Duran Duran performs at Outside Lands in Golden gate Park on Aug. 5, 2016. Che Holts/STAFF.

It’s annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame week, which means the music snobs have arrived in force, and are currently crying about the good old days and how new inductee Pat Benatar is no Chuck Berry.

Rendering: Adam Pardee/STAFF.

Right. She isn’t half as creepy.

Over in that corner are the ill-socialized elitists arguing for acts that had 11 fans. Across the room are the non-evolved who haven’t bought new music since they had to drive to a store to get it. They’re the ones complaining in all-CAPS on old people media (Facebook) that the rap isn’t rock and roll.

Outside is the group who refuses to even come inside and only talks to each other, under their collective breath, saying the whole idea of a rock hall is about as ironic and un-rock-and-roll as movie stars starting bands after playing musicians.

That makes them technically right, but then I wouldn’t have something about which to write every year.

Then there’s people like me who say if America’s most rock and roll band ever isn’t in the stupid thing, how can it exist at all?

But I’ll save the repeating Replacements rant for another day. It’s not like they want to be there, anyway. (And the Iron Maiden omission, good God, how stupidly elitist can this thing be?).

Anyway … I’m going to do something weird now, so bear with me. I’m going to praise the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and try not to get a violent chest cramp doing so. Because I think they did a really good thing by inducting Duran Duran, and I’ll tell you why, without hidden double meanings or being (too) condescending.

Duran Duran should be celebrated. Because – and here I go with another walking to school in the snow story – they absolutely changed things in the 1980s (this RRHOF class is very heavy on the ’80s: Duran Duran, Eurythmics, Lionel Richie, Pat Benatar, Judas Priest, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis… plus Eminem, Carly Simon and Dolly Parton).

I’ll start with the obvious: I was an incredibly stupid 15-year-old in 1982. That was the year I could no longer ignore Duran Duran (I dated a girl who loved them, intensifying my illogical hatred).

Except it wasn’t illogical at the time. My friends and I were firmly established as a “rockers.” That meant we couldn’t legally listen to “New Wave.”  Never mind that we all listened to, and watched, whatever MTV told us to, and secretly liked it all. The boundaries were up and rules were rules. “Breakfast Club” is beat to death as a great representation of white kid 1980s suburban high school for a reason: because its accuracy was uncanny.

Although other acts get more credit for the ground they broke on MTV – and MTV was everything – Duran Duran was the first pop act that brought art to MTV.

Even if the former art students’ music sucked (and it didn’t) Duran Duran would deserve to be in the RRHOF because of their vibrant, sweeping exotic videos, featuring incredibly good looking people. It was no accident that suddenly movies were being made that looked a lot like Duran Duran videos.

Reason No. 2 John Taylor and co. deserve the RRHOF: Duran Duran excelled at curveballs. Just when we got used to those beautiful videos from exotic locations, DD released “The Reflex” video in 1984 – four minutes of full-scale arena rock (with a gentler sound, to be sure). But we barely noticed. Look, they play real instruments! In front of real (beautiful and screaming) girls! And … hey, some of them have long hair! Big stage, bright lights … Andy Taylor puts his foot on his monitor like a real rock star!

It was a brilliant marketing move. Suddenly, the guys were paying attention. On the sly, I bought a cassette version of “Seven and the Ragged Tiger.” “Tiger Tiger” transitioning into “The Seventh Stranger” became my eight-and-a-half-minute secret, which I only listed to when no one else was around. I’d never heard a pop band I hated play such lush music. I still listen to it; even after I became a professional music snob. There are still few pops hooks as compelling as “New Moon on Monday.”

Oh yeah … the New Romantics pretty boys could play, too.

The next year, Andy and John Taylor spun off into The Power Station, a side project that was legal for rockers to love. Screeching rock guitar solos! Bass popping! Pounding drums! I remember feeling justified for secretly listening to Duran Duran. Especially by 1987, when Andy Taylor went solo and started hanging around Sex Pistols and playing loud guitar rock.

See? I told you they were cool!

By then, we were just out of high school and patting ourselves on the collective back for expanding our horizons. Duran Duran was legalized among the rockers, and it felt liberating.

Duran Duran deserves the honor, and I hope they enjoy it. They made a lasting impact on so many more ’80s kids than they know. Especially the ones who hated them.

Follow music critic Tony Hicks at Twitter.com/TonyBaloney1967.