Last year Ben Winston threw out Ken Ehrlich's "Grammy Moment" playbook and created an intimate affair that seemed to live in the present as opposed to the past. But that does not mean the show will reflect people's tastes.
Prior to the MTV era the Grammys were a sideshow. They didn't know how to get it right. If you were a true music fan it was a badge of honor not to watch the Grammys. At that time your fandom was a badge of honor. You wore the shirt of the obscure act, you didn't want to be seen as a me-too follower. But AOR radio consolidated its playlists, corporate rock reared its ugly head and the record business imploded, only to be rescued by MTV. Yes, there was a disco component, but it's best to say dance music has always existed and still exists, and the frat boy whites just couldn't handle the change, even though dance music is a staple of that same cadre today.
So the eighties were an era of consolidation, of a monoculture. The independent FM stations...suddenly were taking their playlists from MTV. The tail was wagging the dog. Suddenly all of America was on the same page, the entire world was on the same page. The Police blew up on MTV and then toured the world, where there was demand. This was new, as were the amounts of money thrown off by overpriced CDs. This was long before the CDs only contained one good track. Albums were still short. Sure, there was filler, but it was still about the complete project.
And then in the nineties labels got greedy. AOL discs were free, but CDs were still expensive. Oftentimes the CD only had one good track, but if there was a single, it was cut out as soon as the song got traction. The business was profiting, but the customers were angry. The internet ethos had not yet taken hold. Which is one in which you follow the customers, give them what they want, let them participate, or else your business is decimated. True seers give the public what it doesn't even know it wants, like Steve Jobs with the iPod, and Daniel Ek with Spotify, but these disrupters are rarely in control of the industries that are affected. Even though Clayton Christensen said you must disrupt yourself, few companies are willing to do this. As a matter of fact, it's only tech companies who seem to push the envelope, record companies have a constant stream of income from legacy product, and the goal of being a label president is to make bank, especially now, when the role has almost zero gravitas.
So, Napster came along and blew a hole in the record business. Which complained, and kept to its playbook until streaming came aboard. Then it was those looking to the future, most especially the hip-hop artists, unconstrained by prior restrictions, who could record at a minimum cost and oftentimes delivered their music for free, who gained hold and started to dominate.
The labels shrunk their staffs. Came to bat much less frequently. Wanted giant hits. Remind you of the movie business? Exactly. The movies lost their power to television. And the labels...lost their power to a zillion different acts. The record companies would swoop down and swallow the cream, like Lil Nas X, but the rest of the world's recorded output they wanted nothing to do with, but that's where the public's interest lies, assuming the public is interested at all.
We haven't had a record that woke everybody up and made people pay attention in years. Don't talk about Adele, that was promotion of a preexisting product. As for Silk Sonic... Like "Blurred Lines" it's got the feel right, it hearkens back to the past, but the songs are so substandard as to hook almost no one. This is the world we live in today, where no one involved is willing to say a negative word. Whereas criticism ruled prior to MTV, you'd argue about acts. Now everybody just parties 24/7 and shoots selfies and posts them on social media.
Yes, the cutting edge is TikTok, I'd rather watch a three hour exposé of that than a smorgasbord of acts that are far from universal, most of which don't appeal to me. Yes, they've got Billy Strings, but that's tokenism. And, once again, Strings lacks the hit material necessary to reach a larger audience. And Chris Stapleton, who does it differently from everybody else in Nashville, yet is the most beloved act in Music City, and successful to boot. Stapleton went back to the garden, not retro, but influenced by the past, and delivered an authentic sound that resonated, and far beyond the country base. You'd think that would be a beacon, but so far no one of significance has followed in his footsteps. It seems everyone wants to be famous for the trappings as opposed to the essence. They want to be famous. As for the rabid fans of some acts...it's like the Sharks vs. the Jets, a sideshow only interesting to those involved.
So what we have here is an industry that has lost its hold on the national consciousness. However, live events are burgeoning. Festivals are must-go-to events, and sure they're based around headliners, but the undercards sustain them, where is the undercard on the Grammy telecast?
