NEW YORK — Nirvana, which changed music and fashion in the 1990s with the punk rock-inspired grunge sound, is joining the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in a class with Kiss, Peter Gabriel and Hall & Oates.Linda Ronstadt, the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens and Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band are also being inducted at a ceremony scheduled Thursday night in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.
Nirvana is being inducted in its first year of eligibility. The trio’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” hit like a thunderclap upon its 1991 release, briefly making the Pacific Northwest rock’s hottest scene before the band ended abruptly with singer Kurt Cobain’s suicide in 1994.
Kiss, the band with elaborate makeup that promised to “Rock and Roll All Nite,” brought drama to the ceremony. The band’s two remaining original members, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, said they wouldn’t perform with Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, two other original members who had left.
Coldplay frontman Chris Martin is due to introduce the British singer Gabriel, already voted into the hall of fame in 2010 as a member of Genesis. The writer of “Shock the Monkey,” “Sledgehammer” and “In Your Eyes” is being honored for his solo work.