Grammy Rebuttals
February 2003

As Dustin Pangonis has already documented in The Shammy Awards, the Grammy Awards suck. So there really is no need for me to do a minute by minute rebuttal to the live show to prove it. But because my life is just as empty as the awards, here you go:

8:02 – They’re actually opening the show with Simon & Garfunkel. Look – a reunion by these two guys is a “big event” in pop music history, but opening a show with “The Sounds of Silence?” C’mon. You start a show off with hysteria, energy, drama. Dustin Hoffman says there’s no real host tonight, except for the City of New York. Great idea. But instead of doing a live performance from the Statue of Liberty, or on top of the Empire State Building, we get 2 old fogies harmonizing on a mellow song. Enjoy the silence indeed.

8:10 – No Doubt. Yeah Gwen’s hot. But “Hey Baby’s” not.

8:15 – I’m not going to list the nominees for Best Pop Group Vocal, but there was one that I never heard off, and I’ll bet a million I never will again. No Doubt won, but the competition was lame.

8:22 – Norah Jones is singing “Don’t Know Why” and she sounds nervous. Look babe – lay it on the line. You’ve got a hella sexy song there, so let it go. No time for nerves honey.

8:26 – Justin go away. Norah, congrats on the win. You’re probably the only person tonight that has potential to do something great in the future. You’re cursed with a Grammy now, but good luck.

8:30 – Faith Hill honey, a little less makeup and one more inch of leg and we’d get along just fine. Was that a song or were you overwrought from the orgasm I’d give you if…

8:39 – Vanessa Carlton. Heard of you, never heard you. Cute song. Never need to hear it again.

8:41 – John Mayer. John, I’ve got a friend named John Mayer and he’s pretty cool. But Mayer, you’re not. And right now you’re sounding like 2nd rate Dave Matthews, and first rate Dave Matthews is more than we need. I don’t know how your record label conned the public into thinking you’re a big deal, important, up and coming artist, but I’ll bet shots with John Mayer that he’s around longer than Mayer will be.

8:49 – Mayer just won male pop vocal. I don’t get it. But judging by past mistakes made by the Grammy folks, you’re just another one in a long line of them.

8:50 – Best Rap Album. Em, Ludacris, Mystikal, Nelly, and Petey Pablo (Who? Whafuck?) are the nominees. Em wins. Probably the right choice, but the best acceptance speech of the night as he named some of the great hip-hop artists that inspired him.

9:02 – Can’t fault the Dixie Chicks cover of “Landslide,” but since I’m “critiquing” the show, I gotta criticize. So I’ll just say when you’re going in front of millions of people you may as well do your own music – if not for your own pocketbook (publishing). But considering you just won the Grammy for Best Country Album, I’ll shut up right now. Congrats.

9:06 – In game grading so far: A) Peter Gabriel is looking very cool these days, B) any member of Coldplay being involved in a Clash tribute is going to be a problem for me, C) my brother just went to bed from boredom, but told me to wake him if anything good happens, which I just assured him won’t, D) Dustin P noted the awful Bowling For Soup Best Pop Group Vocal nomination that is so wrong in so many ways, and E) The Grammy folks are 2 of 5 so far (and that’s giving A LOT of leeway to Eminem and the Dixie Chicks cause neither of you probably made worthy art, but you at least got some art in your commerce, so I’ll give it to you).

9:11 – John Leguizamo lives in my neighborhood about 4 blocks away from me. So he’s way cool, even if he is stuck with introducing the NY Philharmonic.

9:18 – I think Coldplay are way overrated. But they don’t sound all bad with the Philharmonic behind them. Maybe that should be a new rule for all semi-sucky bands – get it right or get the P-monic treatment.

9:28 – Best paring of the night so far with Rod Stewart and a gussied up Harvey Fierstein. But why do they show the best comedy album award on TV? I stand corrected as Robin Williams delivers the best line of the night when he sticks his head next to the award and says “you can actually hear the sound of careers ending in there.”

9:33 – C’mon Avril Lobotomy is pabulum for the masses, but so far she’s rocked harder than anyone. Oh sorry, that wasn’t rocking, that was the NARAS version of rocking which is a synonym for sucking. Phew – got scared for a minute.

9:46 – I messed up by not giving Nelly credit for one of the best singles of 2002. So I’ll remedy that here.

9:49 – Unbelievable. Fred Durst was the first person to mention the war – hoping it would go away. Fred just came off my sucks real hard list. Best Hard Rock Performance nominees all really sucked, except for Queens/Stone Age. The Foos should be embarrassed to have won.

10:00 – Hey – wasn’t that Silvio with Bruce Springstreet and the East End Band?

10:08 – First surprise of the night as Jesse Harris wins Song Of The Year for writing Norah Jones’ “Don’t Know Why” over Brooooooce’s “The Rising.” Hmmm, this dampers my enthusiasm for Norah a bit as I thought she did her own thang, but it’s good that Brucey didn’t win cause he’s had “better days”. However, none of the nominees belonged there in the first place.

10:17 – Ashanti dominated the charts this summer for whatever songs she sang. She dominated my thoughts tonight as the lights behind her peered through her thin, skin tight dress.

10:21 – In game grading: let’s try this a little differently – Ashanti’s dress = A, Fred Durst’s political “incorrectness” = B; Robin Williams acceptance = C; overall performances = D; getting 2 of 8 awards right so far = F.

