" by Yiqi Wang, age 17
" The Asian Misnomer: What the Affirmative Action Debate Misses" by Matteo Wong, age 16
" The Collateral Damage of Defending Democracy" by Sarah Heiland, age 18
" The Missing Anthropological Exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History " by Alec Farber, age 16
_________ Runners-Up
"America First" by Safa Saleh, age 17
"America? More Like Ameri-Can't Vote" by Gianni Carcagno, age 17
"Climate Literacy: A Critical Step Toward Climate Stability" by Ella Shriner, age 14 and Hannah Witscher, age 15
"Cultural Appropriation: A Measure of Empathy" by James Chang, age 16
"Discourse Is Democracy: Allowing Uncensored Speech on College Campuses" by Abigail Hogan, age 17
"Drone Warfare: The Failing Fight Against the Modern Hydra" by Michael Levinger, age 16
"Generation Code Red" by Grace Scullion, age 16
"Humane Human Zoo?" by Ella Ward, age 15
"Paper or Plastic? How About a Paper ON Plastic!" by Melody Markert, age 17
"The Future Disintegration of American Democracy Through Athletics" by Julianne Yu, age 16
"The Case for Teaching News Literacy" by Mary Hannah Grier, age 17
"The Unspoken Alphabet Problem" by Stephanie Zhang, age 14
"The 'War on Drugs' Will Never Work; Legalization Will" by Kristina Vakhman, age 18
"There Is No Happily Ever After Without Once Upon a Time" by Bridget O'Leary, age 17
"When Will This Class Be Useful?" by Casey Stark, age 15
_________ Honorable Mentions
"#WorldChanger" by Joyce Zhou, age 17
"A Case for Impassiveness" by Lea Marchl, age 16
"A Scoop in the Right Direction" by Emma S., age 18
"AP Tests Don't Leave Enough Room for the Human Side of History" by Tom Malmgren, age 16
"Are My Shoulders Distracting You?" by Mairi Alice Dun, age 17
"Autism: Educated and Extraordinary" by Isabella Zhang, age 17
"Bittersweet" by Rena Rachlin, age 15 "Child Labor in the U.S. Today" by Jasmine Campos, age 16 and Charlotte Principal, age 16
"China Needs Silver Lining" by Wangchen Zhou, age 17
"Colleges Should Abandon Race-Based Affirmative Action to Achieve True Diversity" by Eric Davis, age 18
"Embrace the Mess" by Chi Yu, age 14
"Fast Fashion Is Destroying Our World" by Melissa Wang, age 17
"Food Stamps Need a Change" by Patrick Meara, age 17
"Governor Cuomo Frees the Plastic Bagss" by Jiayan Chen, age 17
"Help Wanted: Moderate Politicians" by Ireland Degges, age 17
"High School Should Not Just Be About Sports" by Swathi Kella, age 16
"How Far Can Post-Truth Democracy Take Us?" by Jiahe Yang, age 18
"How to Revitalize the Public Education System" by Dhara Yu, age 18
"Last Man Standing" by Kathryn Porter, age 16
"Leave Me Alone" by Celia Silver, age 17
"More Than a Morning Kick" by Emma Cary, age 16
"Multiple Choice: Not Multiple Enough" by Yi-Mei Templeman, age 17
"Picking Cotton: An Immigrant's Perspective" by Allan Njomo, age 16
"Post-Democracy" by Nadav Ziv, age 17
"Should Juvenile Offenders Receive Life Sentences Without Parole on Their First Offense?" by Tayler Gavetti, age 16
"Should Obamacare Be Repealed?" by William Pharo, age 16
"Single Payer: A Cure for America's Healthcare Woes" by Akshay Manglik, age 13
"Streaky Friendship" by Yuxin Long, age 16
"Technology: A Hindrance to Learning" by Zachary Weiss, age 17
"Teens, Technology, and The Pursuit of Happiness" by Sam Jagolinzer, age 17
"The Bluest Note" by Nicholas Dasoveanu, age 18
"The College Conspiracy" by Serenity W., age 17
"The Cost of Health Care May Be in Your Genes" by Sophia Lo, age 16
"The Demoralizing of the Elizabethan Language" by Olivia Seymour, age 14
"The Disposable Nightmare" by Tianxin Guo, age 14
"The Education Gap" by Adam Traweek, age 16 "The Environment in the Age of Trump" by Elliot Tuttle, age 17
"The Growing Problem of Screen Addiction" by Kaitlin Craig, age 16
"The Picture of Education We Must Change" by Danielle Naidrich, age 17
"Tipping the Pay Scale" by Ruhee Damle, age 14
"Untitled" by Melinda Hartz, age 16
"We Should Be Teaching Rap Music in Schools" by Jack Zuckerman, age 19
"What Do You Call Someone That Only Speaks One Language? An American." by Paige Patton, age 16
"Where Are All the Rainbows?" by Storm Viridian Murray, age 17
"Where Trump's Ban Stands Legally" by Marcus Linde, age 16
_________ And All the Finalists, Including 58 More Great Editorials That Made It to Round 3 (PDF) Judges: Amanda Christy Brown, Shannon Doyne, Caroline Crosson Gilpin, Michael Gonchar, Annissa Hambouz, Thomas Houston, Shira Katz, Willow Lawson, Linda Leavitt, Sue Mermelstein, Anna North, Roxie Salamon-Abrams, Katherine Schulten, Matt Schwarzfeld, Natlie Shutler and Kate Spence-Ado

