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Buffalo News
Out of touch? Are the Grammys still relevant?
By Jeff Miers
February 13, 2011

In January, when Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor was making the press rounds after winning a Golden Globe for his score to the film The Social Network, the always mercurial industrial music pioneer grabbed the occasion to throw some dirt on the Grammys.

"The Grammys ...just kind of feel out of touch," Reznor told MTV. "It's not about integrity, or if [the music] is ahead of its time, or if it's taking chances. Aside from that niche of music that I have no interest in -- Black Eyed Peas territory, disposable pop stuff -- there's almost an incentive to go back to making music as adventurous and groundbreaking as you can, because nobody gets a big hit anymore."

Sure, Reznor could have been celebrating the fact that his brilliantly idiosyncratic Social Network score had managed to claim a mainstream award, rather than indulging in Grammy-bashing. But his words point out a central issue with the Grammys in 2011: With all of the changes in the industry, do these awards mean anything anymore? Taking it further, one might reasonably wonder, did they ever?

An Inner-view
It's obvious when you're reading Innerviews: Music Without Borders, esteemed music journalist Anil Prasad's brilliant new collection of conversations with recording artists, that the author sees musicians as something more than mere entertainers. With this in mind, what is Prasad's take on the Grammys? Are the awards really about honoring the "best of the best" in terms of creativity, as the Recording Academy has long claimed?

"The Grammys are virtually irrelevant in 2011, other than serving as an attempt to help propagate what remains of the traditional recording industry," Prasad claims.

"The nomination process is driven by a cabal of legacy music industry professionals and tastemakers, many of whom are affiliated one way or another with the major label infrastructure. If you look at the Grammy categories in the rock and pop realms, you'll hardly see a single independent recording artist. It's completely blinkered. The fact of the matter is, the most exciting, innovative and important music created today is entirely emanating from the independent realm. Major labels made themselves meaningless years ago."

Which may explain why the Grammys tend to focus attention on a select few artists, while ignoring other often more adventurous ones. This happens every year, and this particular list of nominees is no exception, with the likes of Katy Perry and Lady Gaga finding themselves nominated in multiple categories, while highly relevant but less mainstream artists end up stuffed into obscure -- and for obscure, read "non-televised," and thus, widely ignored -- slots.

Isn't this a little bit suspect? Does a candy-floss pop artist like Katy Perry really deserve, say, five Grammys?

"Maybe Katy Perry doesn't need or even deserve five Grammys, but an artist clean sweep is a lot more newsworthy than spreading the wealth around," says AOL Music senior editor Gaylord Fields. "Keep in mind that awards shows are publicity-generating machines."

Fair enough. Of course, this could well be begging the question -- how much more publicity do Lady Gaga and Katy Perry really need?

Certainly, the world has gone ga-ga for Gaga; she is the biggest pop music story, in terms of commercial success, of the past two years. And Perry makes confectionary pop music that, even if it is vacuous, clearly resonates with much of the music-buying public. But are Gaga's The Fame Monster and Perry's Teenage Dream worthy of the "Album of the Year" nominations they've both been granted?

"It is completely suspect, and it has always been this way with the Grammys," insists Prasad.

"The Grammy awards are entirely self-serving. They are essentially designed to drive sales and create a perfect storm of publicity around certain major-label products. The goal is to whip up a frenzy around a few chosen releases and hopefully have those recordings prop up the industry in a time of wild uncertainty and free-fall."

The "wild uncertainty" Prasad refers to has an awful lot to do with the Grammys' current quandary, which revolves around a specific question: How can a music industry swirling in a decidedly downward spiral throw a party for itself without looking foolish?

Everything must go
The collapse of the music industry can be seen, in a few ways, as a positive occurrence for the genuinely independent musical artist.

The removal of the major-label middle-man, the opportunities afforded by the explosion of social networking services and the continued hunger among a healthy portion of the populace for new music, have commingled to generate an air of excitement for artists amenable to the idea of working outside the mainstream.

When everything is up in the air, as it now is, there is the opportunity for meaningful change to take place. That said, things are a bit of a mess. Should the Grammys, and their parent organization, the RIAA, shoulder some of the blame for the collapse?

"Yes, absolutely, the RIAA and Grammys should shoulder some of the blame for the collapse," according to Prasad.

"The RIAA's viewpoint is largely based on finger pointing via lawsuits aimed at college students, grandmothers, dead people and even pet dogs, all of whom have allegedly brought the music industry to its knees because of file sharing. Shifts in technology have undoubtedly played a role in the transition under way, but the RIAA and Grammys promoting a lot of junk music to the masses has also affected things. The average person on the street gets exposed to a very small subset of the incredible breadth and depth of music released. And that subset represented by the Grammys is virtually never the best of what's out there.

"So, those organizations are liable for creating a public myth that most music is crap. And if it's crap, why should they pay for it? If it sounds like it has no cultural value, then why should it be assigned any monetary value, either?"

AOL Music's Fields sees things differently.

"Things are very rough for the major labels and the music industry these days, as I don't need to point out, and much of that trouble is of their own making.

"However, it seems the Grammys are actually one of the few parts of the industry able to tap into that past glory. And who's to say that there won't be a reinvention of what the Grammys are and who gets to play, as the industry remakes itself after its latest doldrums? Last year's presentation had fewer on-air awards and more performances, so they do seem to get it."