10:25 – A Bee Gees tribute? Ok, that’s legit, they’ve had a ton of hits, and one of the best selling albums of all time. But to single them out over the losses of Jam Master Jay, Dee Dee Ramone and John Entwistle – all equally important losses to rock’n’roll – is downright wrong. And then to have N’Sipid perform the musical tribute makes me wonder if these are the same people who thought it was a good idea to put Aerosmith, Britney, N’Sync, and Missy Elliot (? – fact checker please!) together for the Super Bowl. Oh, it just got worse – people actually tried to give them a standing ovation. Death would be preferable to watching anymore of this.

10:26 – D’oh. The Bee Gees were receiving a lifetime achievement award or something. Ooops. But I still stand by the above – except I guess I’ll continue my masochistic mission.

10:38 – M&M does a full band version of “Lose Yourself” and it has a metal tinge to it because the guitar drives the groove. Then they bust Run-DMC’s “King Of Rock” under the last chorus – yeah buddy! The first good performance of the night and it comes 90 minutes into the show.

10:44 – Aretha looks crazy like the Queen of Soul that she is. But there’s a problem when you nominate Eminem and Norah Jones in the same category for Record of the Year. Surely one of the top 15 singles in the Village Voice Pazz & Jop 2002 poll - http://villagevoice.com/specials/pazznjop/02/index.php - (other than Em) could’ve at least been nominated? Witness the suckitude indeed.

10:55 – What did Sheryl Crow do to the Grammy’s to deserve the punishment of making her perform with Kid Rock?

11:00 – Norah Jones just won Best New Artist. While I predicted this would happen (many wins), winning this award is a particular curse cause it ruins all credibility you have (and makes me question liking you in the first place). What’s really amazing about Jones’ album is it’s the best selling album in Blue Note Records history. This means more people own her record than Blue Note albums by Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, John Coltrane and Miles Davis (and I only searched A-D). Advice to NJ – heed the devil in your bones Ms. Jones. What ever you do next, take the adventurous road. You made a good album, don’t try to make it again next year.

11:10 – I’ll give NARAS credit here. They did a tribute to all the music legends who passed in the last year. R.I.P. y’all.

11:12 – While it’s phony as hell for a music academy that never recognized the Clash & Joe Strummer in the first place finally pay tribute to them by having Elvis Costello, Bruce, Little Steve, Dave Grohl, and Tony (No Doubt bassist) cover “London Calling”, it sure as hell was exhilarating to hear it and see it. Awesome. And thank god the only Coldplay person involved was possibly the drummer. Phew!

11:24 – Dixies, Em, Norah, Nelly, and Bruce get noms for Album of the Year, but Norah ends up sweeping the big categories. Although it’s a decent record, I’m disappointed. If you’re really looking for artistic merit, look at the Village Voice Pazz and Jop poll. It’s put together by critics, and it’s the best indicator of the best music of 2002.

11:31 – Final wrap – this won’t be a surprise to anyone who’s paid attention for the last 40 to 50 years, but the Grammys are still so incredibly awful it’s amazing anyone pays attention at all. Any organization that fails to honor the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan during their creative peaks can’t be serious about the work they do. And missing Wilco, Beck, Queens/Stone Age, Elvis Costello, DJ Shadow and more last year shows you’re either not paying attention, or that your taste is in your ass. For 40 years NARAS and the Grammy’s have proven they’re incapable of getting it right. This year was no different.

(Mike Webb is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine.)

The Shammies are over, and really the hour of it that I could stand to half-watch (while fiddling around with reinstalling the video drivers on my PC) didn't really merit any discussion. Award shows are already irritating, they pre-empt normal television which, while generally targeted to the lowest common denominator, is at least not two hours of canned jokes read from cue cards, cheek kissing, and gratitude expressed to God and gramma.

I am convinced that the Grammys are simply a two hour marketing scheme, they have nothing to do with musical quality. People like Avril Lavigne are nominated so that down at the Virgin Megastore they can go around with little stickers (probably already shipped out and applied) and paste them to all of Avril's CD's that read "Nominated for 4 Grammys!" Grammy nods are just ways for record companies to boost sales and the actual awards are, as noted in Webb's blog rebuttal, actually more damaging to real musicians. Poor Norah Jones. She just lost what little artistic credibility she had.

That said, I brought Yankee Hotel Foxtrot with me to work today and have been listening to it all morning trying to answer the question posed by Dustin in his Shammys article. I think I have figured out why Wilco didn't even receive a nod, and I believe that the reason is actually political.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot contains two songs that do not fit with the current political climate: "War On War" and "Ashes of American Flags." In an America where the majority of people are all post-9/11-fear-crazed war-mongering maniacs thirsting for the blood of innocent Iraqis, songs with titles such as these are just not going to sit well with the average consumer, the same lowest common denominator that is out there buying Avril Lavigne albums and talking about who was the best and worst dressed. This strikes me as particularly sad since the actual lyrical content of "War On War" is relatively ambiguous, while the equally fuzzy "Ashes Of American Flags" turns out, between Tweedy's lament of his own success, to be relatively patriotic. Implicitly, it's a commentary about how corporations are undermining the qualities of freedom and democracy. Anyhow, that's my take on the Grammys.

(Matthew Scrivner is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine.)