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A Call to Action: Winners From Our Fourth Annual Student Editorial Contest (Published 2017)

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Contests Update | Read the work of _________ this year's 10 winners here and this year's runners-up here . For the past four years we've invited students to write short editorials about issues they care about, and each year thousands take up the challenge.

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These are a sadistic people. They emerge with air horns at 3 a.m. to check IDs and make sure the tenters have not sneaked back to the comfort of their beds. How do the Line Monitors sleep at night? They sleep well, you imagine, because they go home when they're done with the air horns. But now they look festive and are wearing blue beads. You wish you had beads.

They hand you a sheet with cheering instructions, which you are grateful for. It tells you: "Before Tip: Jump in rhythm with band's drummer. Yell 'Woo' every time you jump." It also says some strategically mean things that you are to yell at people at the correct moments. If one particular guy has the ball, you must remember to tell him his father is better at basketball. (He is a Jr. and apparently his Sr. was in the N.B.A.) If there is an alley-oop, the sheet says you must "Lean back and yell 'Oh.' Point to the baby being held up on the right side of the court. Yell 'Baby.'" You vow to ask somebody what an alley-oop is and hope one happens so you can see this baby.

You ask so many people where the student section is that a police officer feels bad for you and escorts you there.

You spot a friend from your dorm, one of the aforementioned cruel Line Monitors. She is proud you are there. She shoos you into the writhing mass of students that must stand always.

You identify some people you know well enough to stand with. You make your way to them and wedge your body into the line and glare at the person you have displaced, even though he is clearly in the right and there was no room for you.

The opposing team comes out. They are from Virginia Tech, which you hear is a nice place, but your sheet says it is not. "Virginia Tech's only national title is for bass fishing." The players from the Other Team are introduced and you must chant the ritual welcome: "HI, JUSTIN ... YOU SUCK!" We do that for each new player. Ah. This is why people hate us.

Now us! You recognize Alex O'Connell. He was in your documentary studies class last semester. He is very, very tall but you only saw him sitting and he slouches so you thought he was a normal-size person for a while.

Then the Man Himself emerges. Mike Krzyzewski. Coach K. He is our short angry Polish-American man and we revere him as a god. As with many gods, you almost never hear him talk and you see him even less. We pay him $9 million a year to be our short angry man and he has a tower where he keeps his athletes. And he is so short you can't see him now, but you know he is there because everyone is bowing over and over again.

It is Valentine's Day today, but it was Coach K's birthday yesterday, so the Line Monitors gave everyone birthday hats. Why didn't they give you a birthday hat? Maybe they could tell you are a fraud. You are not a Cameron Crazie. You are a Cameron Reasonable. You are ashamed.

