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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Idolator
Idolator readers may still be arguing about whether or not Herbie Hancock's low-selling Joni Mitchell tribute should have trumped the better-selling young pop things for Album Of The Year at the Grammys, but Ben Ratliff of the New York Times knows why jazz fans shouldn't be so hyped about what the upset means for the genre: it's "a singer-songwriter record" with weak-ass drums! He also calls it "exquisitely acceptable," which works as both straight-faced assessment and deliciously succinct zinger depending on which word gets the emphasis. [