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Not Your Mammy's Grammys: A Word On Your 2007 Nominations @ Blogcritics.org

Not Your Mammy's Grammys: A Word On Your 2007 Nominations @ Blogcritics.org
Miriam Liddle  |  by www.westfargopioneer.com. All rights reserved. 29.12 | 14:11

As first , the nominations for the 2007 Grammy Awards have been announced. Which means that by the time you read this, it will no longer qualify as an actual news story.

So what follows here is instead going to be a bit of a rant about the institution known as the Grammy Awards.

But before I get started, I need to qualify things just a bit.

It needs to be acknowledged that the organization who puts on the Grammys, NARAS (which stands for The National Academy of Recording Arts And Sciences), does do great work on behalf of those who make their trade in the recording industry. One of their best charitable organizations, Music Cares, provides financial assistance in things like housing and medical care to members of that industry who otherwise couldn t afford it.

I know this because when I lost my eye in an accident some ten years ago, Music Cares took care of a good chunk of my own medical bills.

So thank you NARAS for the great work you do through organizations like Music Cares.

That being said, this year s Grammy nominations warrant comment.



For starters, you wanna tell me that Bob Dylan s brilliant Modern Times does not merit consideration for best album of the year? And the latest releases by Justin Timberlake, John Mayer, hell, even the Dixie Chicks (who get begrudging points for standing up to those evil Republicans) do?

I could go on for days about this glaring omission alone.

But let s call a spade a spade here. Dylan got snubbed, plain and simple. And I don t even want to hear about Dylan s nomination for Best Solo Rock Performance (for Someday Baby, a pleasing, but relatively minor track from Modern Times) either.

That to me represents classic Grammy gratuitousness. It s the same sort of reasoning that got Springsteen a win in the best folk category for Devils Dust, yet lost him the big prize a year or so earlier for The Rising (to Norah Jones for those keeping score).

And while we re on that particular subject, I didn t see Springsteen s We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions nominated anywhere in the Best Folk/Americana Album category.

I did however see Dylan s Modern Times up for the folk prize. To anyone who has heard both, you tell me which one belongs where: Best Album or Folk/Americana? Seriously, you tell me.



After putting out mostly spotty releases for the better part of the nineties (some would say the eighties as well), Dylan s been on a roll since the turn of the millennium. While the album that started that creative resurgence, Time Out Of Mind, did get itself a Best Album Grammy, Modern Times is Dylan s best reviewed record since Blood On The Tracks. It has been universally recognized as one of the best records of his long and legendary career mdash; a milestone from an artist whose catalog is loaded with them.



Of course this wouldn t be the first time that Grammy didn t get it right. These are, after all, the same folks who have bestowed the Music Industry s highest honor on such past recipients as Christopher Cross, Milli Vanilli, and the Starland Vocal Band. Anybody remember Afternoon Delight?

Or maybe you just selectively forgot it like the rest of us.

Or how about the year that Grammy chose Jethro Tull as Best Metal Act over then still trailblazing pioneers Metallica? At least that one was good for a laugh, such as when Melody Maker wrote a story about it with the priceless headline For Whom The Bell Tulls.



But Justin Timberlake? I mean, come on. That s what God created the American Music Awards for.

There s your popularity contest right there. I ve got nothing against Justin. Nothing at all.

But the AMA s is not only the awards show where he belongs, but the one where he actually deserves to win. At least until Jay Z s new record comes out or something. Past blunders aside, Grammy is supposed to be where we honor the best in artistic excellence for the past twelve months.



But I guess that is why we have a Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Because even guys like Jimi Hendrix, Lou Reed, and the Grateful Dead need somewhere to park their careers. Not that Grammy doesn t acknowledge the great ones.

The Rolling Stones finally got some sort of Lifetime Acheivement honor something like 25 years after Satisfaction was released (and long after they stopped making landmarks like Exile On Main Street). I believe it was their first Grammy.

But Grammy is also all about the here and now.

