Bog wrote:And of course we're all here together because we have passion for awards and whatnot, but like Damien says of relevance here and with Oscars, does it really matter if your "favorites" or the "best" win the awards when the lists look like the ones posted below?
Sorry but what do you mean? It matters (only when talking about the passion of predicting) when you want your "favorite one" to be recognized... what are you saying? the listed films/albums/records are so bad that you don't want your "favorite" to be part of such list? Or the lists are already good no matter whose favorite wins?
"If you place an object in a museum, does that make this object a piece of art?" - The Square (2017)
Of all the silly duets/music combos we get at the Grammys, I really think they missed a good opportunity by not having Alanis Morissette and Fergie onstage together performing "My Humps."
I'm with Eric and Sonic on Umbrella with no shame.
I also agree with Steph and Franz that (maybe) Winehouse was the only worthy one of the group for album of the year. I think she still falls well below Neon Bible, Sound of Silver, Kala, Hissing Fauna, maybe even Person Pitch.
I also love Bjork and The White Stripes and Arcade Fire, and think Icky Thump is deserving. In a perfect world, as far as the Alt. rock album goes, Medulla, Funeral, and Icky Thump would all have a Grammy, representing three artists doing some of the best, most creative, and remarkable work of the last 10 years, and not doing the "Foo Fighters same ole thing" award
And of course we're all here together because we have passion for awards and whatnot, but like Damien says of relevance here and with Oscars, does it really matter if your "favorites" or the "best" win the awards when the lists look like the ones posted below?
Hell to the yeah. And Idolator.com (aka The Real Pazz and Jop) agrees with us.
Winehouseis perfectly okay, but she needs a few more years of seasoning. "Rehab" isn'teven the best song on the ALBUM, never mind of the year. If "Umbrella" wasn't the best single of the year, then "Bird Flu" and "Paper Planes" were.
Actually, Hancock was more interesting when he DID sell out, if we're talking about the early 80s. In fact, "Rockit'" was pioneering, and he should thank his collaborators for that. (And "Watermelon" wasn't a sell out?)
And I'll say it again. That Steely Dan album really is a damn good one, better than some in their 70s heyday. But like "How Green Was My Valley", it won in the wrong year.
Very nice article. I'll have to listen to the album to see if he's just bending over backwards to be happy about the award on the album's merits instead of the artist's, but we'll see.
NEW YORK TIMES
February 12, 2008
A Victory for Jazz, or Just Grammy Being Grammy?
By BEN RATLIFF
When something newsworthy or popular or positive happens to a jazz musician — a big award, say — many in the jazz world feel astonished for about four seconds, then quickly act very smug. You know: We’ve been sitting here patiently, full of our aesthetic virtue, so used to being ignored, and the world has finally come around to our point of view. Are we happy about it? More to the point, what took you so long?
Are we entitled to feel that way about “River: The Joni Letters,” by Herbie Hancock, being named album of the year at the Grammys on Sunday ? We could, but it would be silly. Perhaps the speculation is true that Amy Winehouse and Kanye West split the vote. And yes, it is very unusual to see a record of such modest sales win the big prize. But inasmuch as it is a jazz album, it is precisely the kind of jazz album that would win this award.
First, let’s just get this over with: Where were you in 1965, Recording Academy, when Mr. Hancock made his venerated album “Maiden Voyage”?
But look one year further back to 1964. “Getz/Gilberto” won, and besides “River,” it is the only more or less jazz album in 50 years of the Grammys to have earned this award. There might be instructive logic there to unravel why “River” beat some records that are far more successful and far more emblematic of their time. (“River” has sold around 55,000 copies, whereas Kanye West’s “Graduation” has sold two million.)
“Getz/Gilberto” was a collaboration between the jazz saxophonist Stan Getz and the bossa nova musician João Gilberto, with his wife at the time, Astrud Gilberto, as occasional singer. It shares some important qualities with “River.”
