So... How About Those Grammys?

Two music posts in a row? So, sue me. Anyway, this one won't keep.

I do find it weird, how I've started paying attention to the Grammys. As I said in the opening paragraph of my first post about the awards, back in March 2021, despite having been a major music fan since my earliest adolescence, it really wasn't until just a few years ago that I really even noticed they were happening.

Now, though, they seem to have become a part of my personal, annual award cycle, along with the Oscars and... well, that might be it, actually. BBC Sports Personality of the Year, maybe? That always seems to leech itself into my consciousness somehow. And a few game awards, I guess, although I generally couldn't name the winners the day after I heard about them.

Anyway, the Grammys are a thing I notice now and even if, for all kinds of reasons, they definitely aren't anything anyone ought to be taking seriously,  I do like picking them apart and complaining about them, which always seems to me to be the main point of awards. Also, I did a post about the nominations when they were announced in November last year, so I probably ought to say something about how it all turned out.

Better than I expected, not as well as I'd hoped. That's the short version. I'm afraid it's the long version we're getting, though.

I  was very happy to see "What Was I Made For?" win Best Song Written for Visual Media. I wasn't unhappy for it to pick up the award for Song of the Year, either. It's certainly one of the songs of the year. The sheer fact of there being three songs in the nominations for that category about which I could unironically say the same is a lot more surprising to me than which of them won. 

Of the three, I'd have gone for A&W because of course I would. Much though I love Vampire, I didn't even think it was Olivia's best song of the year. That would be bad idea, right?

It doesn't pay to look into the categories at the Grammys too closely. Not if you value your sanity. Still, I would like to know what the difference is between "Song of the Year" and "Record of the Year". I asked Bard, which gave me an answer that sounded convincing but didn't back it up with any sources, so I asked Bard's big brother, Google Search, which pointed me straight to the official definition on the Grammy website.

The difference, in short, is that "Song" is a songwriting award and "Record" is a technical award for production, engineering and mixing. Bizarrely and counter-intuitively, neither is a performance award, so when Bard told me Song of the Year "Focuses on the lyrics and melody of the song, regardless of how it's performed." (My emphasis.) it was a lot closer to the truth than I imagined.

All of which makes the Grammys even dafter than I thought they were. I'm pretty sure most people, hearing something's won award for "Best Song of the Year", would give most of the credit to the artist. Of course, in this case, the artists, writers, performers and producers are the same two people, so I guess the point is moot, but it is notable that Billie Eilish was up for Best Pop Solo Performance for the same song and didn't get it.

That went to Miley Cyrus with Flowers. Now, Miley's a big favorite Chez Bhagpuss. We think she's great. Flowers is a tidy tune and she sings it well. Seriously, though. That's a better performance than Billie's? I don't think so. Nor Olivia's. Possibly not even Taylor Swift doing Anti Hero, which isn't one of my favorites of hers, either. Surprisingly, this is Miley's first Grammy so I'm guessing maybe it was just her turn.

Speaking of production, as we were a paragraph or two ago, Jack Antonoff won Producer of the Year, Non-Classical for the third year running. I have very mixed feelings about Jack Antonoff. He can be really annoying and Bleachers, bar that one song I like, are quite poor, but he keeps producing truly great albums for multiple artists (And co-writes them, too.) so I have to respect his very significant and quite possibly supernatural talents. Still, they're going to have to give that award to someone else next year, surely...

On the topic of repeat winners, Taylor Swift walked away with both Album of the Year and  Best Pop Vocal Album for Midnights. I own Midnights and it's fine but it certainly isn't better than either Guts or Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. Also, once you win "Album of the Year", is it even possible for the same album not to win any other "Best Album" category in which it's nominated? 

I actually thought Boygenius would win. Not because I think "The Record" (So meta!) is the best - I haven't heard it, on which topic more to come - but because it very much looked like it was going to be Their Year. The indie supergroup won "Best Rock Song", "Best Rock Performance" and "Best Alternative Music Album", which in itself would make a solid foundation for a five-thousand word essay on "What's Wrong with the Award Categories at the Grammys".

I mean, come on! First, are Boygenius even "Rock"? Second, if they are, why was the album nominated for  an"Alternative Music" award, when there's a perfectly good "Best Rock Album" award? (Won this year by everyones' favorite feel-good band, Paramore.). 

For that matter, if the Boygenius album is "Alternative" (And it must be by Grammy reckoning, since that's the award it actually won...) and if Guts is "Pop Vocal", the category in which it was nominated, why are songs from each of them competing for the "Best Rock Song" award? Is someone at the Grammys literally going through albums and picking out songs that don't fit the overall musical style there so they can put them in for awards in the category where they feel they belong?

As I said, though, that way madness lies. just accept it and move on. In this case, to Best Music Film, which went to a movie I have seen, amazingly enough. The winner was Moonage Daydream, an impressionistic and thrilling compendium of David Bowie's career, or at least some of it. It's an excellent movie. I highly recommend it. It also released in 2022, which was when I saw it, so what it's doing in the 2024 Grammys is anyone's guess.

Joni Mitchell won Best Folk Album, which I think is probably the Grammys saying thanks for not dying, something I'm sure we all heartily endorse. Joni, of course, is right back in fashion, her influence evident in whole sub-genres of new music. It's wonderful to see her performing once again. Not that I've ever seen her live myself, more's the pity. 

Lou Reed, an icon of equivalent stature, only no longer with us, sadly, failed to pick up either of the awards for which he was nominated but two other acts that have featured here on the blog did collect, albeit for very unlikely categories.  

Wet Leg got the nod for their remix of Depeche Mode's Wagging Tongue, which was nominated in the arcane category of "Best Remixed Recording", although the award appears to go to the remixed artist not the one who did the remixing, which seems like giving the championship belt to the guy on the mat not the one who knocked him down, but there you go. Even more abstruse is the gong collected by up-and-comers Dry Cleaning for their debut album Stumpwork. It won "Best Recording Package". Your guess...

"Best New Artist" went to someone I've never heard of - Victoria Monét - although since the first video of hers I checked out has 33m views I think we can safely say that's on me. Very nice smooth R&B. Would listen again.

Other than that, I think I'll keep my own counsel, except to say the Grammys' understanding of "Americana" is very different from mine. Also, I wonder if Lana's proposed "country" album will get a nod in that category next year? Place your bets now.

Finally, a follow-up on that promise to say more about my lack of experience with Boygenius. Unfortunately, I can't really explain it. On paper, I should have been all over them from the moment they appeared. I like all three as individual performers so why would I shy away from them as a collective?

Search me but I have literally never heard a single note or watched a second of video from Boygenius in what seems like the brief time between their arrival, fully-formed, five years ago and the recent announcement that they're going on indefinite hiatus, something that co-incides rather awkwardly with their triple coronation at yesterday's award ceremony. 

These things, naturally, have their own momentum. Now that I've gotten this far without ever hearing the band, it's become more important that I carry on avoiding them than that I find out what all the fuss was about. It's a bit like that episode of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads, only more stupid and less funny.

One day, I'll hear something by them by accident and then I'll be able to go back and enjoy everything I've missed but until then, I'll send them my congratulations and leave it at that. 

And that's all I have to say about the 2024 Grammys. Thanks for all the talking points, Grammy organisers. Same time next year? Well, I guess nothing I say will stop it happening so, yeah, sure...