Greetings from the Grammys
I still remember when I was playing music in high school, traveling around with our high school stage band to competitions around the state. Each band would play two or three songs, show off their top soloists a little and then wait eagerly for their score from the judges. I have a lot of great memories from those competitions, mostly centered on the wacky personalities of the kids in the band, or moments where the music came miraculously together in a way that none of us quite anticipated.
The strange thing is that I have almost no memories of which competitions we won or lost, what the scores were, or what our overall standings were at the end of the competition season. I could tell you about the piano player who always managed to arrive only seconds before taking the stage, or the young drummer who was so good he would leave the whole band stunned by his two bar drum fill– so stunned that everyone missed their entrance after the fill. But I couldn’t begin to tell you anything about the scores or the results.
Even then, I was of the belief that competition and music didn’t really belong together. Of course, there is a natural kind of competitive spirit among musicians that is healthy and inescapable, the kind that you hear between Bird and Dizzy Gillespie in a bebop recording, or between gospel choir soloists, each pushing the other to new heights of creativity and virtuosity. You even hear that kind of healthy competition among superstar artists trying to match and improve upon ideas launched by others, the way Brian Wilson and Lennon & McCartney and Jagger/Richards each strove to adapt and expand upon each other’s innovations in the Sixties. But the kind of competition that involves formal judging and scores and trophies has always struck me as an attempt to turn art into sport– which is silly and immature at best, and damaging and dangerous at worst.
So I’m not a big fan of the Grammys. But as a true music business weasel, I could hardly let a philosophical objection stand in the way of a chance to support the artists and writers with whom I am fortunate enough to work, particularly French artist/writer/producer David Guetta and his songwriting and production collaborator Frederick Riesterer (”I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas, “When Love Takes Over” featuring Kelly Rowland). So for the past several days, I’ve been soaking in the LA sun, shaking hands, and schmoozing with several thousand other “fierce competitors”, courtesy of the National Academy of the Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS). I can’t give you a backstage peek, or a sighting from the red carpet, because I wasn’t there. But if you’re wondering how it looks from Section 112 in the lovely intimacy of the Los Angeles Staple Center, or from poolside at the Mondrian, here’s the good, the bad and the ugly…
The Bad
Music has become a spectacle.
Most of the performances on the Grammys made very clear that the people now responsible for promoting and selling music to the general public have absolutely no belief whatsoever in the actual power of music. Storm-trooper dancers, trapeze acts (although Pink’s vocal was incredible), three-dimensional computer graphics, and mid-song costume changes all testify to the fact that none of the powers that be in the music industry believe that an audience would actually be interested, much less enraptured by a lone person with a guitar, or a lyric that truly resonates emotionally. Thankfully, performances like Dave Matthews proved just how unnecessary all of the smoke and mirrors actually is.
There’s something ironic about the Grammy’s annual appeal for more music education in schools, while at the same time the show itself is wasting a prime opportunity to educate a mass audience about music. By supplying circus acts rather than concert performances, the Grammy show cheapens and detracts from the very artistry it’s supposed to celebrate.
The Ugly
Who pays for all this?
While it’s fun to get a pat on the back, it’s less satisfying when your wallet is being picked at the same time. The truth is, while the music industry looked alive, if not always well, last night on television, it will look a good deal less healthy six months from now, as major record labels edge closer and closer to utter extinction and the bills for Grammy week start to come due. Looking at the line of limos outside the Staple Center, or the schedule of industry parties that reduced LA to a music weasel version of spring break, one had to wonder:
Has anyone added up the cost of this?
Of course, NARAS is quick to point out that the Grammy Awards offer an unmatched promotion opportunity for those artists featured (about twenty or thirty on the televised show). Clearly, the function of the Grammys is far less about rewarding artistic achievement than selling records. And in fact, many acts, from Bon Jovi to Pink to Dave Matthews, did indeed see sales jump after the show. But how much? And for how long?
If one were to tally up the tab for the cost of the actual show, the cost of taking artists off of tours and out of recording studios, the price for all of the record label parties and events, the total bill for all of the hotel rooms, airfares and dinner tabs, and the expense of hundreds of working hours wasted by executives fielding calls for Grammy invites, cajoling their way onto guest lists, or lobbying for nominations and votes, the Grammys would need to boost sales by millions of records in order to come close to being a profitable investment for the record industry.
Last I checked, nothing is boosting sales these days by millions of units. Given the struggles that artists are up against these days, they might have preferred that those in the industry spend their time and money building up developing acts, rather than congratulating the most successful ones.
The Good
Music is going global.
This was a big year for France in particular, with the success of David Guetta in the pop and dance market as well as The Phoenix, who won “Best Alternative Album”. But there was also Andrea Bocelli, the work of Moroccan- Swedish producer RedOne on Lady Gaga hits like “Poker Face”, Brits like the Ting Tings and Adele, and so many others. This global approach to music, with collaborations like Guetta with the Black Eyed Peas, RedOne with Gaga, or Bocelli with Mary J. Blige, reflects both the influence of the internet, in which the borders between countries and artists are erased, and the increasing pressure to surprise audiences with something slightly unexpected. There’s no question that a musical melting pot makes life more interesting for listeners and artists. It also helps sell records around the world, rather than in just one territory.
Dreams still come true.
Taylor Swift may have hit some wrong notes in her vocal performance (ouch), but her acceptance speech(es) definitely rang true. As corny as it sounds, a Grammy Award still represents the fulfillment of a dream for many young artists, and it’s exciting to be reminded that despite all odds, and all of the negative factors in the industry today, those dreams truly are realized by at least a handful of people each year.
During my time at Sony ATV Music, I had the honor of working with producer Rob Fusari–already a well-established and very successful record-maker, but one determined to move into the “artist development” business. Three years later, his work with one young artist, Stefani Germanotta, resulted in the creation of Lady Gaga. I first met RedOne back in 2000 or 2001– he would move to Sweden, and then back again to New York, before he found his big break with Kat Deluna and “Whine Up”. Again, while I was at Sony ATV, my colleague in the Nashville office, Arthur Buenahora, was developing a 14 year old singer/songwriter named Taylor Swift.
The success stories trotted out by artists in their acceptance speeches are not fairy tales of overnight transformation. They are real stories of people who made something happen with their music. If they sound a little too simple, it’s because the real story would be too long and frustrating and too full of ups and downs to fit into a thirty-second clip. If they sound like fantasy, then you’ve never seen the hard work and financial risk that the artists themselves, and the producers, executives, lawyers and managers behind them put in, when few believed in the potential pay-off. If the stories sound corny, it’s only because you haven’t lived the process and seen the ugly side of survival in the music biz.
For the first time this year, I had the opportunity to attend the pre-telecast Grammy Awards, at which countless awards are given in genres ranging from children’s music to classical music to bluegrass. I had expected it to be a bit tedious, given the number of categories and the obscurity of some of the artists involved. I was surprised to find that it was actually an inspiration. It was a celebration of real music-makers receiving recognition for a lifetime of work and training. The performances showed genuine artistry, and needed no bells and whistles to be be entertaining. The speeches were full of sincerity– with thanks to families and spouses that had sacrificed everything to allow an artist to pursue his or her dream.
Most of all, the room was infused with a feeling of family. This was the music community celebrating each other’s work, across genre boundaries (which don’t exist much for musicians anyway). It was what the Grammys are supposed to be. Granted, it wasn’t the Super Bowl. But then again, music was never meant to be a game.