Both are quite beautiful, though practical: experiments with strong ideas made moderate. Both are syncretist collaborations between a flexible jazz musician and a famously uncompromising genius who invented his or her own style — two musicians of putatively different worlds. Both feature light-voiced singing on a little less than half the tracks.
And on both, the drums sound chastened. (When a jazz record with really assertive, swinging rhythm wins album of the year, then jazz enthusiasts can feel smug. “Good taste” — an idea that means quite a lot in this category of the Grammys — can be telegraphed quickly by reducing the role of the drums.)
“River” isn’t just a jazz record. It is a singer-songwriter record. (Norah Jones, Tina Turner, Corinne Bailey Rae, Leonard Cohen and Luciana Souza are on it, all singing Joni Mitchell songs, as is Ms. Mitchell herself.) It is soft-edged and literate and respectable. It seems, at least, intended as an audience bridger. And it also a very Grammy-ish record, not just because Mr. Hancock, and others on it, have won various Grammys in the past.
Institutions like to congratulate themselves, and giving the prize to “River” can be understood as a celebration of the academy’s more high-minded pop impulses. The best album category, in particular, is often a corrective or an apology for any excesses or shortcomings of the present.
It can amount to a sentimental, history-minded celebration of album culture. At this point it can conjure and lament a lost world of musicians and styles from the 1970s or before, those who actually played instruments, sometimes very well, and trusted their listeners to pay attention to them in 40-minute chunks. From the last 15 years of the award this idea could explain the victories of Ray Charles, Norah Jones, Steely Dan, Santana, Bob Dylan, Tony Bennett and Eric Clapton. (It doesn’t explain Celine Dion, but if we perfectly understood the mind-set of academy members we wouldn’t watch the show.)
Some of what “River” accomplishes as a jazz record is serious indeed. Mr. Hancock’s version of Duke Ellington’s “Solitude” is the modern jazz process itself: a complete reharmonization of a familiar song, with rhythm that keeps vanishing and reappearing. Wayne Shorter’s saxophone playing on many tracks, including his own “Nefertiti” and Ms. Mitchell’s “Edith and the Kingpin,” is casually brilliant — some kind of strange, subconscious vernacular. And though Ms. Mitchell has never called herself a jazz singer, her vocal performance on “The Tea Leaf Prophecy” has a rhythmic assurance that a lot of self-identifying jazz singers could use.
It’s a cool-tempered album, almost drowsy. In so many ways it does seem a strange choice, not just in its modest commercial profile but in that it’s the first album to win this particular award for either Mr. Hancock or Ms. Mitchell. Yet it is also august and exquisitely acceptable: precisely the qualities that this category of the Grammy Awards tends to orient itself around. http://www.nytimes.com/2008....=slogin
All in all, I thought the 50th Annual Grammy Awards was a solid, entertaining show. In fact, the only moment that irked me came afterwards when former-winner Natalie Cole was asked by a local news reporter about Amy Winehouse. “I don't think she deserved it,” Natalie huffed. “She needs to get her life together first and then get the awards later. You don't get awarded for bad behavior.”
This is an assholish thing to say no matter what, but Natalie Cole herself was busted for heroin around the time she won Best New Artist at the Grammys, and didn't "get her life together" for several years after that. And of course, after that she decided to start flogging the corpse of her deceased father to a creepy second career.
They're just awards, no big deal. Sometimes (both) they failed to recognize the commercial choice that really defined a particular year or that made a cultural statement of its time for a pseudo-artistry choice, and in some other times they pass the bigger artistic achievement over a more commercial but flawed album/record/picture... of course it is extremely easy to criticize them but in the end is just the opinion of a bunch of people.
Radiohead's Kid A and Eminem's The Marshall Mather's LP were the only possible choices in my mind back in 2000 for Album of the Year. I consider the first as the actual Best Album and the latter as the commercial choice that defined that year. How they lost to Steely Dan's thing is still a mistery for me as much as how Brokeback lost to Crash, High Noon to Show or how Dead Man Walking failed to nominate in the Best Picture category...
