How About Them Grammys?

I'll take a short break from chewing out people's music. I think it's only fair that I set aside time to chew out the 56th Annual Grammy Awards.

It's not like it's my job is to talk about how bad popular music is. I actually approve of a lot of this year's Grammy-winning artists. Daft Punk's "Random Access Memories" was one of my favorite albums of 2013. My favorite album of last year, "Modern Vampires of the City" by Vampire Weekend, won the award for Best Alternative Music Album. I shouldn't have too much to bicker about but I do.

A Grammy Award is an music-related accolade presented by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. According to a 2011 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Nine Inch Nails's Trent Reznor said it's "like a popularity contest that the insiders club has decided." This came from a man who's won two Grammys himself. At this year's Grammy Awards ceremony, he performed alongside Queens of the Stone Age and other artists. About four minutes into the performance, their live music was interrupted by a commercial break. This is despicable and perplexing. Isn't this supposed to be music's big night?

That commercial break was a defining moment in showing what the Grammy Awards are truly all about. It's about getting TV viewers.

This year's 20 live performances included a duet featuring Beyonce and Jay-Z, a Daft Punk/Stevie Wonder collaboration and 33 same-sex couple marriages. These are some big events. Behind all this grandeur, I'm curious as to why Macklemore & Ryan Lewis won Best Rap Album and not Kendrick Lamar. After the show, Macklemore sent a text to Lamar saying, "You got robbed. I wanted you to win. You should have. It's weird and sucks that I robbed you."

I guess it's not fair to judge how the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences critiques music but you all know I'm going to do it anyway.

Getting recognition from the Grammy Academy these days is a basic recipe of how popular you are now, how much critical acclaim your music has had in the past and how old-school you sound. Daft Punk nailed all three ingredients on "Random Access Memories." It was the perfect cheesy throwback album and it came from a group that reached their creative peak over 10 years ago. Great album by all means, although I must admit it's total Grammy candy.

Kendrick Lamar's "Good Kid, M.A.A.D City" was a nominee in the same category. It’s a platinum-selling record that was released back in 2012. It was hailed by many professional music analysts as the best album of that year and I myself think it's one of the greatest albums in music recording history. Kendrick’s work should have recieved Grammy nods a year ago, but the folks in charge decided to wait it out before giving Lamar seven nominations and not having him win any of them.

Perhaps the album was released too late in the year to get nominations for the 2013 awards. Personally, I don't think the Grammy Academy would have showed as much love for Lamar if his album hadn't sold so much in the past year. Lamar's nominations were more so inspired by his album sales than by his genius.

The way the Grammys work have been questionable since Christopher Cross beat out Pink Floyd's "The Wall" for Album of the Year in 1981. Since then, some great artists and terrible artists alike have won these awards. Arcade Fire is a great band that won the 2011 Album of the Year for “The Suburbs.” This was a great album, but their 2004 release “Funeral” has been hailed by many publications as one of the greatest albums of its decade. It’s the youngest album to appear on Rolling Stone’s 200 greatest albums of all time. “The Suburbs” only won Album of the Year because the Grammy Academy was making up for not appreciating “Funeral” enough. Eclectic, tasteful music rarely wins Grammys. The year before Arcade Fire won this award, it was won by Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift.

In The Hollywood Reporter interview mentioned earlier, Reznor also said the Grammy Awards feel "rigged and cheap." Considering his Grammy performance this year was cut off by a commercial break, it's hard for me to disagree. Dude, forget the Grammys.
"Let the music in your life give life back to music." -Daft Punk.

YOUNG THE GIANT: Mind Over Matter

Have you ever heard of Young the Giant? It's quite possible that you've heard them. These guys are an alternative rock band out of Irvine, Calif. They released their debut album in 2010, which included some pretty hip singles like "Cough Syrup" and "My Body." The band has become a common name on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart and their sophomore album "Mind Over Matter" is a legitimate contender for the #1 album in the US this week. People are really digging Young the Giant.
I myself have only recently discovered this band. I didn't know who they were or how popular they were. I felt like I was behind the curve until I actually listened to them. I hadn't been missing much.

In case anyone out there wants to hear the new Young the Giant album "Mind Over Matter," it is streaming online for free. It's also available for purchase if you're willing to shell out some dough. I took advantage of the first option. From this experience, I've created a list of 10 reasons why you shouldn't listen to it yourself.
10: Because Richard Sherman is the best defensive back in the NFL. I could watch that video of Sherman ranting after the NFC Championship game for 50 straight minutes. In fact, I'd rather watch that video for 50 minutes than listen to this album for 50 minutes.
9: Because you'll probably only listen to it once anyway. It's hard to make a commercially memorable alternative rock album these days. Bands from the last decade that were popular in the genre now have their CDs in $1 bargain bins. "Mind Over Matter" doesn't offer anything you've never heard before or anything you'll never hear again. I think it will be the top-selling album in the US this week, but it's born to be lost in the dying history of alternative rock.
8: Because some songs on here might make you vomit. These are some lyrics from the chorus of the album's second single, "Crystallized": "When the beat of my drum meets the beat of your heart, you know I couldn't love any other." Oh gag. Oddly enough, this track is catchy enough that it can get stuck in your head, but that doesn't change the fact that it's ridiculously corny. For a second there, I thought I was listening to a Plain White T's song.
7: Because these guys try too hard to sound like they're weird. Looking at the album cover, one might think that this album is going to be some psychological adventure. I admit, there are some complex melodies scattered here and there, but they're never enjoyable. The lyrics aren't all that generic, but they're about generic topics. The wild guitar fills on the lead single "It's About Time" are talented, but they sound very watered-down. The stuff is pretty normal.
6: Because the guitar effects broke my heart... in a bad way. There are some moments with this band where their guitars have this bright, echoing, surfer rock sound to them. It resonates throughout the song "Firelight." However, most of the time these guitar parts are being swallowed up by some other instrumentation, sometimes the most uninteresting parts of a song. It ruins the whole thing for me.
5: Because you could just listen to "Analog." "Analog" wasn't a bad track. Sure, it's under-produced and has too many layers, but it's played in 7/8 time. Songs in 7/8 time are automatically cool. Don't listen to the whole album when you can just dip your toe into this.
4: Because it's too catchy to be "weird" and too weird to be "catchy." No further comment.
3: Because it's not as good as their first album. I wasn't a big fan of Young the Giant's first album, but those cool guitar effects I mentioned earlier play a bigger part in that album. On "Mind Over Matter," the experimentation is just annoying.
2: Because the album has no flow. Most bands have a sense of where songs should be placed on an album, but the last song on here could have been placed anywhere in the album. Also, it's hard to imagine a song as plain as "Crystallized" being on the same album as something as diverse as "Waves." It's like they don't want people to like every song.
1: Because you should be listening to the new album by Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra. This album is so tight! The band consists of members from indie-shoe gaze heroes Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and they do not disappoint. It's apocalyptic, gloomy, epic and gut-wrenching. It's probably my favorite release in the last two or three months! Everybody needs to hear this brilliant album!
Meanwhile, Young the Giant's "Mind Over Matter" just isn't that great.
My Rating: 1.5/10

