The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's discord progression

In pop, as in the sporting world that provided a model for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, one fan's dream is another's disappointment. This is true of the annual artist inductions, which elevate some while ignoring others -- Rush was robbed again! -- and the pattern will repeat Thursday and Friday in New York at the hall's 25th anniversary concerts.

The shows at Madison Square Garden promise everything a classic rock fan desires. The headliners are U2 and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, rock's most reliably awe-inducing live acts. Soul legends including Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin will collaborate with worthy inheritors including John Legend and Annie Lennox. Heavy ax men Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Metallica likely will reach new heights of guitar-face.

For those baby boomers who come to sing along, Simon & Garfunkel and Crosby, Stills and Nash will harmonize with pals including Dion and Bonnie Raitt.

Yet these once-in-a-lifetime shows are missing so much. Where's the hip-hop? The disco? The funk? The punk? (Proto-punk's in the house: Lou Reed will perform with Metallica.) Why no Latin music, not even Carlos Santana? Wasn't Madonna invited?

Madonna might show up, I suppose, in one of the montages sure to be shown during the evening's intermissions. Her 2008 induction exemplified how the Rock Hall is adapting to a new era, one in which the grand narratives of capitol-R rock 'n' roll have given way to a broader understanding of contemporary pop music.

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Mutual admiration

The Rock Hall was founded as a kind of countercultural Friars Club, in which the titans of the post-Elvis and Little Richard era feted each other at black-tie dinners, which always ended in star-studded jam sessions. It was a flush time for the music industry, and the once scruffy street heroes who'd made rock a viable career seemed happy to join an establishment they could control.

Highlights from these dinners are now vicariously open to all, via "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live," a nine-DVD collection that also features footage from the stadium concert that celebrated the Cleveland museum's opening in 1995. Viewers will be drawn to these discs for the performances, but the induction speeches are more revealing. The one Mick Jagger gave for the Beatles in 1988 sounds like a wedding toast.