Awards

Not to be overshadowed by Jennifer Hudson and her little Oscar nomination, Carrie Underwood won no less than four prestigious CMT.com Loaded awards -- everything for which she was nominated, in fact.
To recap, those would be awards for streamed live performance (Does He Love You, a CMT duet with Jamie O'Neal); digitally active female artist; and, for Before He Cheats, stickin' it to the man video and hottest chick with a baseball bat video.

These don't seem terribly significant now, but if she wins a couple of Grammys, who knows, maybe the Loaded awards will attain the same importance as the Golden Globes have for predicting the Oscars. Somehow I doubt it ..

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First chance I've had to post today (came in late as part of my schedule adjustment for Idol nights -- I'll be here a while tonight -- and had to go right into a long meeting), so I hadn't even seen the Oscar nominations until now, but yes, definitely worth saluting Jennifer Hudson's supporting actress nod. Amazing story, from near-forgotten Idol also-ran to a new queen of Hollywood.

While the Grammys are more relevant to Idol than the Oscars in general, this particular nomination seems to be about her singing as much as her acting (you who have actually seen the movie are better qualified to weigh in on this point). She's certainly now Idol's most prominent multi-media success story (Kelly Clarkson having failed to garner such critical attention thus far in her fabulous film career).
This is probably for the seven people out there who follow the Golden Globes news less attentively than me, but Jennifer Hudson did get a best supporting actress nomination for Dreamgirls, a nice and valuable honor.

Sometimes the Globes foreshadow the Oscars, even though they're chosen by a motley and random group of foreign correspondents of dubious qualifications, compared to the Academy professionals who pick the Oscars. This seems likely to be one of those cases, in which case Jennifer would really have something to celebrate. But the Globes get a lot of attention (mainly because it's an all-out celebfest, not because anyone cares who wins), and Jennifer's showbiz career can hardly fail to benefit.

A few responses to questions and other stuff before I bail for a much-deserved weekend break (well, I think so, anyway, after an action-packed Grammy nominations day -- see the Listen Up blog for the raw output).
Both Christina and Sam (to whom I apologize for misinterpreting your tone; easy to do in this format, but that's still no excuse) wanted to know a little more about Grammy voting, and I'm sure I'm not violating any deep secrets by talking about this stuff in general. All Grammy voters, even the ones who snuck in by writing liner notes, can vote in the four general categories (record, album and song of the year plus new artist).

Then they can vote in up to nine (I think, memory's fuzzy, might be eight) specialized categories -- anything they want, they don't have to take a knowledgeability test, but common sense does prevail.
I could vote in a bunch of classical and spoken word-type categories, but I know little to nothing about them and it would be a ludicrous waste of a vote. I tend to vote in things like pop, rock, country, R B, folk -- areas I know varying amounts about -- plus, of course, liner notes (I still read 'em even if I don't write 'em any more).

More follows, but before that, check Monday (actually, late Sunday night online) for Edna Gundersen's feature on Taylor Hicks (plus a sidebar on the other Idols this year who have or are about to release albums).
Carrie Underwood did well at the Grammy nominations announced today, collecting a prestigious best new artist nomination and also scoring one for country female vocal (Her song Jesus, Take the Wheel also got a couple of nominations, but those are songwriter awardes and she didn't write it, so she gets only tangential credit.)
No other Idols were represented.

Aside from songs from the season anthology and Taylor and Katharine's coronation singles, none of this year's crop were eligible -- and I never thought Taylor and Katharine's mediocre singles stood a chance. Kelly Clarkson qualified for female pop vocal and a couple of other categories, but didn't get the votes. Same for Clay in male pop vocal and other categories, but this wasn't the album to attract Grammy votes.

Next year, with albums from Taylor, Katharine, Chris and Kellie (and maybe more) eligible, plus Ruben's album and Fantasia's and who knows whose else, could be a different story.
Looking forward to seeing how many Grammy nominations Idols will collect later today, so watch this space for that.
Speaking of Grammys, to answer Sam's rather belligerent-sounding question about how a non-performing itinerant music writer such as myself got to be a Grammy voter, here's the secret: liner notes.

Grammys are voted upon by a membership of music-industry professionals: mostly musicians, engineers, producers, songwriters, etc., but also including people who contribute other things to the final product (albums, CDs, whatever). That group includes art directors and annotators (fancy term for liner notes writers) -- in the past, when I was more of a freelance type, I wrote notes for (and sometimes compiled) albums, mostly reissues.

