Seventeen artists have been nominated as possible inductees for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

With the likes of Dolly Parton, Rage Against The Machine, Eminem, Fela Kuti, Pat Benatar and Devo among the nominees, it's a musically diverse bunch.

But the announcement will come with the usual amount of teeth-gnashing, disdain, and ambivalence.

Since its inception in 1986, the Hall of Fame has become a lightning rod for criticism, usually over a lack of diversity or perception of musical elitism.

What is the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?

The hall itself is situated on the banks of Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio, and serves not only as a gallery and museum celebrating its inductees, but also as a tourist attraction, concert venue, library and archive of the history of "rock and roll".

As an organisation, the foundation behind the hall was set up in 1983 by Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun to celebrate and preserve the history of contemporary music.

It also aims to promote musical education and engagement.

The Hall of Fame induction ceremony is a massive concert and promotional exercise that raises money for the foundation.

In some circles, being inducted means more than any Grammy Award or gold record.

But to many, it doesn't mean so much.

Why is that?

So here's how the Hall of Fame works.

Every year a list of nominees is announced by the members of the hall's foundation, a group that has been regularly accused of bias and secrecy.

The only real requirement for nomination is that it must be 25 years since the release of their first record, and getting nominated seems to be decided by the whims of the foundation's board.

The nominee list is then sent as a ballot to roughly 900 music industry figures.

The public can vote too, though the result of that vote counts as a single ballot, according to details regarding the induction process that have since disappeared from the hall's website in recent years.

Often the nominations cause as much consternation as who finally gets into the hall.

Influential funk/disco act Chic have been nominated 11 times since 2003 but never inducted, while proto-punks MC5 have had six nominations over the same time period and still aren't in the hall.

Heavy metal pioneers Judas Priest became eligible for nomination in 1999, but were only nominated for the first time in 2018, which is seen as just one example of the hall's snobbery against metal.

But spare a thought for Dolly Parton, who would have been eligible for induction in 1992, but has only been nominated for the first time this year.

It's unclear why Parton, who has had success as a songwriter and performer over seven decades, has been snubbed for so long.

But her exclusion hints at the lack of women in the hall.

There were no female artists in the first induction in 1986. By 1990, Aretha Franklin, The Supremes, and Zola Taylor from The Platters were the only women in the hall among 86 men.

The issue of gender diversity has endured.

Janet Jackson capped off her induction speech in 2019 by saying "Rock & Roll Hall of Fame please, 2020: Induct more women", while Steve Miller used his induction speech in 2015 to make a similar call.

Who's nominated this year?

Devo, Carly Simon, Eurythmics, Fela Kuti, Lionel Richie, Rage Against The Machine, MC5, New York Dolls, Duran Duran, Eminem, Dolly Parton, Judas Priest, Beck, Dionne Warwick, Pat Benatar, Kate Bush, and A Tribe Called Quest.

Hold up, are they all rockers?

In the context of the Hall of Fame, the term "rock and roll" has become a catch-all for "contemporary music".

When Californian rap group N.W.A. were inducted in 2016, member Ice Cube described rock and roll as "not even a style of music [but] a spirit".

"It's been going since the blues, jazz, bebop, soul, R&B, rock & roll, heavy metal, punk rock and, yes, hip-hop," he said.

"And what connects us all is that spirit.

"Rock and roll is not conforming to the people who came before you, but creating your own path in music and in life."