This year s nominees in the major categories, for better or for worse, represent what is happening in music today, rather than yesterday. In other words, these ain t your Mammy s Grammys. On that point alone, I will give the Grammy Awards credit this year.

The unfortunate thing is that at least partially because of this, I m taking even odds right now for Timberlake to win the big prize.

Speaking of which, what can we expect to see when the Grammys are telecast live on CBS February 11, 2007?

If you are anything like me, the awards themselves will probably have you hurling things at your TV screen.

Still year after year, they keep me coming back because through the miracle of live television, the unexpected occasionally does occur.
Sometimes it s simply a great performance. Like when Prince blew the doors down with Beyonce on the eve of his Musicology comeback tour a few years ago with a scorching version of Purple Rain.

Other times, it s one of those weird, unexpected moments of spontaneity that remains forever etched in memory. Remember the Soy Bomb guy during Dylan s performance the year he performed?

The constants of course remain things like the endless stream of winners getting all religious and thanking God for bringing home the gold for hits like Spank My Bootylicious Booty (or something along those lines).

Or the boring ten minute speech by the president of NARAS warning us all about the evils of home taping, downloading, or whatever the industry is blaming sluggish sales on this time around. Pssst mdash; it s called putting out better records for a more affordable price guys.

As for the major awards themselves, I m handicapping it like this with these very early predictions.

Now mind you, please note these are just based on my opinion. In no way are they to be taken scientifically.

Album Of The Year Nominees:
Taking The Long Way by the Dixie Chicks: St.

Elsewhere by Gnarls Barkley; Continuum by John Mayer: Stadium Arcadium by the Red Hot Chili Peppers; FutureSex/LoveSounds by Justin Timberlake.

Should Win: Chili Peppers
Should Win But Isn t Even Nominated: Dylan
Dark Horse: Mayer
Will Win: Justin Timberlake

Record Of The Year Nominees:
Be Without You (Mary J. Blige); You re Beautiful (James Blunt); Not Ready To Make Nice (Dixie Chicks); Crazy (Gnarls Barkley); and Put Your Records On (Corinne Bailey Rae)

Should Win: Crazy
Will Win: Crazy
Dark Horse: Be Without You or You re Beautiful

Best New Artist Nominees:
James Blunt; Chris Brown; Imogen Heap; Corinne Bailey Rae; Carrie Underwood.


Should Win: James Blunt
Will Win: Carrie Underwood

Song Of The Year Nominees:
Be Without You (performed by Mary J. Blige); Jesus, Take The Wheel (performed by Carrie Underwood); Not Ready To Make Nice (performed by the Dixie Chicks); Put Your Records On (performed by Corinne Bailey Rae); You re Beautiful (performed by James Blunt).

Should Win: Not Ready To Make Nice
Will Win: Be Without You (largely because Crazy didn t make this category).


Dark Horse: You re Beautiful , Jesus Take the Wheel (tie)

As for elsewhere, look for these to win:

R B Album: Mary J. Blige
Pop Album: John Mayer (unless Timberlake takes this one too).
Rock Album: Chili Peppers (though I d love to see Neil Young get this for Living With War)
Rap Solo: Missy Elliott for We Run This
Rap/Sung Collaboration: Beyonc e featuring Jay-Z for Deja Vu
Best Producer: Rick Rubin.

Between the Peppers and The Chicks, it s Rubin s year. Besides, in another life I actually briefly worked for him. Whaddup Rick?


Country Album: Dixie Chicks (unless a strong anti-Chicks vote gets Alan Jackson the award by default. Just for the record, Johnny Cash, yet another glaring non-nominee, would get my vote for the posthumous American V: A Hundred Highways)

Stay tuned for the Grammys on CBS February 11, 2006. And keep the glass items away from the TV.




jpg align=left hspace=2 vspace=2> You'll find music journalist and freelance raconteur Glen Boyd sharing his Thoughtmares about everything from music to politics to professional wrestling at his blog In his alter-ego as "Disco Glen," Mr. Boyd is also the undisputed king of the dancefloor.

