Van Halen, Patti Smith and others inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Two of the biggest rock bands of the 1980s took different paths to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Monday indie favorites R.E.M. with a happy reunion and party band Van Halen with a fragmentary turnout, informs Reuters.
Otherwise, the hall took on a New York flavor with the girl group sound of Spanish Harlem's the Ronettes, downtown poet Patti Smith and South Bronx's Grandmaster Flash, the first hip-hop act so honored.
The rock hall's 22nd annual induction ceremony was the first beamed live to the world, through VH1 Classic and aol.com. 
Out of Athens, Ga., R.E.M. largely invented the college radio scene in the 1980s with songs like "Radio Free Europe," then became mainstream stars behind hits "Losing My Religion" and "Everybody Hurts."
"R.E.M.'s music is truly all-encompassing," said Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, who inducted them. "They used every color on the pallette, they invented colors on their own and they put up this huge mural of music and sound and emotion."
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