{"id":11359,"date":"2013-12-16T15:15:34","date_gmt":"2013-12-16T22:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=11359"},"modified":"2013-12-16T15:15:42","modified_gmt":"2013-12-16T22:15:42","slug":"grammy-nominations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2013\/12\/grammy-nominations\/","title":{"rendered":"GRAMMY NOMINATIONS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pink\"GRAMMY NOMINATIONS<\/b><\/h1>\n

Did The Most Deserving Artists Prevail?<\/h2>\n

You know the hoopla over the Grammy nominations has gotten way out of hand when even that little video screen in the elevator you\u2019re riding in at the Empire State Building puts up \u201cGrammy nods: Did the most deserving artists prevail?”<\/p>\n

Even the elevator wants to know. My friend Roger Friedman at his Showbiz 411 site revives a valid point. He notes that Pink\u2019s \u201cJust Give Me a Reason,\u201d released as a single in February, is up for Song of the Year, even though it was released in September 2012, as part of her 2012 album The Truth About Love<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u201cPink\u2019s album and its singles should not be eligible again, for this coming year,\u201d he writes. Makes sense to me. But what\u2019s never made sense to me is the Grammy eligibility period itself: The eligibility period for the 56th Annual Grammy Awards\u2014to be held January 26, 2014\u2014was October 1, 2012 to September 30, 2013. That means all recordings released during the fourth quarter, 2013, are ineligible for that year\u2019s Grammys, while all recordings released during the fourth quarter, 2012, are<\/i> eligible.<\/p>\n

\"LennyI realize that the nature of commercial popularity of mainstream music\u2014ever the factor in the top Grammy categories\u2014isn\u2019t always related to release date. But for a recording released in 2012 to receive a Grammy in 2014 is to me too big a time warp.<\/p>\n

Then again, it may be too big a warp of showbiz reality\u2014and far too sensible and simple\u2014to ask the Recording Academy to make the Grammy eligibility period the calendar year, as it is for the Academy Awards. It would most likely mean pushing the Grammy Awards show back as much as three months and to a less exciting, less hype-able time of year, I guess.<\/p>\n

But back to the question posed by the Empire State Elevator. Did the most deserving artists prevail?<\/p>\n

As Roger pointed out, Elton John\u2019s \u201csuperior\u201d (his word) The Diving Board<\/i> and Paul McCartney\u2019s New<\/i> were shut out. David Bowie\u2019s \u201cgreat\u201d The Next Day<\/i> was \u201cstuck\u201d in the Best Rock Album category.<\/p>\n

Not to slight Elton or Paul or David\u2014or Roger, for that matter\u2014but what about Lenny Gomulka\u2019s Save The Music<\/i>? What? You haven\u2019t heard it? Heard of it? Heard of him? Lenny Gomulka & Chicago Push, the great Chicago \u201cpush polka\u201d band leader?<\/p>\n

\"EltonThe day after the Grammy Awards the media always likes to point out who got \u201csnubbed,\u201d like there was some conspiracy at the Recording Academy to not<\/i> nominate a certain artist or record. Except that there are only five nominees per category, meaning there has to be a conspiracy big enough to snub the hundreds, if not thousands, of albums or songs per category that don\u2019t get nominated.<\/p>\n

If anything, there\u2019s a conspiracy to favor<\/i> the nominees that do get nominated, to make it look like the Academy has its fingers on the popular pulse. Hence we get, to use Record of the Year as an obvious example, \u201cGet Lucky\u201d (Daft Punk & Pharrell Williams), \u201cRadioactive\u201d (Imagine Dragons), \u201cRoyals\u201d (Lorde), \u201cLocked Out of Heaven\u201d (Bruno Mars) and \u201cBlurred Lines\u201d (Robin Thicke featuring T.I. & Pharrell) as the nominees.<\/p>\n

Deserving? I guess the Grammy nominating committees, voters and viewers will decide.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m siding with Roger Friedman and his two-word analysis: \u201cOy gevalt.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jim Bessman<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GRAMMY NOMINATIONS Did The Most Deserving Artists Prevail? You know the hoopla over the Grammy nominations has gotten way out of hand when even that little video screen in the elevator you\u2019re riding in at the Empire State Building puts up \u201cGrammy nods: Did the most deserving artists prevail?” Even the elevator wants to know. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4976],"tags":[7313,7310,7311,7312],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11359"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11359"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11366,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11359\/revisions\/11366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}