Courtesy of news.yahoo
To me, the Grammy’s are usually a disappointing affair. All the awards go to the obvious choices. All the artists most deserving end up going home with the satisfaction of just being nominated and nothing more. Most years, I just tune in for a few performances and that’s it. I keep the remote handy.
Last night, that was a different story.
Now, I’m a huge fan of Arcade Fire. But I can’t tell you how surprised I was to hear The Suburbs announced as Album of the Year.
And, apparently, so were a lot of other people. A day later, people are still up in arms over the choice, and sites popped up today regarding the matter, like this one. (for those who never heard of them, they sold out two shows at MSG in August, had this album debut at No. 1 and be included on basically every Best of 2010 list, including mine.)
This among other things, jilted the usual Grammy/pop music crowd. But now that the dust has settled, we can see now that maybe the Grammy committee really did get it right.
This album was not the popular choice. And that made it even better. It’s a great album and arguably the best album of the past year. But everyone expected it to go to one of the other artists nominated. When the nominees were announced, it almost seemed laughable that Arcade Fire would beat out pop music stalwarts like Eminem or Lady Gaga. But in the end, it really did go to the most deserving. Yes, the other artists have good music, won awards and have been critically acclaimed — I can’t deny that.
But the award went to an artist just as deserving in a genre that rarely gets the deserving recognition at these kind of award shows. And that brings us to another award — Best New Artist.
How easy would it have been to just give it to the Bieber kid? Or even Drake? But the Grammy committee went with Esperanza Spalding. Who? Just the first jazz singer to win the award.
The foundation shook, but it was a good thing. It’s good to acknowledge artists in other categories who are just as deserving. Some people would have you believe the artists frequently in the top 40 charts are the most talented, but is that really the case? You have to dig deeper. The Grammy Awards are supposed to be the most prestigious of the music award shows, so this could be a great first step in finally realizing there is more talent outside of what you hear on the radio.
Last night, the most deserving artists actually went out with some trophies.
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