"Our mission is to really show the importance of rock and roll in our culture and in our lives and its continuing importance," says Peresman. "This music and this culture is so important to so many people. When they get married, people don't hold up the picture [of the place] they met, they play their favorite song."

Doug Brod, editor in chief of Spin would probably agree. "As an institution it definitely serves a purpose," he says of the museum. "It enshrines quality music and music makers. As a historical record I think it's necessary." (Brod, however, says he'd like to see Cheap Trick finally get its due and be inducted: "They've never really been appreciated," he says.)

Traditionally, the Hall of Fame and Museum has been heavy on classic rock, partially because the induction rules stipulate that a nominee is only eligible for the honor 25 years after releasing his or her first record. That naturally skews the selections old, but the emphasis on aging acts—this year's inductees includes Jeff Beck and Bobby Womack, but also newer school acts like Metallica and Run-DMC— since the organization itself grew out the a baby-boomer generation's nostalgia for the music of its youth.

The impulse to look back and enshrine artifacts of the past (Peresman says Robert Plant's original lyrics sheet to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" is at the top of his wish list) casts Chuck Berry's epigraph to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: The First 25 Years, a coffee-table book out this month from Collins Design, in a somewhat ironic light: "Hail, Hail Rock & Roll/Deliver Me From the Days of Old." Not too far, the museum's curatorial mission suggests. The museum's artifacts—the Everly Brothers' suits and David Bowie's vinyl boots—don't offer deliverance from the days of old as much as a nostalgic repackaging of them.

Then again, nostalgically repackaged acts, including boomer-era ones, dominated 2008's top-grossing concert tours, according to a Billboard report from December 2008. Bon Jovi raked in $210.6 million; Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band took in $204.5 million (with an additional $31 million from the year before). Madonna, the Eagles, and the Police each made a boatload. (And let's not forget 2008's insta-nostalgia reunion act, the Spice Girls, who took in $33.8 million from a 17-night stand at London's O2 Arena, presumably playing "Wannabe" over and over for two hours since that's what fans want—what they really, really want.) Clearly, these older acts make money.

Peresman insists the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum isn't just for aging rockers. He pinpoints the average age of museumgoers as between 34 and 45, but says that, "over the last few years, we've been seeing that come down."

"What we're seeing is the teenagers driving the visits," he says. "Between the Internet and Rock Band and Guitar Hero, they're getting more exposure to artists."

Peresman has 18-year-old twins, but says they never really expressed much interest in his work. "Oddly enough, for as long as I've been in this business, they never really went to a lot of [rock] shows."

That doesn't mean a dad can't insist they rock once in a while. When Peresman worked as the executive vice president for entertainment for Madison Square Garden, he told his girls, "You have to come see Paul McCartney. You have to come see Tina Turner. It's kind of like history!"

"And when they came, they liked it," he boasts.

Long live rock!

Or not. "They listen to everything," he says of his kids' musical tastes. "But they're not really classic-rock people,"