• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Grammys: fighting the taste-impaired voters

What's that Noise?

Michael Tatum

OK, we all know why we're here. I hate the Grammys; you hate the Grammys. What else is new?

Yes, we all know the NARAS, the oblivious fugitives from intelligence who vote for these awards, are hopelessly out of touch with modern music. We all know that Bob Dylan never won a Grammy during his most creative period, the '60s, only to win lifetime achievement a few years back. We all know that nearly every Best New Artist winner disappears into obscurity after the release of their next album (considering this year's winner was Sheryl Crow, I find this curse to be righteous).

You've heard it all before, and I assume since you're reading this column, you want to hear it again: The Stones blah blah Patti Smith blah blah George Clinton blah blah Velvet Underground blah blah Milli goddamn Vanilli blah blah blah.

Why should anyone sensible ­- you or me, for example ­ invest so much psychic energy into something so trivial?

As someone who has probably heard more records in the last year than your average NARAS member, I do it because the sterile, hegemonic, taste-impaired sensibilities of the Grammy voters must be stopped. If it takes kidnapping their children to stop abominations like Tony Bennett capturing an award for Best Album, that's what we have to do.

I could pontificate on some of the other winners ­ the innocuous, rich-kid-pop of Sheryl Crow, for example ­ but Bennett's Unplugged will serve as a useful paradigm.

After much deliberation, I've decided that the NARAS couldn't possibly have heard the same album that I reviewed last July. Bennett cracked hitting high notes, cracked hitting low notes, and embarrassed himself trying to hold a note for 20 or so seconds during "Old Devil Moon." And people want to award him for this?

I'll admit that enlisting the accompaniment of a three-piece ensemble, the Ralph Sharon Trio, as opposed to a full orchestra, showed admirable restraint that Sinatra (not to mention Harry Connick) wouldn't have. And I admire how Bennett calculatingly exploited Gen X identified superstars (how else to explain Bennett's introduction of "my good friend, 'Even' Dando"?) to draw in those with short attention spans.

But in no conceivable way is this album the best record of the year. I mean, Bennett has been performing these same songs for decades. Does the world really need the 10,056,676th version of "It Had To Be You"?

And I know this horse has probably been beaten to the center of the earth, but compare Bennett's Unplugged album to Nirvana's. OK, maybe the just-like-the-studio versions of "Polly" and "Something In The Way" were a bit redundant. But for the most part, instead of coasting on obvious past successes, Cobain chose the occasion to unearth obscure songs that many in Nirvana's audience probably hadn't heard before.

On top of that, let's hear Bennett execute a more harrowing vocal performance than Cobain does on Leadbelly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" (since Bennett considers Tin Pan Alley writers to be progenitors of "traditional folk music," this seems to be a moot point).

I know ­ why pick on an old guy, why not let sleeping dogs lie, why make a mountain out of a molehill, why compare apples and oranges, etc. But when the orange happens to be rotten, moldy and crawling with maggots, why would you want to bronze it and put it in the Smithsonian?

This goes for Cobain as well as anyone else. Not that I wouldn't give my record collection (or better yet, yours) to have him alive again, but at least in 30 years he won't be picking up an award for some crusty, mediocre album that he vomited up in his spare time.

I'm not opposed to giving Bennett the Lifetime Achievement Award (I haven't looked it up, but I'm sure he's already got it), but why do we have to acknowledge his, er, greatness by honoring Unplugged? I mean, do people really think it's going to inspire future generations of musicians?

Clearly, the guilt of this should be brunted by the sentimentality-handicapped older voters, many of whom no doubt caved into their own nostalgia ("Hey Martha, this was our wedding song!") rather than base their decision on artistic merit.

Now, having excreted that little bit of vitriol out of my system, here are my own nominees for Best Album of 1994. I'm sure that many NARAS members will live the rest of their hopelessly narrow lives without putting these great CDs into their changer, but these works are guaranteed to provide insight and inspiration long after Bennett's Unplugged finishes its run in Holiday Inn elevators everywhere.

1. Beck Mellow Gold; Beck, Tom Rothrock, Rob Schanpf and Karl Stephenson, producers

2. Latin Playboys, Latin Playboys; David Hidálgo, Louie Pérez, Mitchell Froom, Tchad Blake, producers

3. Sonic Youth Experimental Jet Set Trash and No Star; Butch Vig, producer

4. Iris DeMent My Life; Jim Rooney, producer (in real life, nominated for Best Folk Album, but lost to Johnny Cash's insanely overrated American Recordings)

5. M People Elegant Slumming; Heather Small, Mike Pickering and Paul Heard, producers.

An avant-garde free-associater who constructs his own staggering soundscapes on a mere four-track recorder. Two members of Los Lobos whose adventures into "East L.A. ambient music" produce the most beautiful music of the year. Four aging art punks who bury some of their most alluring melodies in their most galvanic guitar noises to date. A gifted singer-songwriter whose poignant semi-autobiographical songs and heartbreakingly gorgeous voice recall the great chanteuses of country music's long lost past. And a high energy disco album that won the prestigious Mercury Prize in England but was completely ignored in the United States.

Even if your tastes are different than mine, don't these records sound more immediately intriguing than:

A rich, formerly interesting, corporate rock star emotes blues songs like he's auditioning for a Michelob spot. A vanity affair from three overwrought, ego-addled opera singers, each of whom tries to out-yell the other. A sententious, un-funky, non-tuneful pseudo R&B outing that does for black-pop what George Michael's Listen Without Prejudice did for white-pop. A pro forma record from one of rock's most crucial interpreters and slide guitarists, but who these days, can't be bothered. And Tony Bennett.

In the words of Mick Jagger, who with The Stones won the Lifetime Achievement Award after more than 20 Grammy-less years, "The joke's on you."

Unless it happens to be Grammy week, Michael Tatum's column appears every Wednesday.

Comments

Post a comment