Relevance
Could the Grammy Awards’ enduring legacy of cluelessness be at risk?
For 60 years, the hipsters have been held at bay, stymied, barred at the door.
But as The Grammy Awards (7:30 p.m. Sunday on CBS) embark on their sixth decade celebrating the year’s most noteworthy musical acts, its endearingly out-to-lunch legacy is suddenly at risk.
• Flashback 1967: A year of groundbreaking change as British bands like The Beatles, Rolling Stones and folkrock bard Bob Dylan release iconic albums that push music in bold new directions.
And the prestigious Album of the Year award goes to ... Frank Sinatra, “A Man and his Music”?
• Flashback 1979: A year of musical tumult as punk trumps disco and rejuvenates a tired pop scene with cutting edge acts like Elvis Costello and the Cars.
And the Best New Artist award goes to ... A Taste of Honey?
• Flashback 1983: A year of boundary-pushing projects from Bruce Springsteen (“Nebraska”), Elvis Costello (“Imperial Bedroom”), Donald Fagen (“The Nightfly”) and Roxy Music (“Avalon”).
And the Album of the Year goes to ... “Toto IV”? • Flashback 1989: Finally, a brand new Grammy to acknowledge the thriving heavy metal scene with nominees that include Metallica, Iggy Pop, AC/DC and Jane’s Addiction.
And the Hard Rock/Metal Performance award goes to ... Jethro Tull?
• Flashback 1990: A year of burgeoning alt-rock edginess with albums by Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden and the Beatlesque Stone Roses.
And the Best New Artist award goes to ... Milli Vanilli?
I could go on forever: Best New Artist 1977: Starland Vocal Band.
Best New Artist 1981: Christopher Cross.
Album of the Year 2001: Steely Dan’s “Two Against Nature.”
And then there was last year, when Beyoncé’s critically acclaimed “Lemonade” — a cultural game-changer — lost Album of the Year to Adele’s sonic tranquillizer “25,” a repeat of the same sweep inflicted by its blandly appealing predecessor, “21,” five years earlier.
And on Sunday, after decades of entertaining incompetence, the Grammies want to change all this and become, ahem, relevant?
No more goofy one-hit wonders — that’s the message from Recording Academy headquarters.
No more musical throwbacks or retro performers who mimic what came before.
The Grammys will be hip. They will be cool. They will responsibly reflect the culture we live in.
They will shuck off their flared bell bottoms and disco medallions, trim their rocker mullets and retire their stuffed spandex trousers to embrace the baggy pants world of hip hop and R&B.
Ed Sheeran: banned from major categories. Taylor Swift: ditto. Kesha: ditto. Lady Gaga: ditto. Katy Perry: Nothing for you. Demi Lovato: See you on the revival circuit. Harry Styles: Who?
Grammy officials and tastemakers are ecstatic — it’s finally happened, the tectonic shift they’ve been advocating for since 1959.
“I think the nominations are a reflection of a very savvy current voting membership who really do have their fingers on the pulse of what is happening in music,” Academy president Neil Portnow told the L.A. Times, crediting innovations like online voting and the inclusion of streaming data that skews toward hip hop. “It does feel somewhat historic.” For the first time since 1999, there are no white male nominees in the coveted Album of the Year category.
For the first time in history, defiantly urban acts like Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Childish Gambino, Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Bruno Mars have an unimpeded shot at the big prizes.
“It’s long overdue for the right artists to win the right category at the right time,” enthused music exec Lyor Cohen.
“I think they have new blood pumping through their veins that are actually aware of the present and future. They’re not just holding onto the past.”
It’s great. It’s majestic. It’s a travesty. Wait, what? Oh, come on, who watches the Grammys to see the latest cutting edge hitmakers, or any artist not featured prominently at the Shoppers
Drug Mart beauty counter?
Which 50-plus viewer who grew up in the classic rock era wants to hear edgy hip hop tunes unfiltered through antiseptic white performers like Adele, Sam Smith or Ed Sheeran? I’ll tell you who: nobody. Most Grammy viewers — who wouldn’t know Childish Gambino from Spumante Bambino — were born between the detonation of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
They don’t care about what’s hip, cool or edgy. They hate rap music — they run from it like the plague.
Nor do they want to hear Cardi B, DJ Khaled, Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee, Logic, SZA or Kendrick Lamar performing original material.
What they want is aging icons like Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney singing nostalgic medleys of old hits.
If newfangled artists like Lil Uzi Vert and Julia Michaels must be included — and they remain unconvinced — it better be in a bastardized duet with a reassuring old-timer who can smooth out the edges, or an all-star tribute to some dead boomer icon like Glenn Frey, George Michael or Prince. There’s some of that this year: Tongue-flicking Miley Cyrus will duet with middlebrow Elton John in an attempt to soften her screechy excesses for viewers without nose rings.
’80s Dad rockers Sting and U2 have been enlisted as performers to keep rising blood pressures in check, along with millennial pop stars Pink, Lady Gaga and Kesha.
A country music tribute to victims of the Las Vegas shooting will tweak emotions without battering eardrums.
A Chuck Berry/Fats Domino tribute should appease anyone living in a retirement home.
But for the most part, it’s new artists playing new music as old-timers — and bland new ones — are shoved to the sidelines.
Seriously, have the Grammys gone completely nuts?
“Hip hop is the soundtrack of at least one, probably two generations now,” rap mogul Common told the L.A. Times. “People used to be afraid of it or consider it the music of gangsters or thugs.
“But now it’s part of everything ... and everyone under the age of 40.”
True, but still a gross miscalculation by heat-seeking Grammy producers, who can count the number of viewers under 40 on the fingers of one hand and — because millennials consider this creaky extravaganza the TV equivalent of a Rudy Vallee megaphone — have little hope of attracting more.
The inevitable result: Lowest. Ratings. Ever.
So bring back, Milli Vanilli, I say. And Jethro Tull. And — what the hell — Iggy Azalea.
They may be industry punchlines. They may inspire eye-rolling snickers.
But when they appear on that Grammy stage, hardware in hand, it affirms what we’ve known for 60 years: the Grammys appeal lies not in how good they are, but in how devastatingly bad.