The Grammys’ Album Of The Year Upset: Who Should Have Won?
Judging by the reactions from my living room, my instant-messenger conversations, and the comments section on our Grammy liveblog, people were more than a little surprised when the Album Of The Year winner was announced… and said winner wasn’t Kanye West or Amy Winehouse, but Herbie Hancock, whose Joni Mitchell homage River: The Joni Letters took home the night’s final prize. I actually wasn’t too surprised by Hancock’s victory–to quote myself, “if you didn’t at least think that Herbie Hancock paying tribute to Joni Mitchell would sway at least half the people who voted for Steely Dan over Eminem a few years back you haven’t been paying attention”–but apparently a lot of people were! (Perhaps they forgot that Norah Jones and Corinne Bailey Rae and Tina Turner and Leonard Cohen were also on the album.) So let’s put it to all of you: If you had a vote in the Grammy balloting, what would you have chosen as this Grammy year’s Album Of The Year? Poll after the jump.
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Are you going to demand a recount? As incensed as you are, right now it merely looks (to the untrained eye) as if you and I uselessly quibbling about the minutiae of people’s relevance to music in the comments section of Idolator, meaning nothing productive will ever come from it. We can disagree about what is or is not good music — that’s healthy.
However, I think you should petition the Recording Academy to recount the ballots if it upsets you this much.
You just might be right — maybe he didn’t actually win. Every argument you’ve presented here leads me to believe that you’re convinced of the sheer conspiratorial impossibility of Herbie Hancock having won the award, so you should really do something about it.
I can’t take the Grammy back from him, maybe you can.
@loudersoft: First off, you think too much of me if you think I have the wherewithal to get anyone to recount anything.
But in any case, what good with that do? I’m not offering conspiracy theories here (DHMBIB is, kinda, and good for him), I’m offering judgment.
I truly don’t doubt that Hancock won a plurality of votes; I only doubt that a bunch of lazy Grammy voters listened to his album and judged it fairly on the merits vs. his competition. I think a box was checked by people too entrenched in bad habits to fairly consider the merits of Kanye, or Amy, or…hell, Vince Gill (if that had won last night, then you’d be talking about an album I don’t love or care about that I’d respect, thanks to the obvious passion it inspired).
The Grammys are always sentimental, which accounts for a lot of the cynical reaction you see from people the morning after, every year. I am angrier than usual this year, because last night’s win by Hancock is egregiously sentimental even by the Recording Academy’s standards. It’s made some pretty big, often well-intentioned mistakes in its 50-year existence; this one, given the field of competitors, is worse than usual and should be regarded as an embarrassment — not a blow for the “little guy.”
I don’t ask the Grammys to match my taste (good lord! how much would have to change for that to happen!) — I ask it, in its blinkered field of influence, to make some goddamn sense: reward something I might not like that clearly moved the Zeitgeist or affected the culture. Give it to bloody Celine Dion, fer cryin’ out loud, if that record moved people (Falling Into You, AOTY, 1996). But don’t give it to a record that’s a latte souvenir just because the guy on the cover is a legend and a swell guy.
I believe it was the Guardian who already pointed out, musicians stop making good music as soon as they hit 30. Herbie Hancock is waaaaaay past 30. Therefore, his album sucked.
Q.E.D.
In all seriousness, why the fuck didn’t Kanye either win or kill someone after losing?
@Dennis O’Bell: In line with what you’ve said about Grammy voters being lazy, I actually have a very believable conspiracy theory which I talked to Maura about online this morning.
What if it’s not even the voting members themselves filling out these ballots? If working voting members are too busy to return phone calls or answer emails (for example), maybe they’re too busy to fill out these ballots. If so, what’s to stop an intern at their management company, their mom, their assistant, or anyone else from checking those boxes?
I have good reason to believe that some percentage of the membership doesn’t fill it out themselves due to obligations and time constraints. And, as you said, if they do, they probably do it “by rote”.