I'm amazed Björk lost again. Volta might not be her best album but now The White Stripes have 3 grammy for Best Alternative Album and Björk has zero... talk to me about relevance...
And the award that should be compared to Best Picture is Record of the Year, their biggest award. It's what they considered a "perfect" recording, where "all elements" work for the tune. In Album of the Year they have made weird choices, in Record of the Year they go for the sure thing... here's the list (usually the winning record is quite representative of its year):
1958: "Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare)", Domenico Modugno
1959: "Mack the Knife", Bobby Darin
1960: "Theme from A Summer Place", Percy Faith
1961: "Moon River", Henry Mancini
1962: "I left my heart in San Francisco", Tony Bennett
1963: "The Days of Wine and Roses", Henry Mancini
1964: "The Girl from Ipanema", Stan Getz & Astrud Gilberto
1965: "A Taste of Honey", Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass
1966: "Strangers in the Night", Frank Sinatra
1967: "Up, Up and Away", The Fifth Dimension
1968: "Mrs. Robinson", Simon and Garfunkel
1969: "Aquarius/Let the sunshine in", The Fifth Dimension
1970: "Bridge over Troubled Water", Simon and Garfunkel
1971: "It's too late", Carole King
1972: "The First Time ever I saw your face", Roberta Flack
1973: "Killing me softly with his song", Roberta Flack
1974: "I honestly love you", Olivia Newton-John
1975: "Love will keep us together", Captain & Tennille
1976: "This Masquerade", George Benson
1977: "Hotel California", The Eagles
1978: "Just the way you are", Billy Joel
1979: "What a fool believes", The Doobie Brothers
1980: "Sealing", Christipher Cross
1981: "Bette Davis Eyes", Kim Carnes
1982: "Rosanna", Toto
1983: "Beat it", Michael Jackson
1984: "What's love got to do with it", Tina Turner
1985: "We are the world", USA for Africa
1986: "Higher Love", Steve Winwood
1987: "Graceland", Paul Simon
1988: "Don't worry, Be happy", Bobby McFerrin
1989: "Wind beneath my wings", Bette Midler
1990: "Another Day in Paradise", Phil Collins
1991: "Unforgettable" Natalie Cole with Nat "King" Cole
1992: "Tears in Heaven", Eric Clapton
1993: "I will always love you", Whitney Houston
1994: "All I wanna do", Sheryl Crow
1995: "Kiss from a Rose", Seal
1996: "Change the World", Eric Clapton
1997: "Sunny came home", Shawn Colvin
1998: "My heart will go on", Celine Dion
1999: "Smooth", Santana featuring Rob Thomas
2000: "Beautiful Day", U2
2001: "Walk on", U2
2002: "Don't know why", Norah Jones
2003: "Clocks", Coldplay
2004: "Here we go again", Ray Charles & Norah Jones
2005: "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", Green Day
2006: "Not ready to make nice", Dixie Chicks
2007: "Rehab", Amy Winehouse
"If you place an object in a museum, does that make this object a piece of art?" - The Square (2017)
Not to say both lists aren't hideously middlebrow, but ... Compare, contrast:
The Music From Peter Gunn performed by Henry Mancini (1959)
Come Dance with Me! performed by Frank Sinatra (1960)
The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart performed by Bob Newhart (1961)
Judy at Carnegie Hall performed by Judy Garland (1962)
The First Family performed by Vaughn Meader (1963)
The Barbra Streisand Album performed by Barbra Streisand (1964)
Getz/Gilberto performed by Stan Getz & João Gilberto (1965)
September of My Years performed by Frank Sinatra (1966)
A Man and His Music performed by Frank Sinatra (1967)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band performed by The Beatles (1968)
By the Time I Get to Phoenix performed by Glen Campbell (1969)
Blood, Sweat & Tears performed by Blood, Sweat & Tears (1970)
Bridge over Troubled Water performed by Simon and Garfunkel (1971)
Tapestry performed by Carole King (1972)
The Concert for Bangla Desh performed by George Harrison, Ravi Shankar, Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Eric Clapton & Klaus Voormann (1973)
Innervisions performed by Stevie Wonder (1974)
Fulfillingness' First Finale performed by Stevie Wonder (1975)
Still Crazy After All These Years performed by Paul Simon (1976)
Songs in the Key of Life performed by Stevie Wonder (1977)
Rumours performed by Fleetwood Mac (1978)
Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Sound Track performed by Bee Gees, KC and the Sunshine Band, Kool & the Gang, MFSB, Ralph MacDonald, Tavares, The Trammps, Walter Murphy & Yvonne Elliman (1979)
52nd Street performed by Billy Joel (1980)
Christopher Cross performed by Christopher Cross (1981)
Double Fantasy performed by John Lennon & Yoko Ono (1982)
Toto IV performed by Toto (1983)
Thriller performed by Michael Jackson (1984)
Can't Slow Down performed by Lionel Richie (1985)
No Jacket Required performed by Phil Collins (1986)
Graceland performed by Paul Simon (1987)
The Joshua Tree performed by U2 (1988)
Faith performed by George Michael (1989)
Nick of Time performed by Bonnie Raitt (1990)
Back on the Block performed by Quincy Jones and Various Artists (1991)
Unforgettable... with Love performed by Natalie Cole (1992)
Unplugged performed by Eric Clapton (1993)
The Bodyguard: Original Soundtrack Album (1994)
MTV Unplugged: Tony Bennett performed by Tony Bennett (1995)
Jagged Little Pill performed by Alanis Morissette (1996)
Falling into You performed by Celine Dion (1997)
Time out of Mind performed by Bob Dylan (1998)
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill performed by Lauryn Hill (1999)
Supernatural performed by Santana (2000)
Two Against Nature performed by Steely Dan (2001)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack performed by Alison Krauss & Union Station, Chris Sharp, Chris Thomas King, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Harley Allen, John Hartford, Mike Compton, Norman Blake, Pat Enright, Peasall Sisters, Ralph Stanley, Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan, The Cox Family, The Fairfield Four, The Whites & Tim Blake Nelson (2002)
Come Away with Me performed by Norah Jones (2003)
Speakerboxxx/The Love Below performed by OutKast (2004)
Genius Loves Company performed by Ray Charles and Various Artists (2005)
How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb performed by U2 (2006)
Taking the Long Way performed by Dixie Chicks (2007)
River: The Joni Letters performed by Herbie Hancock (2008)
----------
* 1928 Wings
* 1929 The Broadway Melody
* 1930 All Quiet on the Western Front
* 1931 Cimarron
* 1932 Grand Hotel
* 1933 Cavalcade
* 1934 It Happened One Night
* 1935 Mutiny on the Bounty
* 1936 The Great Ziegfeld
* 1937 The Life of Emile Zola
* 1938 You Can't Take It with You
* 1939 Gone With the Wind
* 1940 Rebecca
* 1941 How Green Was My Valley
* 1942 Mrs. Miniver
* 1943 Casablanca
* 1944 Going My Way
* 1945 The Lost Weekend
* 1946 The Best Years of Our Lives
* 1947 Gentleman's Agreement
* 1948 Hamlet
* 1949 All the King's Men
* 1950 All About Eve
* 1951 An American in Paris
* 1952 The Greatest Show on Earth
* 1953 From Here to Eternity
* 1954 On the Waterfront
* 1955 Marty
* 1956 Around the World in 80 Days
* 1957 The Bridge on the River Kwai
* 1958 Gigi
* 1959 Ben-Hur
* 1960 The Apartment
* 1961 West Side Story
* 1962 Lawrence of Arabia
* 1963 Tom Jones
* 1964 My Fair Lady
* 1965 The Sound of Music
* 1966 A Man for All Seasons
* 1967 In the Heat of the Night
* 1968 Oliver!
