I want to go to the Grammys one day. | | | | I'll dance to that: Childish Gambino's five Grammy nominations include Album and Record of the Year.
(Matthew Eisman/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “I want to go to the Grammys one day.”
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| | rantnrave:// Random thoughts on the nominations for the 60th GRAMMY AWARDS, to be handed out in 2018 to albums and tracks released in 2016 and 2017: All things considered, the Grammy gods did a solid job across the four marquee categories, including a) recognizing the pop worthiness of "DESPACITO"; b) not feeling the need to recognize ED SHEERAN, whose DIVIDE album is perfectly fine and sold a lot of copies but is no MELODRAMA, and whom everybody on the planet, me included, had penciled in for multiple nods; c) recognizing SZA, LIL UZI VERT and KHALID in one of the strongest Best New Artist fields since basically ever; d) not feeling the need to recognize even a token white male, which would in fact have amounted to tokenism; e) LORDE; and f) CHILDISH GAMBINO... You may not agree with every choice, but that's probably asking too much. It's clear they're trying, and more than partially succeeding... But there are still questions. Lots of questions. And one very unhappy rap legend... The remaining 80 categories exhibit the usual combination of worthiness and wackiness. "BODAK YELLOW," "BAD AND BOUJEE" and "BOUNCE BACK" make for a legitimately fun Best Rap Performance category (but sit down, all you contenders. Be humble). PITCHFORK had to GOOGLE two of the 11 bands nominated in the rock categories. Childish Gambino is, according to the noms, R&B and traditional R&B and urban contemporary, which, like, seriously, what do those names even mean?... Also, like, seriously, there are 84 categories. And that's after some deep trimming in recent years. Do there still need to be separate categories for "traditional" and "contemporary" blues? Or for "pop vocal" and "traditional pop vocal"? (To be fair, SETH MACFARLANE and BOB DYLAN would be SOL this year if not for the latter category. In case that's important to you or Seth or Bob)... JAY-Z's 4:44 is a damn good album, but if the leading nominee becomes the big winner in January, you can safely assume that's as much an award for his career as for his 2017 album. Which is perfectly fine. As long as BEYONCÉ gets those career Grammys next time she puts an album out... The fact that Lorde is up for Album of the Year but not Best Pop Vocal Album (or any pop trophy) suggests the handiwork of the Grammys' notorious blue-ribbon committees, aka the Grammys' Dark Army. The committees have the power to overrule the popular vote for nominations in the four big categories and in several genres, but not in pop. And I'll take that as an early indication that there's no way she's winning Album of the Year, which will now be back in the hands of the voters. (See also: LIL UZI VERT is up for Best New Artist and nothing else save for his feature on MIGOS' "BAD AND BOUJEE")... Why do the Grammys have a Sept. 30 cut-off date for new releases when so many pop blockbusters are released in October and November? Why not align awards season with the industry's working calendar?... (Then again, I kind of like the implied argument that songs and albums, more than movies and TV shows, need time to grow on you, and on voters)... (But even if October/November releases were being considered this year, it's quite possible, likely even, that TAYLOR SWIFT's REPUTATION wouldn't have scored any of the top nominations anyway)... A lot of people will see this year's nominations—and ceremony—as a course correction in favor of musicians of color. They will be wrong. It's a course correction in favor of reality... Where the Grammys are born, literally... SYDNEY indie rockers GANG OF YOUTHS were the big winners at AUSTRALIA's ARIA AWARDS Tuesday night. And men in general... RIP CAROL NEBLETT. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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