Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announces 2016 inductees | CNN

This year marks the first time Janet Jackson has made the list of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees. She holds the record for the most consecutive Top 10 hits by a female artist on the Billboard Hot 100 -- 18. Here are some of the others vying to make it into the class of 2016:

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Since beginning as the Chicago Transit Authority in 1969, the soft-rock band Chicago has become revered for its jazz-tinged tunes. Hits such as "If You Leave Me Now" are a mainstay on many easy-listening playlists.

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Cheap Trick's nearly 40-year career includes generations of fans. The band's first five albums are said to have been "<a href="https://rockhall.com/inductees/nominees/2016-cheap-trick/" target="_blank" target="_blank">made in a rock and roll tsunami from 1977 to 1980.</a>"

Cheap Trick's nearly 40-year career includes generations of fans. The band's first five albums are said to have been "made in a rock and roll tsunami from 1977 to 1980."

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Despite breaking up at the height of their fame in 1987, the Smiths remain one of the most important alternative rock bands to come out of England.

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Chic has made the list of nominees 10 times. The band was heralded for having "<a href="https://rockhall.com/inductees/nominees/2016-chic/#sthash.ZVCFLvYq.dpuf" target="_blank" target="_blank">rescued disco in 1977 with a combination of groove, soul and distinctly New York City studio smarts</a>." Performers from multiple genres have sampled Chic's sound.

Chic has made the list of nominees 10 times. The band was heralded for having "rescued disco in 1977 with a combination of groove, soul and distinctly New York City studio smarts." Performers from multiple genres have sampled Chic's sound.

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Deep Purple helped to establish the popularity of hard rock, selling more than 100 million albums. Along with Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple is part of the "holy trinity of hard rock and metal bands," according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

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The East Los Angeles group Los Lobos was already well-known on the Mexican-American music scene before becoming a pop sensation in the 1980s.

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Nine Inch Nails has made singer-songwriter Trent Reznor a star. The 1994 breakthrough album "The Downward Spiral" received a boost when the group appeared that same year at Woodstock '94.

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Steve Miller began his career as a bluesy rock artist before transitioning into pop. Hits such as "Fly Like an Eagle," "Jet Airliner" and "Jungle Love" have cemented his place in rock history.

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The new wave scene gave birth to the Cars in the late 1970s. The group parted ways in the late '80s, but some members reunited in 2011 for the album "Move Like This."

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The J.B.s started as a backup band for James Brown but went on to become one of the mainstays in the funk genre. Some members became the backbone of George Clinton's Parliament-Funkadelic.

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The Spinners remain a beloved R&B group with hits such as "I'll Be Around," "Could It Be I'm Falling in Love" and "Then Came You." The group helped define what came to be known as the Philadelphia sound.

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The English rock band Yes formed in 1968, with hits into the 1980s such as "Owner of a Lonely Heart." The group continues to tour with new members.

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Chaka Khan first came to fame as the lead singer of the funk-rock group Rufus. She quickly established a successful solo career, earning a Grammy in 2008 for best R&B album with "Funk This."

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This year was a big one for N.W.A as the group known for introducing gangsta rap to the mainstream returned to the headlines. "Straight Outta Compton," a biopic about N.W.A, clobbered the competition at the box office, introducing the group's music to a new generation.

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Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2016 nominees

Story highlights

An act has to be in business for at least 25 years after the release of its first album to be nominated

Every year, more than 600 musicians, historians and other industry players vote on nominees

CNN —

Let us pay homage to the latest rock stars immortal and dig on some of the music that just got them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The pantheon of rock has announced its five inductees for 2016. The ceremony to welcome them will come in April.

It took decades for the acts to make it in, and that’s part of the official rules.

An act has to be in business for at least 25 years after the release of its first album to be nominated. Three of the five iconic acts needed more than 40 years to make it in.

Every year, more than 600 musicians, historians and other industry players vote on nominees. For five years, the Rock Hall has allowed fans to vote, too. But their top pick counts as a single vote.

This year, the band Chicago took 37 million ballots – more than 23% – to become fan favorite.

Here are the new rock deities in the order listed by the Hall of Fame. With so much time under their belts, their hits are now oldies spanning ’60s hard rock to ‘90s rap but heavily weighted to the ‘70s.

Notably, none of the acts being inducted is female.

Remember (if you can). Sing along (even if you can’t).

Cheap Trick: Generation MTV

When video killed the radio star in the ’80s, Cheap Trick did the optics up right.

And the band slid in on top of punk with quick-beat, good unclean fun. Who can forget the full-screen, glossy red lips mouthing “She’s Tight,” to the highest tones of Robin Zander’s silk pipes? With Rick Nielsen zapping in an electric chord on guitar to set the exclamation point after “tight!”

When Cheap Trick cut its first album in 1977, it established a signature sound, the Hall of Fame said. “It has never changed it much. It didn’t need to.”

Chicago: Brass breezes

Chicago, this year’s fan fave, said “We’re different” from its first album in 1969. All around it, the British Invasion driven by the Beatles was metaphysically morphing into psychedelic trips.

With jazz horns, the Chicago Transit Authority blasted wide-eyed, breezy reality right into it, and in its lyrics took vivid sun-drenched strolls like in “Saturday in the Park.”

Then the group waxed melancholic, asking wide-awake philosophical questions like “Does anybody really know what time it is?”

“Chicago mastered the art of making melodic jazz-tinged rock with a keen pop sensibility,” the Rock Hall wrote.

The city of Chicago pressured the band into shortening its name to just “Chicago,” the Hall of Fame said.

It took Chicago more than 40 years of fame to get voted into the Rock Hall.

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Deep Purple: That rock’s hard

“Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. They are the Holy Trinity of hard rock and metal bands,” said the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

What else is there to say? Plenty.

The Hall credits the album “Deep Purple In Rock,” together with albums by the other two bands, with founding the genre of hard rock. Deep Purple has sold more than 100 million albums.

Like riffs? “Smoke On The Water” by far outriffs the Stones and Nirvana, the Hall of Fame said.

This band, too, needed more than 40 years of fame to make it into the Rock Hall.

Steve Miller: Psycheblues

Around the same time Chicago blew its jazz against psychedelic rock, Steve Miller flowed with it instead, sizzling it with blues guitar and sweetening it with harmony.

“Miller perfected a psychedelic blues sound that drew on the deepest sources of American roots music and simultaneously articulated a compelling vision of what music – and, indeed, society – could be in the years to come,” the Rock Hall of Fame said.

Miller was the third act that needed more than 40 years to be rock-deified.

N.W.A: Straight outta Compton

Ahead of their time? Maybe. Think #BlackLivesMatter.

And yeah, they’re rock ‘n’ roll – now officially, says the Hall of Fame. And they’re visionaries who broke down barriers in society to let the rest of the world in on the harsh confinement of street life in America’s forgotten corners, like Compton.

Their lyrics were woven from equally harsh words.

The Hall of Fame said the group “made a way out of no way, put their city on the map and solidified the disparate elements of gangsta rap into a genre meaty enough to be quantified, imitated and monetized for generations to come.”

Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella cleaned up the lyrics for “Express Yourself,” which criticized the pop charts for wanting them to, well, clean up their lyrics.