I have no illusions about NARAS or the “board” of “advisors” who determine who is nominated for, and ultimately awarded, Grammys. I have no illusions, not even small, lingering, wistful ones, about the music business. There’s no point in being bitter about the facts of life. But I can’t look at the “business end” of the business and not feel furious about what has happened to my friends and colleagues. I’ve known people who have been successful in the music business, like Candy’s brother Frank, who knew better than anybody how to earn a good living, and at the same time thumb his nose at the industry idiots and undermine their power. But he paid the price in other ways. His methodology worked perfectly, but when he died, he was cynical and jaded about everything, not just the music business. In the end, the music business won.
Ironically, although Frank Zappa recognized his sister Candy’s remarkable talent, he didn’t seem to want her to sully herself in the sordid environment of the music biz, so he never did anything to help her establish a music career. On the other hand, he gave every possible leg up to his sons Dweezil and Ahmet, who have been making fools of themselves in public ever since. I almost wonder if the ever-pragmatic Frank realized that his sons might cause less harm to the world pretending to be rock stars than if they were turned loose in the real world to gum up the works on an assembly line or wreak havoc as clueless computer code jockeys. He may have understood that Candy, being sensible and intelligent (as well as not expecting anything from anybody) could always hold down a job, so why let her suffer the vagaries of the music industry? (He always claimed he himself was a total failure at ordinary occupations, and that if he hadn’t had the good luck to have a music career, he wouldn’t have been able to survive. Food for thought.)
The bulk of the awardees at last night’s Grammys don’t deserve my censure. Very few of them will be around long enough. Justin Timberlake, for instance. Or the inevitable Christina Aguilera. Not to mention all the hyphenated, orthograpically challenged rappers in their look-alike grubby jackets and baggy pants. Every five minutes another one appears, has a “hit”, and disappears. The old fifteen minutes of fame has become five. Pretty soon it will be one, and then nothing. In fact, it already is.
And then, NARAS always throws a few bones to the deserving (Pat Metheny won a Grammy this year in the New Age category, believe it or not, for his jazz guitar instrumental CD “One Quiet Night”, and old dinosaurs like Aretha Franklin and Ry Cooder also got awards, as did several deceased persons including George Harrison, Waren Zevon, and Johnny Cash. Let us also not forget that in 2001 Steely Dan snagged four Grammys, including Best Album, for “Two Against Nature”, beating out Eminem, who far outstripped them in sales...but this year NARAS was careful to atone for their previous sins by not even nominating Becker and Fagen for “Everything Must Go”. The Grammy board also handed out a belated Grammy to Eminem, as if to say “sorry, it won’t happen again.”
The sad truth is, it probably won’t. And that’s what isn’t so funny.
