I am Obsessed With Music, as many of you know. So an awards show that honors music should be right up my alley, so to speak. And the Grammys are not some dumb popularity contest based on who sold the most albums to clueless airheads. No no no, these are decided by critics and the inner circle of the music industry. They should know talent, right? They should recognize musical ability and not pander to the masses, right? Well, maybe not so much.
The beginning of the end of the Grammys for me was way back in the late 70s. The award was for Best New Artist. Two of my favorites at the time were nominated, Elvis Costello and The Cars. Both had very popular first albums out and both had a unique sound and catchy songs with cool lyrics (Elvis more so but I digress). Which one of my faves would be honored? The award goes to… A Taste Of Honey, the one-hit wonders famous for the awful disco hit Boogie Oogie Oogie. Yeah, you read that right. That was when the Grammys really began to suck for me. I should have known it earlier when the Beatles never won, but I guess I had to reach a certain age to really get it.
More ranting and a couple videos after the jump
Fast forward to the current year, 2009. Sure, there’s plenty of good music around and boatloads of crap too, same as most years. The Grammy winners will be announced February 8th on a bloated but irresistable hours-long TV show. I’ll spare you most of the details. The full list of nominees in the 110 categories is here. Check it out. The OWM poll for best new artist is here (vote now)! And as you look through that list of nominees you will see a lot of lame music. But some cool artist are nominated too this year, among them: Radiohead, Gnarls Barkley, Cyndi Lauper, Neil Young, Death Cab For Cutie, Beck, Adele, Coldplay, Jason Mraz, Duffy, Pink, Daft Punk, Moby, Nine Inch Nails, Raconteurs, B.B. King, Ry Cooder, Emmylou Harris, They Might Be Giants, Steve Martin, George Carlin, the Juno soundtrack, Peter Gabriel, Aimee Mann, Danger Mouse, and Weezer. And more. But who will win? And what do you think about the nominees? You know, you can always leave me a comment below…
But first, here are a couple of the nominees for best video: Weezer’s “Pork and beans” and Radiohead’s “House of Cards”.
For years, the Best New Artist Grammy was known as a career-killer. Take a look at some of the winners: Debby Boone, Starland Vocal Band, Christopher Cross, Men at Work, Hootie and the Blowfish, Milli Vanilli, etc., etc.
Plus, let’s not forget that Bill Clinton’s won two Grammys and Brian Wilson has only won one. In what universe does that make any sense?!
Update: Best New Artist winner was Adele. I would have picked Duffy.