Some minutes pass, filled with what are apparently embarrassing turnovers on both sides. The game is not going well. The guy next to you, the one you glared at before, is yelling some particularly inventive obscenities. His name is Trevor. Who hurt you, Trevor?

The Line Monitors keep trying to get "Happy Birthday" started, but the band always interrupts before we can get to the "Coach K" part.

More basketball happens. The Line Monitors are upset because we should be doing much better than the other team, which your sheet clearly says is unranked.

There is a person in a bright-blue, full-body fur suit a couple of rows in front of you. Is he Cookie Monster? A fuzzy Blue Devil? Unclear.

You get distracted when you realize there is a guy who hurls his body on the court to wipe off the sweat when someone falls. He seems both honored to be there and filled with terror. Is this a student, frantically scrubbing bodily fluids? Either way, you are glad you are not him.

All at once, in perfect unison, the students start chanting, "TUCK YOUR SHIRT IN." You quickly scan the court and indeed, someone's shirt has come untucked. This was not on your sheet. You are caught unawares. How could you have anticipated this? You consider tucking in your own shirt.

You are starting to get the hang of some of the sounds you're supposed to make. When the opposing team does something stupid like drop the ball, you go "OOP OOP OOP" and wiggle your arms like an octopus. You are always relieved when this happens because you know you are doing the correct thing.

We are doing better! Our boys are now "sinking their 3s." Blue-fur-suit guy has a cardboard cutout of a banana. What could this signify? He finally turns around - he has a gorilla mask on! But he also has a tail, which you are sure gorillas do not have because you have earned the Duke biology T-shirt you are wearing.

O'Connell from documentary studies dunks, but it's a split second after the shot clock runs out, so it doesn't count. Duke wins anyway. The Line Monitors are relieved and smugly pretend they were never worried we would lose to the bass-fishing school.

Later you hear you were on ESPN. You take a screenshot for posterity so that your friends and family will see that, indeed, you went to at least one game. You are about eight pixels but it is clearly you, staring blankly toward the camera as the Crazies rage around you, all facing an entirely different direction. It was less than seven minutes into the game. You were wondering how early is too early to go for Peanut M&Ms.

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Opinion | I Go to Duke. Do I Have to Care About Basketball?

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These are a sadistic people. They emerge with air horns at 3 a.m. to check IDs and make sure the tenters have not sneaked back to the comfort of their beds. How do the Line Monitors sleep at night? They sleep well, you imagine, because they go home when they're done with the air horns.

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Contests

One of our 2017 editorial winners wrote about China's unofficial ban on Korean cultural exports, such as the boy band Exo. Credit... Starnews, via Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

The challenge is fairly straightforward. Choose a topic you care about, gather evidence from sources both within and outside The Times and write a concise editorial (450 words or less) to convince readers of your view.

Because editorial writing at newspapers is a collaborative process, you can write your entry as a team effort or by yourself. When you're done, submit it using the contest form below by Thursday, April 5, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. Be sure to read the rules, also below, before posting.

Our judges will then use this rubric (PDF) for selecting winners to publish on The Learning Network.

As teachers know, the persuasive essay has long been a staple of high school education, but the Common Core standards seem to have put evidence-based argumentative writing on everybody's agenda. You couldn't ask for a more real-world example of the genre than the classic newspaper editorial - and The Times publishes, on average, two of them a day.

And at a time when breaking out of one's "filter bubble" is more important than ever, we hope this contest also encourages students to broaden their news diets by using multiple sources, ideally ones that offer a range of perspectives on their chosen issue.

So what issue do you care about? Gun violence? Sexual harassment? Social media? You decide.

Good luck, and please post any questions you might have in the comments. We'll answer you there.

_________
Note: The submission form has been removed from this page. The contest is closed.
_________

Video

The New York Times's editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal provides seven tips for writing an effective editorial.

To help with this challenge, Andrew Rosenthal, in his previous role as Editorial Page editor of The Times, detailed seven pointers in the video above. And we have published related lesson plans, including " For the Sake of Argument: Writing Persuasively to Craft Short, Evidence-Based Editorials," " I Don't Think So: Writing Effective Counterarguments" and " 10 Ways to Teach Argument-Writing With The New York Times," that offer additional teaching ideas.