Keep reading for information and comments on this article, and add some feedback of your own!

Thanks for following up with this, Glen.
I have to agree with you that the line between the AMAs and the Grammys is blurring. And what once honored the best, now seems to focus on hot and pop.


I hope you will be one who will come back on February 12 with a follow up. Remind us of your predictions and how close you were to naming what actually wins.

Consider it a date Connie.

And thanks for the comment.
Well done, Glen. I don't know how they manage to do it year after year but somehow these nominations always manage to piss me off.

Mission, once again, accomplished. Justin Timberlake and The Chicks With Dicks - this is the best we have to offer. Riiiight.

What rubbish.

Thanx DJR. I was a little reluctant to run with this because I thought Tim had pretty much already nailed it with his piece.

But I once I got started, it flew out of me. No freaking Dylan for Best Album? What Rubbish indeed.

Thanx for the comment (and for pushing me to do this article) DJR. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out actually.
The Grammys are a popularity contest with weak pretentions to meritocracy.

I long since gave up being upset by who wins and loses or doesn't get nominated.
I agree with you completely about the Dylan record, it should have been nominated.
But I think you've overlooked something very obvious: To the vast majority of the American public the Grammys are a TV show - and that's it nothing else.

Now if the nominees for album of the year were Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Springsteen can you really see those ad execs getting all giddy over selling their automobiles, potato chips and acne medication? I'm sure you're thinking "hey that would be great I'd watch" but unfortunately like me, you're in the wrong demographic for primetime TV targeted advertising. Maybe at one time the Grammys were a representation of artistic merit, but those days are long gone and I think that's what really should be taken issue with, not who and who isn't nominated.


Points well taken Jon and Joey. But if this is the case, and if the Grammys are going to carry pretensions of being at least somewhat credible, don't you think they should at least try to live up to it?
I understand that in theory these awards shows are more about pimping cars and soft drinks than they are about honoring artistic merit.

But if Grammy is going to pawn itself off as being closer in spirit to the Oscars than it is to the Superbowl--it should walk the walk as well as talk to talk (with all those self-congradulatory speeches and all)
Nominating Timberlake over Dylan is kind of like nominating whoever made The Dukes of Hazzard over Scorsese.
As I said, thats why God (or his half brother Dick Clark anyway) created the AMAs.
Thanx for the comments guys.


Get real. You act like The Oscars isn't popularity and politics as well. The Oscars is the most watched infomercial with its awards voted on by a body that mainly consists of AARP members.

They constantly get it wrong. Don't make me break out the list.
And as a writer, I'm surprised you didn't show some love and name the songwriters nominated for Best Song.

tsk tsk.
"And what once honored the best, now seems to focus on hot and pop." Connie, when was that?


Guilty as charged on the lapse about the songwriters El Bicho. Strictly a matter of expediency I guess since most readers tend to identify the song with the singer and not the writer.
Also, I realize that Oscar gets it wrong nearly as often as Grammy does.

But at least they try to hit the standard they aspire to. A lot of times Grammy can't even get the genre right. Witness the Jethro Tull "metal" fiasco, or even this years nomination of Dylan's Modern Times for folk album (but not Album Of The Year or even Rock Album).


Scorsese may be the Oscars perennial bridesmaid, but he always at least gets the nomination. Dylan not getting his for the best reviewed record he's done since the classic Blood On The Tracks (when an entertaining and yes, popular, but artistically lacking Justin Timberlake does) is ridiculous.
Thanx for the comment Mr.

Bicho (and say hi to Jimbo for me next time you see him).
The exercise of pretending to honor artistic achievements -- movies, music, painting, poetry, writing, graffiti, gardening, whatever -- should be dispensed with altogether. It's completely misguided, it's cynical, it's a ruse, and the details of who gets nominated and who "wins" should not be taken seriously by ANYONE (except corporate sponsors, as pointed out by Joey V, and record companies).


