For those of you who watched the Grammys, it was certainly an interesting show, chockful of surprises. While I consider the Grammys to be one long, endless concert as opposed to an actual awards show, the awards in themselves were really the big story. Of course, there was no shortage memorable performances, but that's not they only thing people are taking about.There are many out there who believe that the Grammys, and all awards for that matter, are just popularity contests were the biggest names take home the biggest prizes, but this show serioulsy questioned that assumption. Who wasn't genuinely shocked when newcomer and unknown Esperanza Spalding beat out four of the biggest new acts in music to win Best New Artist? Supergod--I mean star-- Justin Bieber was considered a shoe-in to win, and while him getting beat isn't necessarily surprising, the fact that a virtual unknown who no one knew about before, or really after, her nomination was a little bizarre, to be honest.
But by far the biggest surprise of the night was when dark horse Arcade Fire won Album of the Year for The Suburbs. In case you don't know who they are, Arcade Fire is a Canadian indie-rock band and are basically the antithesis of Justin Bieber. They aren't a "singles" band, where their main goal is to produce as many hits as possible. They are one of those groups where you have to listen to the whole album to get the point of their music. They aren't really huge mainstream musicians in the sense of entertainment shows reporting on them all the time and hearing them everyday on popular radio stations, though they still have plenty of fans because they are big in the indie, rock circuits of music lovers. All the people who love them consider them artists in the purest sense, and one of the best around. Many critics love their music too, and while they chose other nominees to win, such as Eminem, and didn't think they remotely had a chance, they thought they deserved to win. So for fans of the band, this award was a great surprise, but for others, they probably felt a little cheated.
All this culminated into me realizing a way to see the music industry. It was born, much like Lady Gaga, during the show and I have named it the theory of music relativity, and it reads as follows: How realtive an artist is to the public and media is inversely proportional to how said public and media view the quality of the artist's music. Put simply, the less famous an artist is, the better people will think their music is, and vice versa. My reasoning behind this is that there are many people out there who don't think highly of mainstream music, because all the music industry cares about is raking in the cash and not about the quality of the music. So when someone becomes a mainstream artist, they become associated with that idea, which makes people think that their music must not be very good. The opposite effect is had on little known artists; because their music hasn't been corrupted by the greedy music industry, people believe that their music must be really good. This could explain the reason why this year, in these categories, huge, popular artists lost and nowhere never as famous artists won, even if the voter himself hadn't heard of them. I don't agree with this logic, because there are plenty of obscure artists who really suck and plenty of mainstream artists who are really good. Nonetheless, there are apparently enough people who do. This could easily be applied to movies, television, and all other entertainment(think of the indie movie that people always says is supposed to be really good), in which case it would be called the theory of entertainment relativity.
I'm not saying Arcade Fire didn't really deserve to win, because I happen to like their music, but you can count me among the people who don't know Esperanza Spalding, so I can't really say how good her music is. I am saying that there are misconceptions concerning what is bad and good in entertainment.
I also think that Lady Gaga is probably the strangest person on the planet. I don't know if that is a good or a bad thing. What about you guys? What did you like or take away from the show? Did you agree with the winners? And what about the theory? Does it make sense or is it a bunch of baloney?
2 comments:
I disagree with your proposition that a less famous band has music that is perceived as better by the public. To be honest, I feel that people judge songs on a case by case basis, not on exoticness. While some people hate on the mainstream just because, those people are few and far between. Some mainstream songs are great, but some are just repetitive and boring.
I could ramble on for days about this, and I'm sure if I did, it'd be easy to pick apart a few flaws in my reasoning.
But I'll give you the highlights:
1) Arcade Fire, per your implied definition of "mainstream," is a mainstream band. Billboard 200, tons of radio airplay, the works. So I wouldn't say that it's particularly odd for them to win Album of the Year.
2) Your point at the end about there being misconceptions about what is good and bad in entertainment, I agree with. Music taste is subjective. But here's the statement I don't agree with: "Huge, popular artists lost and nowhere never as famous artists won."
Muse, Gaga, Eminem? In my opinion, the Grammy Awards work in much the opposite way. The people who "select" the winners in each category likely have little to no experience with a wide variety of music in said-category. What we get is a very small number of people who are voting for things that they know nothing about. Need I mention that a large number of these people are actively involved and associated with the recording industry. Winning Grammy Awards helps artists sell records. Thus, the record companies want to promote their big-name artists by getting them to win Grammys. The awards ceremony is nothing more than the industry trying to hold itself a birthday party. Which is ridiculously pointless, IMO.
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