O O Ø O O O O
Gram Reaper
With a Big Show like the Grammys, is it really a wonder that nobody can take the music industry seriously?
Ever since Jethro Tull Won the ’88 Grammy for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance, the Grammys have been viewed with a kind of awe and mysticism reserved for those so completely disconnected with reality that it's laughable.
So, with another set of ridiculous Grammy Awards over, and the “Tuesday's Fresh Content” spectre hanging over my head, I got the urge to address the Great Grammy Mystery: Namely, who are these idiots doing the voting, and what exactly is their deal?
Google to the rescue. From the Grammy FAQ:
Recording Academy voting members are professionals with creative or technical credits on six commercially released tracks (or their equivalent). These may include vocalists, conductors, songwriters, composers, engineers, producers, instrumentalists, arrangers, art directors, album notes writers, narrators and music video artists and technicians.
“In other words,” I concluded, “200 sound techs get hammered, and make up the year's winners.” With that mystery done with, I prepared myself to head out the door for the weekly brew.
Sadly, I didn't make it to the door before the holes in my little theory began to show. It occurred to me that it wasn't so much the choice of winners that bugged me, as the choice of categories to which they were nominated. These choices were so bad, not even a drunk would make them. Besides, If Napoleon and Jerry Pournelle had taught me anything, it was to “Never ascribe to drunkenness that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.”
In other words, I needed a new theory, and I needed it quickly.
If you don't know what I am talking about, let me try and give an example. This year, the winner of the Best Female Rock Vocal Performance category was Lucinda Williams, with the song Get Right With God. It's not a bad song. It's kind of country, kind of bluegrassy. I sort of like it.
But I can't actually see anyone who has listened to it mistaking it for a Rock Vocal Performance.
And how about Eric Clapton's Reptile, winning Best Pop Instrumental Performance? The thing about Clapton is, though his musical style hasn't significantly changed since the 70s, they still can't figure out what category to put him in. For the last few years, they've alternated between the Pop and Rock categories, with the occasional Liner Notes and Historical Album award thrown in for good measure. Curious about this year's choice of category, I actually took the time to listen to the song. It took me about 4 seconds to pigeonhole this one: Muzak
That's right: elevator music. It's just about as far from Pop as you can get, and I'm a Clapton fan.
As far as I can see, the only way to adequately explain what is going on is to assume the awards committee does a Google search on each of the nominated bands, reads the first review of the band they can get their hands on, and uses that as the basis for categorising them.
In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb here, and propose a theory:
With over 100 categories to judge in, Grammy Judges don't actually have time to actually listen to any of the songs they vote for.
Of course, if I'm going to insist that the people voting on the awards actually listen to the music, you might think I should go one step further, and insist that they only vote within a particular category. Classical Pianists might not be the best people to vote on the Hard Rock Performance category, you say?
One thing at a time. Just getting them to listen to the songs they're voting for is a good enough start for me.
Actually, this little theory might explain the preponderance of old farts winning Grammys. Think Jethro Tull, Steely Dan, Carlos Santana. I bet the award judges are so happy to see a band from back when they still listened to music, that they go ahead and cast a vote for any name they recognise.
But, maybe I'm just being too cynical. Maybe the whole Grammy mess simply boils down to a semantics problem. What I think are obvious translations of the category names might be entirely wrong.
I think I'm onto something here. Perhaps the Grammy confusion is simply the result of badly named categories. Let's try renaming some of the categories and see what happens. For a start, how about:
| Old Name | New Name |
| The “Pop” Categories | Artists the Record Execs made money on |
| The “Rock” Categories | Artists who can play their own instruments |
| The “Hard Rock” Categories | Either of the above with a language warning sticker |
| Best New Artist | Artist the Record Execs were most surprised to make money on this year |
| Record of the Year | For God's sake, call it “Recording of the year”. Everybody asks about this category, nobody knows what it is for. Three little letters, folks! |
See? Now it all makes sense. It was a semantic problem. Now, how do we explain the choice of winners?
Okay. Maybe that was the drunken sound engineers.
Kjell Wooding
Tuesday, March 5,
2002
PD
DXXXVII