Michael Stipe, lead singer of rock group R.E.M. Click photo for larger image. Listen In: Hear excerpts from songs by the latest Rock Hall of Fame inductees: Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, "The Message" R.E.M., "Begin the Begin" The Ronettes, "Be My Baby" Patti Smith, "Gloria" Van Halen, "Jump"

When that thoughtful band from Athens, Ga., steps into the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in March, it won't be a ceremony. It will be a circus.

What else could result from David Lee Roth, Sammy Hagar and Eddie Van Halen being in the same room together?

Yes, Van Halen, the most dysfunctional band in rock history, is in, entering the hall on its first year on the ballot.

Perhaps the bigger story to come from yesterday's announcement isn't that two more blockbuster '80s bands are in, but that a whole new genre has scratched its way in the door for the first time. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five will be the first representatives of the hip-hop nation.

Women also get their day in 2007, with the induction of legendary girl group The Ronettes (Ronnie Spector, Estelle Bennett and Nedra Talley) and New York punk-poet Patti Smith.

High on the list of nominees this year that did not make the cut is Iggy Pop and the Stooges, inexplicably snubbed once again. The Detroit band is widely regarded as the prototype for the punk movement that followed half a decade later, and its imitators are still on the prowl.

Patti Smith Click photo for larger image.

Also out in the cold are disco pioneers Chic, soul singer Joe Tex, and the Dave Clark Five, who were just a few months behind the Beatles in the British Invasion.

Casting the votes was a panel of 600 industry experts. Acts become eligible 25 years after their debut album or single, which means Van Halen could have been nominated in 2003.

Certainly, the band's influence and enduring popularity were enough for voters to overlook the absolute insanity that circles around the extended Van Halen family.

Van Halen formed in Pasadena, Calif., in 1974 and, after being discovered by Gene Simmons of Kiss, broke through in 1978 with a cover of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me" that showcased the one-two punch of Roth's glass-shattering vocals and Eddie Van Halen's guitar pyromania. Van Halen launched a score of copy-cat hair metal bands but stayed at the top of the pack with hits like "Jump" and "Panama" and good-old rock-star excess, not the least of which was an infamous hissy fit over a couple of brown M&Ms. When things blew up between Eddie and Diamond David in 1984, the band didn't miss a beat, firing the singer and carrying on just as successfully with former Montrose frontman Sammy Hagar. Over the past decade, it's required a score card to keep track of who is singing for Van Halen, as Roth and Hagar have come and gone, along with Gary Cherone, who is absent from the inductee list.

"There's a lot of egos involved, a lot of talent involved," says Joel Peresman, president and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation and a Pittsburgh native. "I just hope that given the circumstance of the event, that everyone can play along for the evening."

In the early '80s, when punk had given way to the glamour and New Wave and the hysterics of hardcore, R.E.M. came along to help reinvent melodic guitar rock. The Georgia band took its cue from the urgency and DIY nature of punk, while adding the jangle of the Byrds, a slight Southern accent and a bit of subterranean lyricism. R.E.M. debuted in 1982 with "Chronic Town" and remained a college radio favorite and a rock of consistency through four albums before cracking the mainstream with "The One I Love" in 1987. Although R.E.M. lost some of its crunch with the departure of drummer Bill Berry in 1997, Michael Stipe and company go into the hall as a functioning band still respected in the mainstream and underground.

Watch for an R.E.M.-Patti Smith collaboration during the induction, as Stipe and Smith are friends from way back, and she called to congratulate him yesterday. Smith, a Chicago native raised in New Jersey, takes an unlikely route to the hall, having hit the scene as a poet and painter. For this fierce feminist, though, punk and poetry were one and the same, and with the help of guitarist Lenny Kaye and a crack band, she became one of the icons of the New York scene in the mid-'70s. Not long after cracking the airwaves with "Because the Night," a co-write with Bruce Springsteen in 1978, Smith retreated to family life in Detroit with the MC5's Fred "Sonic" Smith (who died in 1994) and their two children. She's released one album in the '80s and two each in the '90s and '00s, mostly recently the acclaimed "Trampin' " in 2004. Has Patti Smith mellowed? Well, when she played Metropol a few years ago, the first thing she did was spit on the floor.

With girl groups all the rage again in 2006, it's a good time for The Ronettes to take their place in history. Ronnie Spector, her sister Estelle Bennett and their cousin Nedra Talley are a long way from the Peppermint Lounge, where they got their start in 1961, but the three members are alive and well in their early 60s. Known as "the first bad girls of rock," the Ronettes were the feather in Phil Spector's cap in the '60s with tough, sexy hits like "Be My Baby" and "Baby, I Love You." In recent years, Ronnie -- who was married to the producer from 1968 -74 -- has been embraced by the punk scene, collaborating with the late Joey Ramone and the Raveonettes. Peresman says the Ronettes haven't been on stage together in 40 years.

Over the next several years, there will be a procession of rappers heading into the hall, but it's only fitting it should start with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, a group that was vital to hip-hop's infancy. Kid Creole, Cowboy, Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel, Mr. Ness and Raheim enter as the group that created the blueprint for rap to address social issues. In 1982, Flash, a DJ who pioneered turntable scratching as early as 1977, and lead MC Melle Mel delivered "The Message," a song that depicted the hardships of ghetto life in a way people had never heard before.

"When I look at the list [of inductees], I see true diversity," says Peresman. "I really do think it represents what rock and roll is."

This diverse group goes into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame together on March 12, when there will also be a tribute to the late Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records.

During that ceremony, we may get some fireworks from the Van Halen boys -- maybe Patti will put them in their place -- but for at least another year, we'll be left wondering if the great Iggy Pop would have worn a shirt for the occasion.