Who Gives A Fuck About A God Damned Grammy?
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
We’re still working away at the Eos update, as those of you who follow me on Twitter no doubt know. We’ve got the Windows versions done and ready to go, but the OS X side of things is causing some troubles. The VST seems fine, but the AU is being somewhat balky.
So… if you’re an Eos user on Logic or DP, or if you regularly use the Eos AU in Live, please drop me a line and say “hey, send that shit over this way!!!” If you’re going to take, like, a week to get back to me or something don’t bother. I just need you to run a quick install and say “it works in Host X,” with the caveat that you may need to put the old one back in.
12 comments
Who gives a fuck about a grammy? Unfortunately, most of america. Along with most of the music business. Rubbin' elbows and kissing asses.
"Well I heard Johnny Rotten singin' for Mountain Dew
I bet he made a whole lotta money
and Alanis Morissette's put one over on you
And you gave her the goddamned GRAMMY...
How the mighty have fallen..."
All forms of "awards", no matter which they represent, are merely a tool of promotion. Both for the artist and the award happening itself.
Want to raise the profile your shithole awards? Invite Trent Reznor as one of the nominees. Nothing against him, but it seems that some of the grade z awards have done just that.
All I can say about the Grammys -- which conflicted with the awesome Martin Clunes documentary about dogs on Smithsonian & my stories on Showtime, so I didn't watch -- is that The Arcade Fire were amazing, and connected with millions of new fans. Including my wife, who came downstairs and said "who was that band The Suburbs? They were great?"
Last time I watched the Grammy's was about 10 years ago. I just remember getting to the end and thinking, "Wait a minute, that sucked."
Popular music has never sat too well with me. Whenever I hear a song from someone like Lady Gaga or Dr Dre, it seems more like a commercial for a concept as opposed to music that's simply meant to be enjoyed.
Some random thoughts:
- I like working with the new Eos version. Once my eyes adjusted to the new layout and lower contrast, I found I was pretty comfortable with it. I hope you get a Mac person to test.
- Trent Reznor is famous, but I don't think he's that famous. I tend to use my mother as a gauge on these things. I know she's heard of Lady Gaga, pretty sure she has know idea who Trent Reznor is.
- I watched the Grammy show for the first time in a few years this year. I was surprised at how entertaining some of the performances were. The Norah Jones version of Jolene, the whole Mumford & Sons/Avett Brothers/Bob Dylan set piece, and the Janelle Monae trio were all pretty good. Award show cornball at times, but still pretty good.
- Speaking of the Jolene performance, I have never heard anything by John Mayer outside of things he's performed at award shows. Is he actually popular with someone? Or is he like the Bruce Vilanch of music?
I didn't watch this year, nor have I for at least half a decade, if not longer. The reason I stopped is that awards seem to fall in two categories, neither of which is based upon any sort of artistic merit.
1 - "Here's your award for standing by while a label and a marketing department sold a fuckton of your records."
2 - "Here's your award for making something that _should_ have sold a lot of records, if only your label and marketing department had their shit together." (See: Aimee Mann.)
I dislike the uncomfortable acceptance speeches. I dislike the fact that someone that received an award and wants to thank the people that gave it gets cut off so the network can play ads. I dislike the shout-outs the R&B and hip hop acts seem to think are important. I _intensely_ dislike the fact that Tom Petty is allowed to have anything to do with this shit. I could go on and on.
What I've often wondered: in the incredibly unlikely event that I was to receive a Grammy for something or other, would I be the hypocrite and ignore 20 years of talking shit about the Grammys and take the iron? Or would I be able to George C. Scott my way through the shit and take the higher road?
-CR
Yeah, the dizzying frenzy of the completely out-of-touch's desperate and clingy efforts to prove they are relevant is pretty uncomfortable to watch. Fortunately, it couldn't happen to a more deserving group of self-important douches.
One of the funny things about this year's show was that it was barely an awards show. They only gave out 10 of the 100+ awards on air, the speeches were barely even there (they don't even let the lifetime achievers give a speech any more). I just watched it as a music performance show, to that end it had its moments.
Tom Petty and Jeff Beck were both nominated this year. I think "The fuck?" is the only sane response to that sort of thing, so I was thankful it was so easy to pay no mind to the awards themselves.
Has anyone George B. Scotted an awards ceremony in recent years? Those were great years, when someone who wins one of the major awards would take the opportunity to send some activist on stage to deliver an inflammatory rant, raise their fist in the air, and leave the stage. I don't watch awards ceremonies nowadays, but if that was going on, I might pay attention.
Reznor's too busy preparing for his Oscar.
The reason dinosaurs like Petty & Beck are still being nominated is that all the interesting new music coming out is independent downloads outside of the RIAA's little kingdom. And on the odd chance any of them we're nominated, they would completely George Scott the damn thing, which is why they don't get invited to the party. Best thing to do is just make the music we want, listen to the crap we want, and ignore the record industry's string quartet playing as their ship slowly goes under.
(Sorry about the rant. Just picked up Ripped! by Greg Kot, and it brought back memories of being price-gouged at Tower Records.)
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