The Grammy Awards are tonight. I may or may not be watching; it sort of depends if there’s anything else on.
There have been some great Grammy shows in the past; the one in particular that stands out for me is 2003, the year after the Clash’s Joe Strummer died, and Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, et al, tore through a fabulous version of the song London Calling.
In general, though, I’m not a big fan of the Grammys. Even if I know the artists, there are way too many categories, and the wrong people always win.
But by now, popular music has pretty much left me behind, back here in the 1960s, ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. For me, watching the Grammys is like walking back into a junior high school: the people just seem so small.
Back when I made an effort to keep up, music wasn’t made by computers. Well, it probably was. But at least it didn’t sound like it. Whenever I see today’s performers on television, it always looks like the songs are built around complicated choreography, rather than their musical attributes. And they sound like it, too. When I hear pop songs on the radio these days—in those few seconds before my finger hits the button for a different station—they always sound autotuned to death.
Actually, I probably will watch the Grammys. I want to see what the Adele fuss is all about, and according to today’s Post-Dispatch, she’s going to go home with a shopping cart of awards tonight. The show also takes on an added poignancy with the death yesterday of Whitney Houston. So yeah, we’ll have it on, and I’ll half-watch it, but I’ll probably be working on my taxes with my other eye.
