Dominic Baez

I’m sort of a whore when it comes to award shows. I watch all of them: the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors’ Guild Awards, the Academy Awards, VH1 Music Awards, etc. My favorite, though, has to be the Grammys, but not for the reason you might think.
I normally can’t stand this particular show. It pisses me off more than people who can’t spell. But I do love to watch it for the absolute insanity of it all (and maybe the fashion, but that’s just me). This show serves absolutely no purpose in life whatsoever. I mean, it’s as though the music industry is just giving itself a nice pat on the shoulder for doing a good job each year. Did any of you actually listen to Allison Krause and Robert Plant’s “Raising Sand” CD? God knows I didn’t, and I tend to listen to a variety of music. I didn’t even know they had a CD together, much less know that it would win Album of the Year. No, I’m not a country fan, but I don’t live under a rock, either.
Aside from that, my real issue is that the Grammys don’t represent anything but mainstream, modern music. Voters for the Grammy Awards have been widely ridiculed during the years for choices that make them seem out of touch with popular music. Those who decide the winners say the nominees have gotten better. That’s laughable. The Grammys is behind the curve in more ways than one. And you know it’s pitiful when the highlight of the evening was a case of domestic abuse. Yeah. I guess Chris Brown went all “Disturbia” on Rihanna, but it’s still just an allegation. It sounds likes something that should be on “Cops,” huh?
It can’t be a good thing when I enjoy the performances more than I enjoy the award ceremony. And that confuses me. If the Grammy Awards were meant to be a multi-artist concert, it would dominate. I enjoyed them all immensely. Chris Martin’s “Lost” with Jay-Z was great. And the combination of M.I.A., Jay-Z, Kanye, T.I. and Lil’ Wayne on stage at the same time? Come on, you have to admit that was amazing, even if M.I.A. was ready to explode. I’ll even admit that Radiohead, with the USC marching band, was decent, even though I don’t like Radiohead. If the members of the Recording Academy, who vote on the Grammys, would use the same judgment that the person who books these artists for performances did, I would be a very happy person. I just don’t see that happening. They play it safe, and that sucks.
Those members have made some stunningly questionable decisions over the years, and not just the notorious Best New Artist Grammy they gave to the lip-sync act Milli Vanilli. The academy has never awarded a Grammy to Neil Young, The Who, Led Zeppelin or The Kinks. These voters, whom the Academy considers “peers,” are peers in the sense that they work in the music industry. But there are more than 12,000 voting members who can cast ballots in a number of different categories. They don’t necessarily need to have any experience in the field in which they are voting. I don’t know about you, but that seems a little ridiculous to me.
Back to the point, though. I guess you can say that the Grammys serve its own purpose: bringing mainstream music to an already mainstream-flooded market. But in the end, you aren’t going to hear something that is truly fresh, truly innovative or truly new. And if an awards show doesn’t accomplish that, then why the hell did I waste three-and-a-half hours of my life? Maybe the Academy Awards will make me feel better; I hear “Twilight” star Robert Pattinson will be presenting.