Now that Cheap Trick, Chicago, Deep Purple and Steve Miller are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, after years of complaints and campaigns by fans to get them there, it's time to look ahead to who's eligible next year for induction.

While it would be nice if the nomination committee played catch-up again in 2017 like it did with 2016's class by honoring artists who've been eligible for years (and decades, in some cases), chances that more than one veteran act -- like, say, Yes, the Moody Blues or the Doobie Brothers -- will get in are slim, because every year that passes, another batch of artists becomes eligible.

With the 25-year wait between the release of an artist's first record and their first year of eligibility, 2017 plops us straight into alternative nation, as grunge and other modern-rock branches began ruling the airwaves and charts. There were plenty of new hip-hop artists too, as rap music infiltrated the mainstream in 1991 and 1992.

Rock 'n' roll was still a thing, but traditional rock as most classic-rock fans knew it had given way to new shades and textures in the form of louder guitars, trickier musical patterns and more personal lyrics. Grunge groups sprouted everywhere in the early '90s, and more than one band from that era reaches eligibility in 2017.

We should note that our list Artists Technically Eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 is just that: artists who are eligible. By no stretch of the imagination would we ever think Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch deserve an award of any kind, let alone entrance into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Like every year, 2017 includes some artists who are shoo-ins, some who are long shots and some we'd rather just forget about forever.

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