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Judging by the reactions from my living room, my instant-messenger conversations, and the comments section on our Grammy liveblog, people were more than a little surprised when the Album Of The Year winner was announced… and said winner wasn’t Kanye West or Amy Winehouse, but Herbie Hancock, whose Joni Mitchell homage River: The Joni Letters took home the night’s final prize. I actually wasn’t too surprised by Hancock’s victory–to quote myself, “if you didn’t at least think that Herbie Hancock paying tribute to Joni Mitchell would sway at least half the people who voted for Steely Dan over Eminem a few years back you haven’t been paying attention”–but apparently a lot of people were! (Perhaps they forgot that Norah Jones and Corinne Bailey Rae and Tina Turner and Leonard Cohen were also on the album.) So let’s put it to all of you: If you had a vote in the Grammy balloting, what would you have chosen as this Grammy year’s Album Of The Year? Poll after the jump. 
@Dennis O’Bell: Well answer me this, then –
Are you going to demand a recount? As incensed as you are, right now it merely looks (to the untrained eye) as if you and I uselessly quibbling about the minutiae of people’s relevance to music in the comments section of Idolator, meaning nothing productive will ever come from it. We can disagree about what is or is not good music — that’s healthy.
However, I think you should petition the Recording Academy to recount the ballots if it upsets you this much.
You just might be right — maybe he didn’t actually win. Every argument you’ve presented here leads me to believe that you’re convinced of the sheer conspiratorial impossibility of Herbie Hancock having won the award, so you should really do something about it.
I can’t take the Grammy back from him, maybe you can.
@loudersoft: First off, you think too much of me if you think I have the wherewithal to get anyone to recount anything.
But in any case, what good with that do? I’m not offering conspiracy theories here (DHMBIB is, kinda, and good for him), I’m offering judgment.
I truly don’t doubt that Hancock won a plurality of votes; I only doubt that a bunch of lazy Grammy voters listened to his album and judged it fairly on the merits vs. his competition. I think a box was checked by people too entrenched in bad habits to fairly consider the merits of Kanye, or Amy, or…hell, Vince Gill (if that had won last night, then you’d be talking about an album I don’t love or care about that I’d respect, thanks to the obvious passion it inspired).
The Grammys are always sentimental, which accounts for a lot of the cynical reaction you see from people the morning after, every year. I am angrier than usual this year, because last night’s win by Hancock is egregiously sentimental even by the Recording Academy’s standards. It’s made some pretty big, often well-intentioned mistakes in its 50-year existence; this one, given the field of competitors, is worse than usual and should be regarded as an embarrassment — not a blow for the “little guy.”
I don’t ask the Grammys to match my taste (good lord! how much would have to change for that to happen!) — I ask it, in its blinkered field of influence, to make some goddamn sense: reward something I might not like that clearly moved the Zeitgeist or affected the culture. Give it to bloody Celine Dion, fer cryin’ out loud, if that record moved people (Falling Into You, AOTY, 1996). But don’t give it to a record that’s a latte souvenir just because the guy on the cover is a legend and a swell guy.
Vince Gill should have won Album of the Year, based solely on his hilarious comment to Kanye West whilst accepting a previous award.
I believe it was the Guardian who already pointed out, musicians stop making good music as soon as they hit 30. Herbie Hancock is waaaaaay past 30. Therefore, his album sucked.
Q.E.D.
In all seriousness, why the fuck didn’t Kanye either win or kill someone after losing?
@Dennis O’Bell: In line with what you’ve said about Grammy voters being lazy, I actually have a very believable conspiracy theory which I talked to Maura about online this morning.
What if it’s not even the voting members themselves filling out these ballots? If working voting members are too busy to return phone calls or answer emails (for example), maybe they’re too busy to fill out these ballots. If so, what’s to stop an intern at their management company, their mom, their assistant, or anyone else from checking those boxes?
I have good reason to believe that some percentage of the membership doesn’t fill it out themselves due to obligations and time constraints. And, as you said, if they do, they probably do it “by rote”.