Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Voters Not Impressed By Phish

Two anonymous Rock & Roll Hall of Fame voting committee members dissect their 2025 ballots in a new article from Vulture, and when it comes to Phish, their opinions are not particularly favorable.

“If I were going to rank this ballot, Phish would be dead last. A big fat no,” said the first, identified only as Voter 1. They continued:

I come by my distaste honestly: About ten years ago, I was at a bar with some buddies; I was relatively sober and something had been playing on the jukebox for about 15 minutes. I was finally like, “What is this shit music?” It was in minute 18 of a 20-minute track from the Phish album A Live One. Some jerk had used his $2 for TouchTunes to put on a Phish track because (a) he’s a Phishhead and (b) he wanted to punk the whole bar. All the clichés apply.

Attempting to include something positive, they finished by saying, “I do appreciate that Trey Anastasio is a genuine fan of rock history,” adding, “I just can’t stand the music.”

Voter 2, though not as critical, was still less than supportive of the band’s induction, saying, “I didn’t appreciate Phish until I saw them live”—a sentiment probably shared by many, even diehard fans. They went on to detail how they consider Phish to be a prog rock band more than a jam band.

“A few years ago, Trey Anastasio inducted Genesis into the Rock Hall and Phish played ‘Watcher of the Skies’,” they said. “That unlocked something in my head. I was like, Oh, they’re a prog band. I think that’s the key to why they got nominated because they’re from that lineage. It’s polarizing to call them a jam band, so I hesitate to do that.”

Voter 2 admitted, “I didn’t vote for them, just because I felt there were other people who deserved it more this particular year.”

Fair enough.

While the two voting committee members’ unenthusiastic takes on Phish do not bode well for the band, they are only two voters out of a large pool with diverse tastes, and Phish is currently leading the fan vote by a substantial margin (fans can cast a vote for up to seven of the nominees once per day through April 21st here).

For context, both voters expressed more favorable opinions of Phish’s fellow nominee Cyndi Lauper, with Voter 1 (the Phish critic) saying, “I think the world of her.”

Voter 2 was even more of a Cyndi stan: “Cyndi was No. 1 for me on this ballot,” they said. “I was upset a few years ago when she didn’t get in. Everyone associates her with the ’80s and her first record, but she’s so much more than that. She writes her own songs and has written so many beautiful ones about important topics like abortion. She’s a vocalist with a singular voice. You can’t look at the ’80s without her. She paved the way for any female artist who wants to carve out their own path and not follow convention. I could talk for hours about Cyndi. It’s a capital, big check-mark ‘yes.'”

Again, fair enough.

Read the voters’ thoughts on the full 2025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ballot, which also includes OutKast, The Black Crowes, The White Stripes, Mariah Carey, Chubby Checker, Bad Company, Joe Cocker, Billy Idol, Joy Division/New Order, Maná, Oasis, and Soundgarden, here.