Franz Ferdinand wrote:2001 - Steely Dan, Two Against Nature (over Eminem)
Too bad that's how it will be remembered as, because they ain't no Jethro Tull. Steely Dan is one of my favorite 70s bands, and surprisingly it's a pretty great album. That it beat out a better, non-archaic album is unfortunate for everyone's reputation.
I watched about one hour of that unwatchable show until I could watch it no more. Geez, what tripe. There's a reason why I went entire decades not watching or caring...
It's all very nice that the Chicks got their vindication and all, but they in no way deserve any awards for their music. I kind of liked them at the beginning, but once the controversy took hold their music became less interesting. Those were political wins, oh yes they were. Now, I do like "Not Ready to Play Nice" and I didn't mind that one winning. But even after the 600th damn time, I still prefer "Crazy". I'm sick of it too, but it has a refreshing sound to it. Sorta reminds me of Hot Chocolate, one of the good, underrated soul bands of the 70.
Franz Ferdinand wrote:U2 had the last laugh, winning for a slightly less comatose album over...who? I can't even remember.
- Mariah Carey: The Emancipation of Mimi
- Paul McCartney: Chaos and Creation in the Backyard
- Gwen Stefani: Love, Angel, Music, Baby
- Kanye West: Late Registration
U2 won for How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb...
"If you place an object in a museum, does that make this object a piece of art?" - The Square (2017)
dws1982 wrote:I love the O Brother, Where Art Thou? award, if for no other reason than that it got people like Gillian Welch and Ralph Stanley into the winners circle. And it got Emmylou Harris an Album Of The Year award. And it beat that comatose U2 Album.
U2 had the last laugh, winning for a slightly less comatose album over...who? I can't even remember.
I love the O Brother, Where Art Thou? award, if for no other reason than that it got people like Gillian Welch and Ralph Stanley into the winners circle. And it got Emmylou Harris an Album Of The Year award. And it beat that comatose U2 Album.
Franz Ferdinand wrote:Seriously, were these guys ever right about any of their awards?
Album of the Year 1973: Innervisions
Album of the Year 1974: Fulfillingness' First Finale
Album of the Year 1976: Songs in the Key of Life
Oh, and throw Sgt. Pepper in there as well, I guess. At least they've awarded one or two great pop artists during their peak, which I'm damned if I can say the Oscars have ever done.
Fair enough, but I think the last time they awarded an artist at their peak was 1999 when Lauryn Hill deservedly won for her lone studio album. Since then it's been an endless procession of sub-par awards:
2000 - Santana, Supernatural
2001 - Steely Dan, Two Against Nature (over Eminem)
2002 - O Brother, Where Art Thou?
2003 - Norah Jones, Come Away With Me
2004 - OutKast, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
2005 - Ray Charles, Genius Loves Company
2006 - U2, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
2007 - Dixie Chicks, Taking the Long Way
Nowhere near as bad as the nadir of the 1990's, but it's been some terribly lean years.
Franz Ferdinand wrote:Seriously, were these guys ever right about any of their awards?
Album of the Year 1973: Innervisions
Album of the Year 1974: Fulfillingness' First Finale
Album of the Year 1976: Songs in the Key of Life
Oh, and throw Sgt. Pepper in there as well, I guess. At least they've awarded one or two great pop artists during their peak, which I'm damned if I can say the Oscars have ever done.
But Eric, the Grammys have 205 bazillion categories, which I mean greatly increases the odds of eventually hitting something. It's not really an honor when anyone barely recognizable on the American pop music has at least one Grammy and multiple nominations.
Franz Ferdinand wrote:Seriously, were these guys ever right about any of their awards?
Album of the Year 1973: Innervisions
Album of the Year 1974: Fulfillingness' First Finale
Album of the Year 1976: Songs in the Key of Life
Oh, and throw Sgt. Pepper in there as well, I guess. At least they've awarded one or two great pop artists during their peak, which I'm damned if I can say the Oscars have ever done.
anonymous wrote:I do believe that the Grammys are worse in the honoring of the best of music than the Oscars are in honoring the best of film. I saw a list of musicians, singers, bands and artists that don't have Grammys or have one or two minor Grammys and I think the list is more embarrassing than Oscars' overlooked list.