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: High Hopes

Bruce Springsteen has been recording music for over 40 years. His 1975 album Born to Run is listed in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry. He's appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone 24 times. Since the turn of the century, he's won 13 Grammy awards and has topped the Billboard album chart five times. He played a Super Bowl halftime show at age 60. Respectively, the guy's nickname is "The Boss." His new album is titled High Hopes.
Don't get your hopes up.

To Springsteen's credit, he's a busy man. The Boss has been putting out new material pretty consistently. I myself have been a Springsteen fan since middle school. His music has not only impacted a world of artists, but has impacted myself as a listener. At the beginning of every road trip, I start the engine to my 1983 Honda Accord and sing all the words to "Thunder Road" at the top of my lungs whilst pounding the dashboard for the drum fills. Springsteen is truly The Boss when it comes to his story-telling skills and romanticized imagery in his music. Gotta love this guy.

High Hopes is a collective of recordings from the last 10 years or so that didn't make it on to any of his full-length releases. After listening to these songs, I can tell why he decided to not release them sooner. In fact, I'm curious as to why he decided to release them at all.

The disappointment begins with the album cover itself. Look at his serious facial expressions. Are we supposed to be taking this man seriously? I mean, it looks like an awkward glob of light is exploding from the abdominal/crotch area of his body. Oh, wait-- that's a photo-shopped guitar. My bad. At least the music on here isn't awkward, right? ...Right?

Lyrically, Bruce is singing about the same stuff he's been singing about for the last 15 years. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but how many times can you use the words "fire," "strength" and "hope" in your music? There are actually two songs on this same album that mention babies crying. Anyways, the lyricism isn't bad, but it's 100% predictable Springsteen. Instrumentally, it's a mess. Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello is a special guest guitarist throughout the album. Morello has never sounded so weak. His guitars don't add any grit to the songs, but instead just sound really corny and overly dramatic.  

The album provides two new recordings of songs Bruce has released before: "The Ghost of Tom Joad" and "American Skin (41 Shots)." This is the first non-live, studio version of "American Skin" he's released, and it honestly doesn't do the classic 2000 live recording any justice. Considering the song's lengthy build-up, the use of a backing choir at 1:15 is an unnecessary curve ball and Morello's scattered solos are easily forgettable. The re-recording of 1995's "Tom Joad" is almost twice as long as the original and instead of sounding mysterious and stripped-down, we're apparently supposed to rock out to it. I guess it'd be easier to do that if it wasn't so thinly produced and if the lyrics weren't so bleakly nonparallel to the music. Both songs represent how over-layered the album this album is.

Experimentation in music is not always a bad thing, but High Hopes proves that it's not always a good thing."Harry's Place" offers some lyrical variety, hearing Bruce sing about "downtown hipsters" and dropping the f-bomb a few times. The song itself could potentially be dark and rugged, but the synthesized strings in the background make it all sound like a joke. I know Bruce has been experimenting with Celtic instrumentation in the recent past, but the use of it on "This Is Your Sword" makes me feel like I should be prancing through a green pasture in Brave more so than fighting next to Mel Gibson in Braveheart. 

On this album, Bruce sounds best when the music is simplified. "Hunter of Invisible Game" and "The Wall" might come off as boring, but they're the tracks with the best instrumental flow. "Just Like Fire Would" is pretty darn lovable if you just scratch off the Victorian coronet solo in the middle.
I personally feel like Bruce's recent work has some chops on the production side of things, but even that aspect comes up short on High Hopes. With all the unique instrumentation, this album could potentially have a rich, bright sound. Unfortunately, this album sounds more like an order of nachos than a symphony; just layers and layers of cheese.
It's a bold move to release an album of studio outtakes, and even with titling the record "High Hopes," I'm sure Bruce knew this wasn't going to be liked by everybody. If you think albums like Wrecking Ball, Working on a Dream and Magic were truly classics, chances are you'll enjoy this album. However, I think this album will be forgotten in the near future and that The Boss will eventually rebound with music that's at least worth hearing. Bruce Springsteen has gone through musical slumps like this before, but he'll always try to be "tougher than the rest."
MY RATING: 4/10
SHOULD YOU TRY IT OUT? Nah. I recommend the new Mogwai album, Rave Tapes.