What a year 2007 was for our campaign! TV coverage...concert venues helping out...encounters with Al himself...a landslide in a readers poll...and so much more!

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, we should go over some of recent, general Rock Hall news first.

Of course, on December 14 the 2008 class of Rock Hall inductees were announced. The honors will go to Madonna (gasp), John Mellencamp (meh), Leonard Cohen (um...), The Dave Clark Five (uh, all right), and The Ventures (buh?), while non-performers to be inducted are Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, and Little Walter.

In the press release announcing the inductees, our old friend Joel Peresman said that the artists "are trailblazers--all unique and influential in their genres" and that they "demonstrate the rich diversity of rock and roll itself." You know, all these vague accolades they use in each Rock Hall press statement could apply to so many artists, such as one that's the focus of this campaign.

We'll have our FAQ page updated with the upcoming induction information in the very near future.

Another bit of news this past month involved the actual induction ceremonies. Though this upcoming one will take place in New York again, apparently our campaign's hometown of Cleveland will be hosting the 2009 ceremony. Oh yes, we will be planning things around this, you better believe it.

Now onto news that really matters, campaign news!

We are proud to announce a slew of new campaign merchandise at our Cafepress shops, most notably an election-styled "coast to coast" shirt chronicling our 2007 U.S. petition tour. It's not a traditional "tour shirt" per se (those are still readily available thanks to the Weird Al Star Fund, complete with licensed Al artwork...order one or eight now!), but we wanted to offer something new for the new year that showed the incredible support that we have had across the country in this campaign. After all, it's now 2008...it would be stupid to not have some new "Yankovic '08" products available, right?

Before we look ahead, though, let's look back on 2007 and break it down. Here's our 2007 campaign drive by the numbers....

61 total concerts with volunteers
55 cities with said concerts
167 newspapers were contacted about our campaign
170 TV stations were contacted about our campaign
542 radio stations were contacted about our campaign

15 newspapers covered our campaign
3 TV stations covered our campaign
23 radio stations covered our campaign

and, most importantly....

8,576 petition signatures have been gathered by the end of the year!

And just in case this wasn't cool enough, 2007 ended on a rather unsuspecting high note for us!

As we did in 2006 in a widely seen YouTube video, this past month we sent out a new holiday card to select members of the Rock Hall's nominating committee. The idea this year was suggested by our Australian coordinator Emily Parker and plays off the official Rock Hall voting ballot.

The above card was sent out to the usual folks, including Terry Stewart, president of the actual Rock Hall museum here in Cleveland and a longtime nominating member.

Well, imagine our surprise when barely a week later did a card-sized envelope arrive addressed to the campaign, with the Rock Hall's official logo and address as the return address.

Inside was the Rock Hall's own official holiday card sent out to company friends, members, etc.

But the real shock was inside the card....

In pencil, Mr. Stewart inscribed, "Great card! Terry"

We are simultaneously amazed, thankful, and touched that Mr. Stewart thought enough to respond in kind to us in the spirit of the season. This also marks the first official acknowledgment of our campaign of any kind from anyone connected to the Rock Hall, so at least we started at the very top, eh?

So as we now look to 2008, we still have a great deal of work to do. We're still about 1,500 short of our petition goal of 10,000, which we would like to complete as soon as possible (ideally before Al goes back out on the road this spring...oops, did we say that out loud?). We have a lot of other projects we want to start, but completing the petition will as always be the top priority.

We sincerely thank everyone who was involved with this campaign in 2007...let's keep the momentum going! Remember, Yankovic '08!