Now, go watch the show, and have fun. Screw arguments over Dylan, Springsteen, Timberlake, and all the rest of the pop artists. They inhabit the surface of a deep musical pond.


I'll never give my support to any institution that would place Timberlake's pseudo-pop bullshit over things like the Dylan album, or the overlooked 10,000 Days.
I feel your pain. Springsteen did get nominated in the traditional folk category along with Linda Rondstadt Ann Savoy's excellent Adieu False Heart.

Dylan was nominated in the contemporary folk category. Rosanne Cash's Black Cadillac was also nominated in the latter category. I feel it also deserves an album of the year nomination.


I remember the Tull/Metallica fiasco - I think it was a glaring example of the real issues with the Grammys - it's a case of trying so hard to be hip that you're square (thanks, Huey!). Kinda like when you were a kid, busy listening to that Uriah Heep album, and your dad says, "You call that music?

You shoulda seen Fabian back in the day!" Sure, Dad. So let them be arbitrer of all things square - who cares?


I've got a more esoteric point to make, but I'll save that for now. Great blog, Glen - I woould've gone over to your site to read it anyways, but I'm still glad it was run here.
Actually this isn't on my blog yet (it will be later this weekend), so I'm glad you were able to see it here first Vern.


Love your reference to Uriah Heep. They were one of the great forgotten bands that everybody loved but no one would admit to. Probably the main inspiration for Spinal Tap too.


Anyway, I Appreciate the comment.
And to Ben and D'Oh -- well, thanks for agreeing with me on this. I suspect theres a lot more of us out there too.


Thanx all.
Neil Youngs nominations, if he wins this time around, will be written off as simply a long overdue nod to a very deserving artist, or more of the liberal lefts infiltration of anything considered entertainment.
I think the gratuitous "long overdue" nod would be closest to hitting the mark on that Marty.

I hope he wins too, but I think the Chilis are gonna walk away with it myself.
Thanx for the comment Marty.
Other than the writing and technical categories, the Oscars usually blow it.

They are always giving out too many make-up awards, which defeats the whole thing.
"I think the Chilis are gonna walk away with it myself."
Think they'll share it with Tom Petty?

Only seems fair.
At least Tull had a good laugh out of it. From an ad afterwards: "The flute is a heavy, metal instrument!

"
I guarantee Dylan doesn't give a shit and neither did Metallica at the time, and if they do, then they definitely don't deserve it. What real artist would? Hey, Picasso, you are up for Best Painter of the Year.


Pick catergories for The Glennys and they will have just as much weight with me, although I'm guessing the award ceremony won't be as cool, no offense.

how about the year that Grammy chose Jethro Tull as Best Metal Act over then still trailblazing pioneers Metallica?
Urban legend.

That never happened. Look it up.
Cant take it no more with Mammys Grammys.

Lets all sing. Mammy Mammy how I love ya my dear old mammy. The sun shines east, the sun shines west.

Im comin mammy. Oh oh oh mammy. Id walk a million miles for one of your smiles.

Mammy mammy. Who is Al Jolson? Friday night.

Just some good rum, boxing and late night snakes. Dam life is good when your silver.
offical site sez yes it did.


You'll notice that it doesn't say Tull won the Metal Grammy, which is one of those things that everybody remembers even though it's not true, like when "Danny Ainge bit Tree Rollins".
They won for Hard Rock back when it was a combined category, and it was completely appropriate.
The fact of the matter is this.

The Grammys have never, ever honored artistic achievement. They honor commercial achievement. Look at the stats.

If a recording just happened to be something that struck a nerve in the zeitgeist, and just happened to be something meaningful, it was only a happenstance relative to its commercial success.
That being said, I don't really see why anybody's surprised at the nominations.
If my memory serves me correct this was the first year that the Grammys created a specific category with the intention of honoring heavy metal.

I also believe that you are correct -- sorta. I think they actually caled the category "hard rock/ heavy metal." But the intent was clearly to acknowledge metal and set it apart from the more standard "rock" category, much as they did with so-called "alternative" a few years later.