But also consider the true worth of a Grammy versus an Oscar, relatively. There's some 110 categories, with five nominees = 550 or so artists, bands, etc. The chances of me, personally (or with any of the bands I belong to), winning a Grammy are significantly higher than me winning an Oscar in any category. Conversely, if I never won a Grammy during my recording career, I would not care in the least.
The Simpsons said it the best after the Be Sharps won their Barbershop Grammy: Homer presents to the waiter who is disgusted upon recognizing it ("An award!! Oh wait, it's just a Grammy..."), throws it into the dumpster, whereby the dumpster-dweller lobs it back up ("don't throw your garbage down here!", a delicious double entendre) and knocks Homer out. Pretty much the end of story right there.
The Grammy Awards, the hip, grand dame of all other music awards shows, has reached the point when, as a family, we should all agree to sign the do not resuscitate order. For starters, The Police opened this year’s Grammy’s, a best foot forward approach that could have resulted in millions of curious people feeling totally comfortable changing the channel right then. I’m only interested in reunions that result from unfinished artistic business and The Police have none. But like Cheap Trick and The English Beat, The Police probably have unfinished guest houses to bankroll; consequently they have set aside their differences for a quick frisk of “Roxanne”, with Sting adding his ad libbed asides in the same way that Lou Reed did for the disastrous and embarrassing Velvet Underground reunion.
Rather than drag you through the list of winners, something even The Grammys avoids by running many of the award winners as a Headline News flash at the bottom corner of your screen, I’ll try to convey the pinprick highlights and hopefully help lessen the pain of reiterating all about one of the tackiest, Jabba-sized bores on television.
In its defense, The Grammys took a few of my insults from last year to heart. Though Jamie Foxx introduced the night with a crippled joke about Snoop Dogg leaving to do the “perp walk” when he heard The Police were playing, at least no one had to suffer through an evening of robotically churned out one-liners that were long discarded by Jay Leno. This certainly trimmed out the gristle, though it accentuated the inevitably agonizing attribute of all awards shows: the list. The list of thank you’s, the list of nominees, the list of performers and on and on—Awards shows like The Grammys are built around a torturous rhythm much like a faucet dripping in the middle of the night.
Nowhere does that torture become more apparent then during those segments that honor the contributions from dead artists. That’s what I thought when silly little Christina Aguilera strolled out for the tribute to James Brown. Justin Timberlake covered Bill Withers “Ain’t No Sunshine”, a song he probably heard on the Notting Hill soundtrack. The Grammys loves to make this kind of poisoned conjecture about musical bloodlines. Surely Justin Timberlake is just Bill Withers without all that substance and talent weighing down his dockers.
By far the most egregious perversion of the evening was having American Idol dollie, Carrie Underwood, do the tribute to Bob Wills. I bet the producers had to explain to her who he was, and explain that country music existed before Nashville decided that it should sound like what Celene Dion would write in a deer blind. Of course, only one Bob Wills song made it into the mix as the tribute segued into a worshipful back and forth medley of Eagles songs done by Rascal Flats and Underwood. I could care less who covers The Eagles. Actually, anyone but The Eagles works for me. Incidentally, Underwood won for best new “artist”. That’s the word they use with sincerity because irony would require more expensive writers. She was also nominated for her song “Jesus Take the Wheel”, which I think begs for parentheses like (I just dropped the ketchup packet for my fries on the floor).
The Grammys always seem to have a tone deaf and desperate way of feigning relevance. When you think about what people have actually listened to this year, the advent of MySpace and Facebook and the MP3 altering the context and genre of how music is absorbed, The Grammys seem outmoded and quaint. What’s more, the cult of celebrity has taken on a malicious and degrading pathology over the last several years. One would think that we would much rather see famous people expose one of their boobs or vomit on themselves on TMZ than watch them accept awards—but (sigh) watch them, we do.