An increase in the number of live performances during Grammy broadcasts may be a step in the right direction, but it hardly seems like the sort of radical reinvention critics of the Grammys suggest is necessary. So are the Grammys salvageable? Or is the entire concept -- the idea of doling out awards supposedly based on artistic merit, but often rather obviously attempting to boost sales in certain specific areas by lavishing trophies on a small group of artists -- too flawed to be fixed?

"I have no illusion as to what the purpose of the Grammys is, and I suspect that's also the case for the general public," says Fields. "The TV ratings are still relatively high in an extremely fragmented media; it has not slid into irrelevance, as evinced by all the media coverage before and after each year's event; and all the controversy over seemingly undeserved awards or slighted artists makes for good headlines.

"Sure, some great music and artists are ignored and some flavors of the month get lauded, but that's been the case throughout its history; it's hard to suddenly become uncool if you were never actually cool in the first place."

By contrast, Prasad suggests a cut-and-run policy might be the most rational approach.

"My view is it is ridiculous to make music a competition. Real musicians don't create music because there's a feeling of one-upmanship in their drive. They make music because they have to. It's an innate need to give voice to their creative instincts."

Considering this, it seems feasible to declare that the Grammys really have very little to do with music in 2011, even if their entire modus operandi has been the celebration of music's best and brightest. Are the Grammys merely a vestige of the major-label era, one that is clearly a part of the past?

Prasad thinks so.

"We are officially in the end days of the major label era. Rome is burning and Nero is rapping about it through Auto-Tune."

Complete Q&A with Anil Prasad:

It's obvious from reading your book that you see the musician as something more than a mere entertainer. Bearing this in mind, what is your take on the Grammys? Are they really about honoring the "best of the best" in terms of creativity?

The Grammys are virtually irrelevant in 2011, other than serving as an attempt to help propagate what remains of the traditional recording industry. The nomination process is driven by a cabal of legacy music industry professionals and tastemakers, many of whom are affiliated one way or another with the major label infrastructure. If you look at the Grammy categories in the rock and pop realms, you’ll hardly see a single independent recording artist. It’s completely blinkered. The fact of the matter is the most exciting, innovative and important music created today is entirely emanating from the independent realm. Major labels made themselves meaningless years ago. The seizure of EMI by Citigroup says a lot about where things stand. It’s perfectly poetic that one of the major labels is now owned by a bank. That means literally, there are people on the voting committee that now work for a bank. Then again, with a handful of exceptions, major labels were never much more than legal loan shark operations anyway.

Often with the Grammys, we see the same artist receiving multiple nominations in various categories. Isn't this a little bit suspect? In other words, does Katy Perry really need five Grammys?

It is completely suspect and it has always been this way with the Grammys. The Grammy awards are entirely self-serving. The awards are essentially designed to drive sales and create a perfect storm of publicity around certain major label products. The goal is to whip up a frenzy around a few chosen releases and hopefully have those recordings prop up the industry in a time of wild uncertainty and free-fall. The people voting for these products know exactly what they are doing when they fill out the ballots. They are entirely aware that they are taking a reductive approach for the purpose of bombast and spectacle. It’s a lot more entertaining when one big star shows up in photos with more awards than they can carry. It’s nothing more than pure theater and a good photo opportunity.

I'm curious what five releases you would nominate for the "album of the year" category.

Unsurprisingly, they are all from the universe of independent music:

Are the Grammys salvageable? Or is the entire conception—doling out awards supposedly based on artistic merit, but really just attempting to boost sales in certain specific areas—too flawed to be fixed?

My view is it is ridiculous to make music a competition. Real musicians don’t create music because there’s a feeling of one-upmanship in their drive. They make music because they have to. It’s an innate need to give voice to their creative instincts. Having said that, certain artists and releases are truly exceptional, and if there was a really democratic way of getting those highlighted independent of the current mafia-style system characterized by awards like the Grammys, I’d be all for it. The nominating committee would have to extend much further than the Grammys’ limited reach. I think the awards would need to be much more listener- and music journalist-driven. And those journalists would have to reach far beyond traditional media and into the realm of online publications and the blogosphere. The Grammy system pretty much ignores how music is publicized and recognized by the public in 2011. No-one that really cares about music cares about Rolling Stone, Spin, or the RIAA. The only people that will likely argue with me on this point are people actually involved in those organizations.

The collapse of the music industry can be seen, in a few ways, as a positive occurrence for the genuine musical artist. When everything is up in the air, as it is presently, there is the opportunity for meaningful change to take place. That said, things are a bit of a mess. Do you feel that the RIAA and the Grammys should shoulder some of the blame for the collapse?

We are officially in the end days of the major label era. Rome is burning and Nero is rapping about it through Auto-Tune. Yes, absolutely, the RIAA and Grammys should shoulder some of the blame for the collapse. The RIAA’s viewpoint is largely based on finger pointing via lawsuits aimed at college students, grandmothers, dead people, and even pet dogs, all of whom have allegedly brought the music industry to its knees because of file sharing. Shifts in technology have undoubtedly played a role in the transition underway, but the RIAA and Grammys promoting a lot of junk music to the masses has also affected things. The average person on the street gets exposed to a very small subset of the incredible breadth and depth of music released. And that subset represented by the Grammys is virtually never the best of what’s out there. So, those organizations are liable for creating a public myth that most music is crap. And if it’s crap, why should they pay for it? If it sounds like it has no cultural value, then why should it be assigned any monetary value either? Before the current industry finds itself six feet under—it has reached about four-and-a-half-feet already—it would be lovely if it would promote artists and music of true worth. Maybe the industry can repent before it meets its maker. Don’t hold your breath, though.