Thursday, October 21, 2010
I'MMMA LET YOU FINISH:Apparently not having learned his lesson, Kanye West has proclaimed that the last few Grammy Albums of the Year didn't deserve the honor, including last year's winner, Taylor Swift. That said, he's at least arguably right on a couple of ones he's singled out as unworthy--Ray Charles' posthumous Genius Loves Company rather inexplicably beat out Usher's Confessions (the last album to go Diamond), American Idiot, and West's own College Dropout, a case can certainly be made for Timberlake to beat the Dixie Chicks, and River: The Joni Letters won in a strange year (Amy Winehouse won pretty much everything else, and the album nominees were pretty weak--Winehouse, Vince Gill, Foo Fighters, and Kanye).
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Damn straight, Kanye; Rush lost their Grammy last year to something involving Zappa. And he's been dead for a decade.
ReplyDeleteSomeone needs to tell Kanye that he's years late in noting Grammy's ridiculousness and lack of relevance. I nominate Stephen Colbert for the job.
ReplyDeleteI'm more interested in what the ALOTT5MA style guide has to say about Matt's spelling of I'MMMA.
ReplyDeleteI prefer IMMA
ReplyDeleteI'd go with "I'ma." But I don't think anybody should criticize Kanye for saying exactly what everybody else has been saying for, as Jenn says, forever. If EW would interview me, I'd say it too. As long as he's not jumping up on stage and taking the mic away from awardees, he can say whatever he wants.
ReplyDeleteYup. That said, I'd throw in there that he ignored Raising Sand by Robert Plant & Allison Krauss---which was critically praised but largely ignored by the public---in favor of two examples (both country) that have good arguments for having won: Dixie Chicks' Taking the Long Road and Taylor Swift's Fearless. Taking the Long Road was a strong album, and there was a heightened awareness of it. I don't see what other album from 2008-09 had a good argument for beating Fearless, which had strong reviews, the top two radio singles of the year, and the highest album sales in years despite the downturn in album sales. Basically, it sounds like Kanye's particular argument here is one of taste: he would not have chosen these country albums for album of the year, and prefers something more in the R&B vein. But he's no more "right" about that than I am "right" for preferring a well-done country album to a well-done R&B album.
ReplyDeleteAlthough if you say that he's no more right than you, you leave open the reasonable response that neither of you is more right than the Grammy voters, which means that you are both wrong in the sense that there is no such thing as more deserving or less deserving.
ReplyDeleteI think he has a right to his opinion and he has a right to say it, but all of the arguments break down after that (other than "I am right and everybody who doesn't agree with me is wrong," which perhaps is more internally consistent than it is defensible).
See, Isaac, I think that we're saying the same thing. When you have an album that has a good argument for being the album of the year, then it may well be a matter of taste as to which one wins, which is not how Kanye framed it. He framed it as the Grammys having been ridiculous for selecting those albums (along with two others). The Grammys are ridiculous, but not for selecting those two albums as album of the year.
ReplyDeleteI vote for "Imma." If it's good enough for the Black Eyed Peas, it's good enough for me. [I have a feeling that I won't ever use that benchmark again, but....)
I prefer Imma, but I'ma is acceptable. Pick one and go with it. Just discovered Language Log covered this a year ago.
ReplyDeleteIsaac: exactly. It's much different to disagree with decisions calmly during an interview months or years later than to jump on a stage and grab the award away from the recipient.
ReplyDeleteThe Grammys have a rough time with the popular-best dichotomy. Is album of the year one that's got great sales and a lot of radio play or is it the best album, musically and lyrically? Is music too subjective to make that call? I mean, i think the Black Eyed Peas are the worst band in history, but they were an album of the year nominee and obviously most of the world disagrees with me, given how well they do.
All I'm saying is that I agree with Kanye that the Grammy voters were wrong about "best album," but that I think he's wrong too about what actually was the best album. He has as much a right to voice his (wrong) opinion as I have to voice mine (the correct opinion, that is), but I cannot say that his opinion is as valid as mine. The moment I say that, I've conceded that musical quality is purely subjective, in which case the Grammy voters' opinion is as valid as mine. Yet the Grammy voters are consistently and almost exclusively wrong, objectively so, which means that musical quality is not purely subjective, which means that Kanye and I cannot both be right, which means that he must be wrong because I am right.
ReplyDelete