The creators, at some level, seem to understand our true desires, as evidenced by their pathetic Grammy contest (brought to you by Cingular) to determine which lucky person with no musical career would get to perform with Justin Timberlake at the ceremony supposedly designed to honor the accomplishments of musicians and their careers. Amidst that American Idol contest thievery, introduced by loser-cum-winner, Jennifer Hudson no less, aesthetic conservatism permeates the Grammys.
Even when the performances are flamboyant, they’re razzle-dazzle of the predictable Vegas variety; the kind that would go over well with acrobats spinning gingerly while audience members hold pails of quarters in their laps. Shakira’s gold lamé hip vibration session with Wyclef Jean could have easily been spiced up with white tigers.
One of the most hilarious conceits of phony grandeur came in the form of framing nearly every performance with an orchestra. Does “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley, a song that I love and never want to hear again, benefit from a philharmonic remix? No, it’s just another failed attempt at making false and unnecessary lineages. Is Cee-Lo just Beethoven with breakbeats? I don’t know enough about Beethoven to answer that, but neither does Gnarls Barkeley. Beyonce similarly floated amid a Lawrence Welk bath of strings, though she might want to have in her contract that Mary J. Blige not be allowed to perform in the same show because the contrast is like an unflattering tan line. While she made the furtive arm fan movements of vocal exertion, Blige actually connects the dots between appearance and reality.
The Dixie Chicks came away the big winners of the evening, having milked an insult to President Bush into a documentary, an album, and now a veiled sense of political approval from the sheepish recording industry. I have absolutely nothing against the Dixie Chicks; I’m glad that they fought back against the knuckle dragging right wing hordes of their, um, fans. But if The Grammys really wanted to take a political stand against George Bush, why not give the statuette to Neil Young’s Living with War?
I fear the Dixie Chicks’ Grammy is really just a metaphorical tombstone for hard-core artistic morality. We’ve long since passed the days when being an artist actually meant taking a strong stance against wrongs in the world. These days, every indie artist and their brother can’t wait to rent their barkers out to every commercial that comes their way.
While popular music once provided the soundtrack to everything from labor to civil rights movements to the playful hedonism of the hippies, it’s now, one would surmise from watching The Grammys, little more than a consumer item; barely intellectually distinguishable from a pack of gum or a toilet brush. Given the erosion of what once was a formidable cultural force, it’s hard to imagine that The Grammys will continue to have relevance to anyone except the musicians who have fireplace mantels to decorate—and we suckers who set aside our Sunday evening to watch it, every year.
I do believe that the Grammys are worse in the honoring of the best of music than the Oscars are in honoring the best of film. I saw a list of musicians, singers, bands and artists that don't have Grammys or have one or two minor Grammys and I think the list is more embarrassing than Oscars' overlooked list.
It was a guilt trip all around: Dixie Chicks went away to lick their wounds, bid their time until the situation got worse, then came back blaring their victim card like they were gonna die the next day (though I certainly can't blame their attitude of I-told-you-so).
The Grammys acted on behalf of the music industry: major guilt for their shunning and disposing of the Dixie Chicks, recognizing their watered-down "defiant victim" stance and lavishing them with we're-so-sorry awards.
End result: mediocre music rules the Grammys yet again! Seriously, were these guys ever right about any of their awards? What a pathetic night for music. I won't even get into the type of great music they have overlooked for garbage.
However, the Police reunion is looking very good right about now, they were great last night!
I just find it amusing that I saw this grand sweeping gesture to the Dixie Chicks coming. I know a lot of people didn't believe it would happen, but I just knew from their positioning that the significantly more liberal recording industry would recognize the trio for not being ready to make nice. It's good to see them win even if their work isn't that great.
BTW, after tonight, there are two singers' albums I'm actually interested in checking out. Mary J. Blige's performance was quite good and so was Gnarls Barkley's.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
Akash wrote:Oh and I like the man and all, but why on earth was Al Gore there?? This show is so absurd!
Yes, with the added absurdity of the fact that Mrs. Al Gore had been such a vocal opponent of the music industry. Maybe next year Joe Lieberman can give Best Rap Album.
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
