GRAMMYS, INDIE, AND BEST OF 2011

The Grammy's aired two nights ago. I don't know if award shows are becoming better or more controversial, or if a hundred tweets, statuses and blogs can make anything once stale seem vital again. Either way, I threw the 54^th Grammy's up on the bedroom TV while I wrote with the expectation that I was participating in something somehow important.

I was not.

We could talk about the trend of mainstream recognition of "indie music" or dubstep. But other people already are, people that get it what all of it "means" more than I do.

LL Cool J said that Grammy night is a night to celebrate music. If anything, I have to take issue with that. I mean, is Chris Brown even a singer, or is just the front man of the "Chris Brown Lip-Sync and Dance Troupe?"

The Grammy's are not a celebration of music. Unfortunately, they are a celebration of a music industry. Nominations are not handed out for great music but popular music. Sometimes greatness and popularity coincide, but it's usually a bit of an accident. The major labels have pop/rock/rap stars on their payrolls who come and go. They also have producers, songwriters, image consultants and marketing gurus—they tend to have longer careers. They trend-watch and focus-test all around the clock to create radio-friendly music geared to least offend a general audience. It's good business.

Thanks to the taste-makers in backroom deals between Clear Channel and the five super-labels (Sony, Universal, BMG, UMI, and Time Warner), pre-approved music stars get played over and over everywhere in the country. Think about it, when was the last time you heard a "new artist" on the radio who wasn't, somehow, already popular? Where does that popularity come from if you, radio listener, haven't even heard it yet? 

This isn't a conspiracy theory. This is a conspiracy fact.

When Bon Iver said there was a lot of talent "out there" that will never be nominated for a Grammy, he wasn't just feigning humility. He has spent his career until now as part of another music industry, one where people learned to play instruments and made music with their friends because they loved it. It was a world where no one got "best new artist" trophies, especially for their second album. Seriously, what does it mean to call someone a "new artist" who has been around for years? "You career doesn't matter until we say so?"

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I have an ex who has told me that she "is over" indie music. The enormity of that statement overwhelmed me. What did it even mean? Indie is not a genre. It doesn't have a "sound." Of course, anyone can tell when a song is an indie song: it doesn’t sound like something on the radio.  But there is much more new indie music each year than new mainstream music, and there much more room for variety. 

So why can't you be over indie music? Because indie is the discovery that there are not dozens of professional acts to choose from, there are thousands. It is the discovery that some bands do not write songs for a general audience, some bands write songs just for you.

So Fuck the Grammys, just a little. Here are some of MY favorite albums of 2011: