Why don’t they just hire a teenager to tell them how fucked up they are.

I thought they changed the rules.  To insure that another Jethro Tull debacle wouldn’t happen again.  Then, how in HELL did "Devils & Dust" get nominated as Song of the Year.  Was this a hit ANYWHERE?  Did I just miss the memo?  Or do all the old farts on the nominating committee who are victims of press not even LISTEN to these records.  Did Andy Lack pay them off or something?

"Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own".  Was this a hit ANYWHERE?  Other than in an iPod commercial?  I’ll give them "Vertigo", their remake of "You Keep Me Hanging On", that WAS a ubiquitous track LAST year.  But to nominate this lame U2 cut and their album as one of the best of the year is to just reinforce the notion amongst TRUE music fans, not over the hill baby boomers who wouldn’t know MySpace from P2P, that the Grammys are run by a bunch of guys as out of it as Mitch Miller was when the Beatles hit.

But, it gets worse.  BONNIE RAITT??  Is that what it takes to be nominated?  Winning BEFORE?  The only good thing I can say about "Souls Alike" is it’s marginally better than its predecessor, "Silver Lining".  AND the best track on "Souls Alike" is SO CLOSE, not "I Will Not Be Broken".  But I guess you’d have to listen to the record to know that.

Then we’ve got Seal.  A has-been who hasn’t come back since his "Batman" song back in the nineties.  "Walk On By"?  Is that a cover of the Dionne Warwick hit?  Who the fuck knows, it’s not like it got any airplay, pervaded the public consciousness or anything, but there it is, nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.

And who makes up these categories anyway?  God, they sound like they were created before everybody grew their hair out.

Speaking of the Beatles, even if I allow the nomination of Paul’s record in the Album Of The Year category, absolutely ALL credibility is lost by naming "Fine Line" in the same category that Seal’s in.  Not only is it a third-rate song, the VOCAL isn’t that good.

But it gets worse.  Sheryl Crow’s lame new album gets big time nods.  "Wildflower" the Best Pop Vocal Album?  Isn’t that like saying the Chevy Malibu is Car of the Year?  The Grammy committee is so myopic all of its members should go back to the ophthalmologist for new glasses.

Talk about resting on your laurels.  Shit, I’d feel better if they nominated RADIOHEAD, even though the band didn’t even put out a record.  At least the act is still VITAL, testing the limits, not delivering what people EXPECT, like the above fucks.

AND, wasn’t one of absolutely the biggest albums of the year Coldplay’s "X&Y"?  Forget that Jon Pareles didn’t like it, the industry fawned over the band that almost single-handedly kept Clear Channel/Spinco in business.  But, they don’t get a Song Of The Year OR an Album Of The Year nom.  I mean who is MAKING UP this list??

Keane best new artist?  Last time I checked they were neither new nor best and despite their label spending innumerable bucks, they got NO TRACTION!  I mean couldn’t they at least pick somebody who sold some ALBUMS?

And Stevie Wonder.  Talk about a stiff album.  But there he is with his Best Pop Vocal Performance nomination.  The record might as well have been SILENT, he STILL would have been nominated.

I’m incredulous.  There wasn’t ONE rock act with a better vocal than fiftysomethings Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, Robert Plant and Neil Young?  God, are a couple of them already SIXTY?  And, other than Mr. Young, the best work of ALL of them is in the past, their new records were IRRELEVANT!  As for Mr. Rob Thomas, I wouldn’t even CALL his new album rock, POP is more like it.

Instrumental performances.  Did you know Stewart Copeland HAD a record out??  I mean he’s a fucking DRUMMER!  Give a nomination to Sting, even Andy Summers, but STEWART COPELAND??

Well, at least Arcade Fire got a nomination for Best Alternative Music Album.

I mean who the fuck do they think is gonna WATCH this telecast?  Ratings were HORRIFIC last year, this year they’re going to go completely into the dumper.  Read these nominations.  Who do they APPEAL to?  Mr. Bland in his Lexus listening to CDs, who if he has an iPod it was loaded for a fee by his kid?

Tune into XM.  You’ll be stunned how much good new music is out there.  And, it’s not being made by the has-beens coasting on the fumes of their careers listed above.  But in this winner takes all society we live in if you don’t have marquee value, nobody cares.

How about if you don’t make GOOD MUSIC nobody cares.

And you wonder why business sucks.  It SHOULD if the people in charge of exposing great new music think the ABOVE shit is good.

People are burned out on awards shows.  They’re about ratings.  They appeal to an everyman nobody is.  There’s nothing special.  There are handicappers in the straight press, but make no mistake, it’s a giant circle jerk.

The Grammys were ALWAYS irrelevant.  In rock’s initial heyday, the sixties and seventies, the hip bands were never even nominated!

But now, these same overlooked acts ARE, as if they’re still relevant today.

There was a moment there in the nineties when all the rivers merged.  The mainstream ruled.  And, the Grammys had a brief moment of quasi-relevance.  But, after the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync and Britney Spears the landscape fractured, nobody wanted the mainstream stuff anymore.  Except the major labels and the Grammy committee.  Say what you will about Mike Greene, but he never would have let this nomination abomination rule.  He would have WILLED relevance.  If for no other reason than to keep HIMSELF in the public eye.

Neil Portnow is a caretaker without a dick.  If NARAS is to mean anything, it must be ruled by the same kind of mercurial prick who creates hit records out of whole cloth.  Someone like Russell Simmons.  Or Jay-Z.  Some independent label owner who’s all about scraping by rather than living the high life.

And, if the Awards are to mean anything there must be new blood.  People under the age of thirty must be involved.

Mike Greene realized the Grammys were losing the public’s trust.  That’s why he created the blue chip committee to review the final nominations and make adjustments to square them with REALITY!  Most of the records named above should not have been nominated AT ALL!  Sure, put up Mariah Carey.  But if you put Gorillaz in the Song of the Year category and leave out Kelly Clarkson’s "Since U Been Gone", you never listened to the radio.  Doesn’t anybody in Grammyland put his ear to the ground and listen to the street?

I really don’t give a fuck.  It’s just that the straight press has given the impression that the Grammys count.  The Grammys don’t count.  Just ask the kids with 10,000 tracks in their iTunes library.  Bruce Springsteen?  Bonnie Raitt?  Hell, their PARENTS didn’t even buy these records.

Once again, it’s my generation, the baby boomers, who’ve turned into their parents and become everything they said they weren’t.

Grammys aren’t music’s greatest night.  They’re evidence of how fucked up those in control of the business are.  They and the records they champion have no pulse.

Ban Clive Davis from the ceremonies.  Make it so no label employee can vote.  Hire Bram Cohen as host.  Turn the reins over to the kids, hell, isn’t that what WE wanted when WE were kids?

Have no tape delay.  Make everybody play live.  Don’t allow anybody to thank God, he had nothing to do with it, the promo man who paid off the radio station did.  Just bring in a little truth.  Because there’s no truth in this year’s Grammy Awards, none at all.