Nowhere.
Yes, we are returning to the pre-MTV days. It's the unheralded that people adhere to and follow. They find out about these acts organically and then tell all their friends about them. It's no longer a top-down culture, but a bottom-up one. And by trying to be universal the Grammys are missing the point. There is no universal anymore. Used to be everyone knew the performers, I guarantee you a large portion of those watching tonight will be unfamiliar with the acts, and this was unheard of in the Grammy heyday from the late eighties into the beginnings of the twenty first century. Music can cross languages and borders, but there's not enough music that does this, except for Latin, which used to be ignored by the suits, but now is embraced by the audience. The internet set Latin music free. And I doubt most Latin music fans would be thrilled by the Grammy lineup.
Yes, we've gone niche. And the Grammys are broad. Made to play to everyone. Which is why network TV has lost its audience, people went to that which was more vibrant, first on cable and now on streaming. And every once in a while there's a streaming phenomenon, like "Squid Game." We haven't had one of those in music in years. Because there's nothing so innovative, so out there, yet so right, that everyone needs to talk about it and discuss it. And still, there are people who haven't seen "Squid Game." Because the universal is passé.
Now I'm talking about the Grammy telecast. Not the organization and its multitude of awards. It's a circle jerk of musicians who believe they should be rewarded for their work, even though only their peers are aware of it in most cases. Awards never worked in music, because the best stuff is ahead of the voters, they only catch up after the fact, which is the way it should be. Go on YouTube, find the endless news reports making fun of the internet, didn't they miss the point.
So if you don't watch the Grammys, you won't miss anything. You'll see a show constructed to appeal to all tastes when the truth is active fans have no desire to see it. Music is on demand now. Talk to a youngster, if you say they listen to terrestrial radio you're lying. No way, they don't want to sit through commercials and they don't want to be spoon-fed what they don't like to get to one or two tracks they do, which is exactly what the Grammy telecast proffers.
But it completely misses the point that we no longer live in one big tent. Maybe if the show was comprised only of up and coming acts. Maybe if it didn't try to be a roundup, but just an exhibition, a learning experience. If only it wasn't self-congratulatory, but more of an adventure. No one has to watch the Grammy telecast anymore, they have umpteen options, they can cater their life to their whims, their desires. This is what the oldsters don't get about smartphones, they're genius, they're the best thing that ever happened, you have the world you want to experience at your fingertips, and guaranteed it's not the one anybody else has at their fingertips. You customize your world. And it's only the old wankers who complain about this. They want you corralled into their world, the Grammys, when you've given that up long ago.
Music is gaining health because the mainstream push continues to lose audience share. People are sick of holier-than-thou nitwit artists. Come on, you're feuding online, you're looking for endorsements, what is there to believe in? Why should the audience take the music seriously when the performer does not? Want an interesting TV show with legs? Break down the income of every performer, from records, live, endorsements. That, people are interested in, that they'll talk about, whereas this three hour extravaganza will be forgotten right after it happens. Oh, the straight media will write about it, but especially when it comes to the arts, straight media has never meant less.
So expect reams of publicity after the fact. Expect the involved or brain dead to talk about it. But really, it's become a badge of honor not to perform at the Grammys, not to be involved. Artists are unique, they don't scramble for awards. They're the anti. And the public propping up music knows this. They're listening to and going to see acts far from the Grammy mainstream, they're passionate about them, they are living in the future while the Grammys are living in the past.
If you're watching the Grammys to be educated, the joke is on you. Today you must be active, not passive, you must fine your own desires, just like on social media, you must get involved to gain the full experience.
If you're watching the Grammys for business reasons... You're missing the point. The big is no longer so big, and that which is promoted is too often hollow at the center. Yes, you can pull the wool over the eyes of the young, but the older you get the less you want to be a lemming, you kick the tires, decide if something is worthwhile before you dedicate time to it, since time is your most precious commodity.
So the Grammys are a TV show and an organization out of touch with the times. Old farts who don't want to lose control.
But they already have.
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