Grammy Verdict
Posted 1 year, 7 months ago at 2:17 pm. 0 comments
Grammy Awards is not a popularity contest. If a popular song doesn’t win the award, it doesn’t mean that Grammy sucks. That’s my biggest lesson learned this time.
I failed at almost all the major categories except for Lil Wayne. My instinct actually went for Alison Krauss, but I chose other nominees for my predictions. Why? Because I like them better. It’s a pity that Jason Mraz didn’t win and I love him so much. However the fact that he lost doesn’t mean that he was a loser or something.
I watched the whole ceremony. As usual it featured some weird collaborations and surprising moments. For example, Whitney Houston presented the award to Jennifer Hudson after the ordeal she’s been through (Did she lip-sync this time?). The performances sometimes are spectacular and sometimes are down-right cheap and tacky. It delved into serious boredom at the second part of the show, which is OK, because that’s what it should do.
Alison Krauss and Robert Plant is everything that Grammy wants. I can say that Alison Krauss could have won alone had if not been for Robert Plant. Grammy have their rules and stereotypes, which make some artists hard to win. Going commercial or going conservative is the perennial debate about Grammy. I think giving three awards to Lil Wayne is a compromise, because Lil Wayne is anything but Grammy-ish.
On the other hand, Grammy, as much as prestigious it is, is not the final judgment for any artist. Those who revere Grammy as if there were nothing else are just plainly ignorant, i.e., some Chinese critics and websites.
It disgusts me every year this time that the whole nation starts to pay attention to western music, if not listen to it per se. Naive critics and writers come out to tout their annual feature on Grammy on their websites. Votes are cast and polls are made. They think well it’s time to listen to some English music other than crappy C-pop. They might listen to all the nominations, but they are still as ignorant as ever.
Grammy is important and should be made a big deal, but it should not, in any way, be the only guide when it comes to English music. It barely represnts the while English music industry for God’s sake. If you care about music, you should listen to music much more often than just once a year event. Instead of looking for nominee’s music, you should have your instant opinion when the nomination gets out. Awards are retrospective. It can serve something of tutorship, but when it becomes a symbol, you know how dire the musical situation in China is. It not only shows how short-sighted those campaigners and promoters are, but also how pathetic the mass become, a problem mostly caused by radio editors, DJs, government regulators.
The silver lining here is the booming of personal music blogs who are doing a greatly immense job for the music in the name of music in a very altruistic way.
Radio is dead in China. Blogs are the new media.