We have also culled a list of 401 prompts for argumentative writing organized by category, to help inspire you - although, of course, you are not limited to those topics.

We encourage you to look at both our comments on last year's winners and the winning essays themselves. They can serve as excellent models, and they cover topics from active-shooter school lockdowns to Korean television shows in China.

In addition, you can watch our free, archived webinar, featuring the Op-Ed columnist Nicholas Kristof and Kabby Hong, a high school English teacher.

1. Use at least one Times source. You can write your editorial about any topic, as long as you use at least one source from The Times. That should pretty much open the whole world to you, as you may be surprised how much you can find in The Times.

Be advised that nytimes.com has a digital subscription system in which readers have access to five free articles each month, but after that you will be asked to become a digital subscriber. The Times also offers K-12 digital subscription plans for schools. But all Learning Network activities for students, including our daily writing prompts, as well as Times articles linked from them, are free, so you can access them without exceeding the five-article limit.

2. Use at least one non-Times source. But make sure that the source you use is a reliable one. We encourage you to find sources that offer different perspectives on an issue.

3. Always cite your sources. Our submission form contains a required field for entering your citations. We include an example as well, though you can use M.L.A. or A.P.A. styles, or just list the website URLs. Even if you use a print source or an expert interview, you must provide a citation. Readers (and judges) should always know where you got your evidence.

4. Be concise. The editorial must not exceed 450 words. Your title and list of sources are separate, however, and do not count as part of your 450-word limit.

5. Have an opinion. Editorials are different from news articles because they try to persuade readers to share your point of view. Don't be afraid to take a stand.

6. Write your editorial by yourself or with a group. If you are working as a team, just remember to submit all of your names when you post your entry. But please submit only one editorial per student. If you're submitting as part of a team, you should not also submit as an individual.

7. Be original and use appropriate language. Write for a well-informed audience, but include enough background information to give context. Be careful not to plagiarize: Use quotation marks around lines you take verbatim from another source, or rephrase and cite your source.

8. Submissions must be from students who are 13 to 19 years old, and they may come from anywhere in the world. Unlike in previous years, students can now use their entire name if they want.

9. All entries must be submitted by April 5 at 11:59 p.m. Easternusing the contest form above. If you have questions about the contest, feel free to post them in the comments section, and we'll respond to you there.

10. Follow these instructions if you need proof that you entered this contest. Within an hour of submitting your editorial, you should receive an email from "The New York Times" with the subject heading "Thank you for your submission to our Student Editorial Contest." If you don't receive the email within an hour, even after checking your spam folder, then you can resubmit your entry. Be sure your settings allow emails from nytimes.com.

After two attempts and waiting over one full day, if you still have not received a confirmation email, you can contact us at LNFeedback@nytimes.com with the email address you used in the contest form. Use the subject heading "Please send me an email confirmation for my editorial contest submission." Be sure to include your name and editorial title (or subject) in your email. You may have to wait up to a week for a reply.

11. We will use this rubric (PDF) to judge entries, and the winning editorials will be featured on The Learning Network.

" Writing an Editorial" Unit Plan, by Lindsay Thompson

" Reader Idea | He Said, She Said, I Say: A Researched Argument Essay," by Danielle Harms

" Reader Idea | Using an Op-Doc Video to Teach Argumentative Writing," by Allison Marchetti

" Reader Idea | Using Room for Debate to Teach Argumentative Writing and Discussion Skills," by Gerard Dawson and Justin Rex

" Reader Idea | An Argument-Writing Unit: Crafting Student Editorials," by Kayleen Everitt

Good luck and have fun. We welcome your questions and comments if we have omitted details that might be useful. Let us know how we can help.

_________
The Learning Network runs contests for teenagers all year long. See our full calendar.

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Our Fifth Annual Student Editorial Contest: Write About an Issue That Matters to You (Published 2018)

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Contests The challenge is fairly straightforward. Choose a topic you care about, gather evidence from sources both within and outside The Times and write a concise editorial (450 words or less) to convince readers of your view. Because editorial writing at newspapers is a collaborative process, you can write your entry as a team effort or by yourself.