I GOT SO MUCH (LESS) TROUBLE ON MY MIND: Whatever one wants to say about last night's Grammy Awards, it's clear that they seem to have wholly escaped the problems of even 5-10 years ago, in which the awards themselves and performances in general had failed to reflect What People Are Listening To. Natalie Cole and her late father didn't sweep the awards last night, and nor did Carlos Santana, Herbie Hancock, Ray Charles, or Quincy Jones. You can no longer look at each category, ask who would old people find least threatening?, and win your pool.
This is not to say that the awards themselves, or the performances were uniformly excellent -- I think only Kelly Clarkson, the Levon Helm tribute, and the Black Keys/Dr. John number approached "yes, I'd like to watch that again" levels, with the disappointments including Frank Ocean, Taylor Swift, fun. not getting electrocuted, a "Bob Marley tribute" with precious little Bob Marley music, and Prince not performing at all despite being there to present. Still, any night that ends with an Adam Yauch tribute anchored by Chuck D. (who himself has never won a Grammy) ain't all bad ...
Or is it? Because the obvious rejoinder is "dude, you're forty now. If you want to know if the Grammys are relevant to contemporary music, ask the teens and twentysomethings who comprise its principal market." I am open to the possibility that, like Matthew McConaughey's Wooderson in Dazed and Confused, it's not that the Grammys are actually getting younger but we're getting older, and there's a whole sphere of viewers from whom we're largely disconnected wondering why that old dude from NCIS:LA decided to rap (and why were there no contemporary rappers performing, save Jay-Z's cameo in Timberlake's performance?), and who was that tiny dude with the cane presenting Record of the Year, and why didn't Japandroids get to perform, and what's up with all those banjos?
