Put this paper down right now if you think that winning a Grammy is any indication of the relevance, integrity, artistry or quality of music.
Good, you’re all still here.
Now, I know I am not very opinionated. But, even if I was, I cannot understand why my picks of the best music have less merit than the choices made by a group of aging corporate dinosaurs.
I would probably wonder why music released on non-conglomerate record labels is completely ignored, especially since that makes 98 percent of the best music out there ineligible for a Grammy.
Again, I am not much of an “opinion person,” but it seems to me that we share a misconception of exactly what these awards represent and why they are held. You see, the Grammys are not intended as a forum to recognize music merely to sell it.
Let us not forget who nominates the artists who parade around in Versace every February. The Grammy board is chock full of producers, record company executives and promoters. In short: businessmen.
Again, though, I didn’t even watch the show. I probably don’t have a right to hold an opinion.
Wait a minute, yes I do. I have the right, because I buy records. You buy records. We all buy records. This is our industry, not theirs. Why do we let our beautiful art form be mocked once a year by those who bastardize it?
Best Rock Album – Bruce “the Boss” Springsteen? He’s already made this “Rising” record like eight times now. Oh, I forgot, this one is about Sept. 11. OK, that’s fair. He exploited a tragedy, let’s give him an award.
Best Country Song – Alan Jackson? “(Where Were You) When The World Stopped Turning?” Oh, more tragedy exploitation. Got it.
Female Rock Vocal Performance – Sheryl Crow? I see. The 12 people that bought that record must be on the voting board.
Best Alternative Album – Coldplay? Alternative to what, exactly? The 900 other Radiohead clones out there?
Male Rap Solo Performance – Nelly? Please. The only thing more ridiculous than recognizing Nelly for artistic achievement is that idiotic Band-Aid on his face.
Best Recording Package – Dixie Chicks? What exactly is the significance of this award? Let’s see: Plastic case, check. Booklet, check. Band photo on front, check. Great, let’s give it a Grammy.
Of course, the hot button issue this year was the producers’ admonitions that any commentary on the impending war with Iraq would be censored. Oh, what a shame. We will sadly never know whether Ashanti is against the war. There is a delicious irony to this however: the corporate sector of a country that prides itself on free speech told its most famous citizens not to mention the fact that we are about to murder a lot of innocent people.
Did they really think that the artists on the Grammy guest list were going to say something profound? Shoot, if these artists are at all concerned about our current volatile situation, why are they prancing around at a billion-dollar back-patting party?
We knew someone would sneak through the gag order, and it makes perfect sense that it would be Fred Durst, America’s reigning king of- well, nothing anymore. Durst reportedly commented, “I wish this war would just go away.” We hear you, Fred, and we sympathize. It must be just awful having to pay $2.50 a gallon to fill up your Hummer.
Sure, the point is all of us are deeply affected by what is going on, even famous people. There is, however, one key difference between these timid millionaires and those watching them: if bombs start falling, we cannot all jump into our private jets and fly out of the blast radius.
Despite the glaring idiocy of the Grammys, we can take at least two comforting thoughts away from this year’s outing.
First, by not giving any awards to Avril Lavigne, Justin Timberlake or any other similarly insubstantial teeny bopper the recording industry has publicly acknowledged that the Teen Pop craze has finally died.
Secondly, by awarding eight baubles to Norah Jones, the Grammys did not exactly hit the mark, but they could have done a whole lot worse. With this organization’s track record, that was about the best we could hope for.
Taylor Kingsbury, a junior journalism major, is a staff writer of the Campus Times. He can be reached by e-mail at happyendingrocks@hotmail.com.