* 1969 Midnight Cowboy
* 1970 Patton
* 1971 The French Connection
* 1972 The Godfather
* 1973 The Sting
* 1974 The Godfather Part II
* 1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
* 1976 Rocky
* 1977 Annie Hall
* 1978 The Deer Hunter
* 1979 Kramer vs Kramer
* 1980 Ordinary People
* 1981 Chariots of Fire
* 1982 Gandhi
* 1983 Terms of Endearment
* 1984 Amadeus
* 1985 Out of Africa
* 1986 Platoon
* 1987 The Last Emperor
* 1988 Rain Man
* 1989 Driving Miss Daisy
* 1990 Dances With Wolves
* 1991 The Silence of the Lambs
* 1992 Unforgiven
* 1993 Schindler's List
* 1994 Forrest Gump
* 1995 Braveheart
* 1996 The English Patient
* 1997 Titanic
* 1998 Shakespeare in Love
* 1999 American Beauty
* 2000 Gladiator
* 2001 A Beautiful Mind
* 2002 Chicago
* 2003 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
* 2004 Million Dollar Baby
* 2005 Crash
* 2006 The Departed
Damien wrote:It's been 35 years at least since he's done anything worthwhile.
"Rockit," which even today sound fresher than Amy Winehouse's overrated beat-sick throwback schtick. She's got an interesting voice and ... well, I'm damned if I can think of anything else she's got going for her except being the hipster's choice among her Grammy competition. I feel exactly the same about Winehouse as I did back in 2001 about Alicia Keys. Of course, I've warmed up a little on Keys since then.
It must take a pianist to appreciate Hancock's technical skill.
I feel like I do this every year, defending the Grammys as being no less relevant on the whole than (certainly) the Oscars. And every year I point out that Stevie Wonder won three AotY awards during his prime. I can think of no other filmic equivalent who has been awarded for their signature work.
Certainly I'm not suggesting that Herbie Hancock's was anything resembling the album of the year (hell, even I would've rather him have gotten the award a few years back when he did Gershwin's World), but what the hell, did we not (mostly) all just get ecstatic at Martin Scorsese winning an Oscar he, too, would've done much better to get three decades earlier?
I didn't watch it. And other than what's been posted here, I haven't even looked to see who won. (I was out having dinner and besides the music I mostly listen to has no real place at the Grammys' table.) But it's absurd that Herbie Hancock won Album of the Year. Who even knew Herbie Hancock had an album out this year?
When he was young and just coming up, Hancock was a fine pianist, particularly exciting when he was with Miles Davis's quintet in the mid-60s, and also working with such major artists as Wayne Shorter and Hank Mobley.
But Hancock sold out decades ago, and when "fusion" was the hot ticket he got on that band wagon and is now a purveyor of the schlock known as "smooth jazz." (It may be smooth but it sure as hell ain't jazz.) It's been 35 years at least since he's done anything worthwhile.
He also did the score for Death Wish, and that's all you need to know -- a musician whom Michael Winner could love.
Amy Winehouse is clearly THE artist of this past year. Of course the Grammys are even more meaningless than the Oscars (talk aboyut an embarrassing roster of winners -- it's great fun to spend an afternoon looking at Grammy nominees and winners) so her album snub despite some other wins is ultimately irrelevant.
And that Umbrella thing came up empty handed. Geez, that was even too inane for Grammy voters.
Edited By Damien on 1202725657
"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
I didn't even watch it. So Amy Winehouse lost Best Album? Well then, the Grammys continue to wallow in irrelevance. Franz Ferdinand is right -- hers was the only worthy nominee.
God I hope this means we never have to hear that damn Umbrella song again.
