Eight Named to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame : Pop: Noticeably absent from the list of 1990 inductees is Bob Marley, the late Jamaican reggae king.

British rock veterans the Who and the Kinks plus the folk-pop duo Simon & Garfunkel are among the eight new inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, announced Tuesday in Cleveland, the proposed site of the Hall of Fame building.

Vocal groups the Platters, Four Seasons and Four Tops along with singer-songwriters Bobby Darin and Hank Ballard round out the 1990 inductees, who will be formally admitted to the Hall of Fame in a gala Jan. 17 ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York.

Missing from the roster was Bob Marley, the late reggae king, who almost single-handedly brought the Jamaican style from a regional phenomenon to a global music force and was considered by some observers to be a cinch selection this year.

“I can’t imagine what (the Hall of Fame voters) were thinking of,” said Anthony DeCurtis, senior writer for Rolling Stone magazine. “Maybe they’re waiting for the first 25 years from his (impact). Still, Marley’s significance is so enormous. If he was eligible he certainly should have been voted in.”

DeCurtis was doubly irritated by the inclusion of the Four Seasons over Marley. Though the Four Seasons achieved tremendous popularity, the group has not had much long-term impact on the pop world.

“I liked them when I was growing up,” DeCurtis said. “But if this is supposed to measure importance and not success, I wonder how valid a choice that is.”

Marley’s songs, including “Get Up Stand Up” and “No Woman No Cry,” reflected the fire and passions of his Rastafarian faith and dealt directly yet poetically with the social issues of both his native island and the Third World in general. Marley died of cancer in 1980, but is still reggae’s best-known name.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has now inducted 43 acts since 1986, with voting done by 300 pop music industry figures and journalists. This year the voters were given a list of 30 nominees from which to choose up to 10. Artists are eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first recording.

* The Who’s induction had been widely predicted. The band has long been ranked just behind the Beatles and Rolling Stones as the most respected act from the British Invasion. A recent 25th anniversary reunion tour of the United States, including two ballyhooed performances of the rock opera “Tommy,” helped cement the standing.

Originally inspired by such American R&B; performers as James Brown, the London quartet of Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, John Entwhistle and Keith Moon became the favorite of the English “mod” scene with such seminal Townshend-penned hits as “My Generation” and “The Kids Are Alright,” capturing the frustrations and paradoxes of adolescence.

Townshend’s vision soon burst beyond the limits of three-minute pop songs, culminating in 1969’s mysterious “Tommy” and 1973’s “Quadrophenia,” in which Townshend re-examined the inner and outer turmoils of a young mod. Moon died in 1979, but the band carried on until dissolving a few years ago. The recent tour was presented as a final chapter for the Who.

* Like Townshend, the Kinks’ Ray Davies grew from composing energetic rock nuggets like “You Really Got Me” to such expanded concept albums as the droll “Arthur” and the two-album “Preservation” series, both examining the decline of Britain as a political and cultural power. Drawing on both rock and British music hall and theater traditions, Davies’ key work has been compared not just to that of the Beatles’ John Lennon and Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, but--by some admirers--to Gilbert & Sullivan and Oscar Wilde. Along with the Stones, the Kinks are the only British Invasion group that has remained active for all of the past 25 years.

* The Four Tops’ string of ‘60s hits, heard now routinely in films and television shows set in that era, includes “Reach Out (I’ll Be There)” and “I Can’t Help Myself,” two classics from the writing team of Lamont Dozier and Eddie and Brian Holland. (The team was honored separately on Tuesday in the Hall of Fame’s songwriters’ roster--along with the team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King.) The Tops’ lead weapon was the gospel-grounded singing of Levi Stubbs, who despite a limited range, could make a lyric soar with emotion.

* Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel emerged from the second wave of the Greenwich Village folk scene and stepped into the folk-rock movement with such hits as “Sounds of Silence,” and later “Mrs. Robinson” (from the film “The Graduate”), and the gospelish “Bridge Over Troubled Waters.” Simon’s post-beat lyrics and the pair’s Everly Brothers-influenced harmonies became staples of both Top 40 radio and the repertoires of figures in the nascent singer-songwriter genre.

With the likes of the Peruvian-flavored “El Condor Pasa,” Simon showed his interest in exotic musical styles, which later showed up in his reggae-based “Mother and Child Reunion” and, most significantly, his 1986 collaboration with South African musicians, the Grammy-winning “Graceland” album.

* Bobby Darin, whose hits ranged from the 1958 rock hit “Splish Splash” to his oft-imitated 1959 crooning of “Mack the Knife” to a 1966 version of folk singer Tim Hardin’s “If I Were a Carpenter,” died of heart failure in 1973 at age 37.

* The Four Seasons--who had been passed over in two previous ballotings--had 11 Top 10 hits, including “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and “Walk Like a Man,” between 1962 and 1968, and then again with two songs in the mid-’70s. Lead singer Frankie Valli also had several solo hits, including 1967’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” and the 1978 theme from the movie “Grease.”

* The Platters were an L.A.-based vocal group best known for the smooth harmonies of “Only You,” “The Great Pretender” and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”

* Hank Ballard & the Midnighters hit the Top 10 in 1960 with “Finger Poppin’ Time” and in 1961 with the original version of “The Twist,” which Ballard wrote.

This year the Hall of Fame will also honor three pre-rock figures: Louis Armstrong, blues belter Ma Rainey and jazz guitarist Charlie Christian.

Besides Marley, the voters passed over Ike & Tina Turner, the Yardbirds, the Animals, Johnny Cash, the Shirelles, Brenda Lee, LaVern Baker, Ruth Brown, Solomon Burke, King Curtis, Duane Eddy, Gene Pitney, Lloyd Price, Del Shannon and Chuck Willis.

The Hall was conceived by Atlantic Records founder and chairman Ahmet Ertegun and founded in 1985. A nonprofit endeavor, it is supported largely by contributions from the music industry.

A January, 1986, dinner honored the first batch of 11 inductees, including Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. Since then, inductees have included the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Roy Orbison, Muddy Waters, Stevie Wondeb, the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan and the Supremes. Each year’s induction dinner has been a top event on the rock calendar, with such memorable moments as Bruce Springsteen’s induction speech honoring Roy Orbison in 1987 and Beach Boy Mike Love’s controversial comments in 1989 critical of fellow inductees the Beatles. Each dinner has concluded with a spontaneous all-star jam session.

NEXT STEP Cleveland has been given a Nov. 15 deadline by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation to finalize the $40-million funding for the proposed I.M. Pei-designed Hall. As of now, the city is about $5 million short, and the foundation is threatening to find a new site.