If you do a certain number of those, and are willing to pay the annual Academy dues, you can become a voting member of NARAS.
A bit more on the Grammys follows..

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Prediction: No Grammy noms for Taylor, Katharine

I may be going out on a limb here, but as a longtime Grammy voter and sometime participant on some of their awards screening committees, I don't think Taylor and Katharine will get any nominations when they're announced Thursday. Next year, when they have eligible albums out, may well be a different story, but Idol coronation songs aren't generally regarded as nomination-worthy by voters.

Also, I would not expect any of this year's Idol crop to make the best-new-artist cut.
If I'm wrong, feel free to mock and ridicule me unmercifully. And I'm still predicting a fair number of Carrie Underwood nominations (but nothing for Bo).

The Billboard Awards are based on sales -- there's no artistic merit or fan vote components -- so they represent commercial dominance. And not many artists have had the commercial dominance enjoyed by Carrie Underwood this year. She won five awards Monday night: new country artist, female top 200 artist (that's catchy, not to mention a bit superfluous), female country artist, country album and one of the biggies: top album.

Nice cake for Carrie, and a Grammy or two would be the perfect frosting.
Christina, as I've come to expect, pretty much said it all about the RIAA -- that it's not so much an independent organization that carefully evaluates submissions for gold or platinum awards, but more of an industry rubber stamp for labels wishing to snag those prestigious certifications.
But I can't resist bringing up, once again, my favorite recent example of a dubious gold certification: Jessica Simpson's latest album was announced as gold and had sold approximately 220,000 records at the time (the total hasn't increased by much -- don't have it handy because the album has long since exited the top 200).

So, anyway, sure, it's swell when the RIAA certifies an Idol's record, but just take it with at least that proverbial grain of salt.
Two of the most astute and eloquent regular commentators here, Christina and Jack, raised interesting points about whether Carrie is deserving of the 2007 Grammy award for best new artist when she essentially entered the public consciousness, in a very big way, in early 2005.
That's a very interesting question, and it's one that Grammy nomination screening committees have been debating for a few years now.

A best new artist nominee can be eligible in more than one year, although there is a cutoff point (I think after two years of consecutive nominations). The wording for eligibility is a new artist who releases, during the Eligibility Year, the first recording which establishes the public identity of that artist. That's loosely interpreted in practice as the year they come to public prominence.

Did Carrie come to prominence when 25-30 million people watched her on TV every week in spring 2005? Or does prominence mean record sales, in which case she sold a few hundred thousand singles of Inside Your Heaven in 2005? Was that the record that established her public identity?

Or is it 2006 (which in Grammy terms runs from Oct. 1, 2005 to Sept. 30, 2006)?

That's when her album came out, when it sold the nearly 4 million it's amassed, when she had three country No. 1 airplay singles, which means they were heard by a lot more people than ever hear Inside Your Heaven, which got very little radio airplay.
In Carrie's case, she was eligible for nomination in 2005 (for the 2006 Grammys; I know, I'm getting confused keeping it all straight), but didn't get voted into the final 5.

She was determined to be eligible again for 2006 (the upcoming 2007 Grammys), and, at least in my opinion, has a really good shot to be in the final five announced Dec. 7.
My opinion?

Because the Grammys are a music-based award, I think this is the year she's had her greatest musical impact, and I'm fine with her being eligible for best new artist this year. Feel free to disagree.
Following one of several thoughtful comments on the Idol Nation idea, Jack asked if I was planning to make any Grammy predictions.

Well, I wasn't, but I can toss a few Idol-oriented guesses off the top of my head.
None of the current Idols' releases are eligible for the Grammy nominations that will be announced Dec. 7 -- the time for Taylor, Katharine, Chris and Kellie is the 2008 Grammys.

(Well, Taylor and Katharine were eligible for their coronation songs, but I'm not expecting nominations for those.) Same for Fantasia's upcoming new stuff. (Cutoff is Sept.

30, 2006.)
I think Carrie will score some nominations, in country and perhaps in more general categories, including new artist. Kelly Clarkson may have a carry-over nomination or two for one of her more recent singles, although the album isn't eligible (it was in last year's.

) I wouldn't look for Bo or Clay to be among the nominations, though.
Can't think of anybody else relevant to the discussion, but if I've forgotten anyone, let me know.