Much as I do like Jethro Tull (and I do like them), picking them over competitors like Metallica was a gaffe that has gone down as historic. It rates right up there with the lip-synching Milli Vanilli getting the honor.
I stand by my statement.


Glen, Memory doesn't have to serve; just use Vern's link and see that it was a combined Hard Rock and Metal category -- each of which was being recognized for the first time that year. As a hard rock band, it was entirely appropriate for Tull to have won despite the fact that it upset the fans of the then-trendy Metallica.
I looked over the entire 108 categories in this year's list and the only things I know I've heard for certain are Saudades and the Cellar Door set.


Where's the nomination for Zappa's Imaginary Diseases? Snubbed again. Fargin' Bastidges.


Details, details...

. I seem to remember that at least for a while around the Aqualung era album, Tull was considered "Heavy Metal" along with Sabbath, Deep Purple, Zeppelin, and pretty much anything loud, oddball or English.
Still, I'm sure Ian Anderson has his award hanging up somewhere at his salmon farm.

.. Poisson d'Avril indeed!


True enough. But that was at least ten years before Tull won the Grammy.
And Dave, again the point here is one of intent.

Whatever they decided to call the actual category, the intent was to honor hard rock and heavy metal and as history bores out, Tull was not an appropriate winner for that type of music. Now if you had a "prog-rock" category for example, and Tull was up against say, Yes or Genesis or Marillion -- now that I could see.
Tull has simply never been a hard rock or a heavy metal band.

Period. Even on their first three records before Aqualung, they were doing a sort of British blues-rock thing. It was basically Savoy Brown with a flute.


By the time they won the hard rock, heavy metal, or whatever the category was -- Tull was basically a prog-rock band with heavy english folk overtones. They were closer to somebody like the Strawbs or Fairport Convention then a hard rock band.
Again, I stand by my statement.


Thanx for the comment.
Totally in agreement, Glen about Tull not ever actually being a metal band. But, for the sake of argument - if in the public's eye, you're a metal band (or whatever genre they think you are).

.. then, you are, aren't you?

No...

that's not right...

I mean to say, at least the public thinks you are, and that's the section where they find your albums at Tower Rec...

no, that's not right either.
Never mind. I don't care about the Grammys or their lack of taste anyway.

They ought to just award eveything based on sales, and make sure they've got good bean counters. Sales stats are sometimes interesting at least.

The fact of the matter is this.

The Grammys have never, ever honored artistic achievement. They honor commercial achievement. Look at the stats.

If a recording just happened to be something that struck a nerve in the zeitgeist, and just happened to be something meaningful, it was only a happenstance relative to its commercial success. That being said, I don't really see why anybody's surprised at the nominations.


My sentiments exactly.

Grammys...

. feh. Nothing new.


I'm not totally thrilled about the Grammy nominations. I don't particularly like how there's always three or four artists that seem to get all the nominations. They should just rename the Grammys this year to "The Mary J.

Blige Show". Not that I have anything against her, she's got a great voice, but I wish they'd spread the nominations out a little better. Nickelback wasn't nominated at all, and they've had a really good year.

It doesn't really matter though cause I know I'll still end up watching the show!

  • On by JameSKorn91: most of these guitarists arent even metal. like angus young?

    wtf...

    .ac/dc is a preppy rock band..

    .wh..

    .

  • On by jd: The Yuletunes Christmas compilation is the best modern Christmas record -- all the way through.
  • On by mycotropic: I bought this album when it first came out and lost it in a fire about 10 years ago.

    This re-release...

  • On by abrogard: I still believe you're all wrong and the really good singers are classical (i.e. like in opera) s.

    ..

    Read more on by www.westfargopioneer.com. All rights reserved.
    Keywords: Heavy Metal, Dixie Chicks, Justin Timberlake, Modern Times, Should Win, Jethro Tull, Mary j, Music Cares, Make Nice, Metal Band
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