Why don’t they just hire a teenager to tell them how fucked up they are.<\/p>\n
I thought they changed the rules.\u00c2\u00a0 To insure that another Jethro Tull debacle wouldn’t happen again.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, how in HELL did "Devils & Dust" get nominated as Song of the Year.\u00c2\u00a0 Was this a hit ANYWHERE?\u00c2\u00a0 Did I just miss the memo?\u00c2\u00a0 Or do all the old farts on the nominating committee who are victims of press not even LISTEN to these records.\u00c2\u00a0 Did Andy Lack pay them off or something?<\/p>\n
"Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own".\u00c2\u00a0 Was this a hit ANYWHERE?\u00c2\u00a0 Other than in an iPod commercial?\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll give them "Vertigo", their remake of "You Keep Me Hanging On", that WAS a ubiquitous track LAST year.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
But, it gets worse.\u00c2\u00a0 BONNIE RAITT??\u00c2\u00a0 Is that what it takes to be nominated?\u00c2\u00a0 Winning BEFORE?\u00c2\u00a0 The only good thing I can say about "Souls Alike" is it’s marginally better than its predecessor, "Silver Lining".\u00c2\u00a0 AND the best track on "Souls Alike" is SO CLOSE, not "I Will Not Be Broken".\u00c2\u00a0 But I guess you’d have to listen to the record to know that.<\/p>\n
Then we’ve got Seal.\u00c2\u00a0 A has-been who hasn’t come back since his "Batman" song back in the nineties.\u00c2\u00a0 "Walk On By"?\u00c2\u00a0 Is that a cover of the Dionne Warwick hit?\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
And who makes up these categories anyway?\u00c2\u00a0 God, they sound like they were created before everybody grew their hair out.<\/p>\n
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.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only is it a third-rate song, the VOCAL isn’t that good.<\/p>\n
But it gets worse.\u00c2\u00a0 Sheryl Crow’s lame new album gets big time nods.\u00c2\u00a0 "Wildflower" the Best Pop Vocal Album?\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t that like saying the Chevy Malibu is Car of the Year?\u00c2\u00a0 The Grammy committee is so myopic all of its members should go back to the ophthalmologist for new glasses.<\/p>\n
Talk about resting on your laurels.\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, I’d feel better if they nominated RADIOHEAD, even though the band didn’t even put out a record.\u00c2\u00a0 At least the act is still VITAL, testing the limits, not delivering what people EXPECT, like the above fucks.<\/p>\n
AND, wasn’t one of absolutely the biggest albums of the year Coldplay’s "X&Y"?\u00c2\u00a0 Forget that Jon Pareles didn’t like it, the industry fawned over the band that almost single-handedly kept Clear Channel\/Spinco in business.\u00c2\u00a0 But, they don’t get a Song Of The Year OR an Album Of The Year nom.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean who is MAKING UP this list??<\/p>\n
Keane best new artist?\u00c2\u00a0 Last time I checked they were neither new nor best and despite their label spending innumerable bucks, they got NO TRACTION!\u00c2\u00a0 I mean couldn’t they at least pick somebody who sold some ALBUMS?<\/p>\n
And Stevie Wonder.\u00c2\u00a0 Talk about a stiff album.\u00c2\u00a0 But there he is with his Best Pop Vocal Performance nomination.\u00c2\u00a0 The record might as well have been SILENT, he STILL would have been nominated.<\/p>\n
I’m incredulous.\u00c2\u00a0 There wasn’t ONE rock act with a better vocal than fiftysomethings Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, Robert Plant and Neil Young?\u00c2\u00a0 God, are a couple of them already SIXTY?\u00c2\u00a0 And, other than Mr. Young, the best work of ALL of them is in the past, their new records were IRRELEVANT!\u00c2\u00a0 As for Mr. Rob Thomas, I wouldn’t even CALL his new album rock, POP is more like it.<\/p>\n
Instrumental performances.\u00c2\u00a0 Did you know Stewart Copeland HAD a record out??\u00c2\u00a0 I mean he’s a fucking DRUMMER!\u00c2\u00a0 Give a nomination to Sting, even Andy Summers, but STEWART COPELAND??<\/p>\n
Well, at least Arcade Fire got a nomination for Best Alternative Music Album.<\/p>\n
I mean who the fuck do they think is gonna WATCH this telecast?\u00c2\u00a0 Ratings were HORRIFIC last year, this year they’re going to go completely into the dumper.\u00c2\u00a0 Read these nominations.\u00c2\u00a0 Who do they APPEAL to?\u00c2\u00a0 Mr. Bland in his Lexus listening to CDs, who if he has an iPod it was loaded for a fee by his kid?<\/p>\n
Tune into XM.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll be stunned how much good new music is out there.\u00c2\u00a0 And, it’s not being made by the has-beens coasting on the fumes of their careers listed above.\u00c2\u00a0 But in this winner takes all society we live in if you don’t have marquee value, nobody cares.<\/p>\n
How about if you don’t make GOOD MUSIC nobody cares.<\/p>\n
And you wonder why business sucks.\u00c2\u00a0 It SHOULD if the people in charge of exposing great new music think the ABOVE shit is good.<\/p>\n
People are burned out on awards shows.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re about ratings.\u00c2\u00a0 They appeal to an everyman nobody is.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s nothing special.\u00c2\u00a0 There are handicappers in the straight press, but make no mistake, it’s a giant circle jerk.<\/p>\n
The Grammys were ALWAYS irrelevant.\u00c2\u00a0 In rock’s initial heyday, the sixties and seventies, the hip bands were never even nominated!<\/p>\n
But now, these same overlooked acts ARE, as if they’re still relevant today.<\/p>\n
There was a moment there in the nineties when all the rivers merged.\u00c2\u00a0 The mainstream ruled.\u00c2\u00a0 And, the Grammys had a brief moment of quasi-relevance.\u00c2\u00a0 But, after the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync and Britney Spears the landscape fractured, nobody wanted the mainstream stuff anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 Except the major labels and the Grammy committee.\u00c2\u00a0 Say what you will about Mike Greene, but he never would have let this nomination abomination rule.\u00c2\u00a0 He would have WILLED relevance.\u00c2\u00a0 If for no other reason than to keep HIMSELF in the public eye.<\/p>\n
Neil Portnow is a caretaker without a dick.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Someone like Russell Simmons.\u00c2\u00a0 Or Jay-Z.\u00c2\u00a0 Some independent label owner who’s all about scraping by rather than living the high life.<\/p>\n
And, if the Awards are to mean anything there must be new blood.\u00c2\u00a0 People under the age of thirty must be involved.<\/p>\n
Mike Greene realized the Grammys were losing the public’s trust.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why he created the blue chip committee to review the final nominations and make adjustments to square them with REALITY!\u00c2\u00a0 Most of the records named above should not have been nominated AT ALL!\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, put up Mariah Carey.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Doesn’t anybody in Grammyland put his ear to the ground and listen to the street?<\/p>\n
I really don’t give a fuck.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just that the straight press has given the impression that the Grammys count.\u00c2\u00a0 The Grammys don’t count.\u00c2\u00a0 Just ask the kids with 10,000 tracks in their iTunes library.\u00c2\u00a0 Bruce Springsteen?\u00c2\u00a0 Bonnie Raitt?\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, their PARENTS didn’t even buy these records.<\/p>\n
Once again, it’s my generation, the baby boomers, who’ve turned into their parents and become everything they said they weren’t.<\/p>\n
Grammys aren’t music’s greatest night.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re evidence of how fucked up those in control of the business are.\u00c2\u00a0 They and the records they champion have no pulse.<\/p>\n
Ban Clive Davis from the ceremonies.\u00c2\u00a0 Make it so no label employee can vote.\u00c2\u00a0 Hire Bram Cohen as host.\u00c2\u00a0 Turn the reins over to the kids, hell, isn’t that what WE wanted when WE were kids?<\/p>\n
Have no tape delay.\u00c2\u00a0 Make everybody play live.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t allow anybody to thank God, he had nothing to do with it, the promo man who paid off the radio station did.\u00c2\u00a0 Just bring in a little truth.\u00c2\u00a0 Because there’s no truth in this year’s Grammy Awards, none at all.<\/p>\n
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Why don’t they just hire a teenager to tell them how fucked up they are. I thought they changed the rules.\u00c2\u00a0 To insure that another Jethro Tull debacle wouldn’t happen again.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, how in HELL did "Devils & Dust" get nominated as Song of the Year.\u00c2\u00a0 Was this a hit ANYWHERE?\u00c2\u00a0 Did I just miss […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-43","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}