"Weird Al" Wins Grammy (Feb 8, 2004)

While the mainstream press will emphasize genres that don't appeal to music fans over the age of 25, we're going to go the alternative and emphasize many musical genres that commercial and local public radio are completely ignoring (so KSDS and KPBS-FM are no better than Clear Channel and Jefferson-Pilot in that sense, but more boring by comparison).

Overlooked by popular radio are some notable Grammy winners in the past year.

Veteran musical parodist "Weird Al" Yankovic released his 11th (or 12th counting "UHF") studio album called "Poodle Hat" last May featuring pardoies of songs by Eminem ("Couch Potato"), Nelly ("Trash Day'), and Avril Lavigne ("A Complicated Song"), as well as memorable originals such as "Hardware Store" and "Why Does This Always Happen To Me". That earned him a Grammy for Best Comedy Album.

This is Al's third Grammy win (the others being Best Comedy Recording in 1984 for "Eat It" and Best Concept Video in 1988 for "Fat").

A movie score that appealled to a wide array of fans of The Hobbit also earned a Grammy win. The Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media went to "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers," with Howard Shore, the composer famous as a regular on "Saturday Night Live", winning the award for the score.

Overlooked by mainstream radio and television is the wide appeal of folk music, a staple since way before J-Lo was born with a booty. As a 43 year old, I am still young enough to remember how popular folk music was just before Beatlemania broke out 40 years ago this month and the musical landscape changed forever. But the award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media went to the song "A Mighty Wind," written by songwriters and movie actors Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy (of SCTV fame), and Michael McKean (of "Laverne and Shirley" fame). It's found on the soundtrack of "A Mighty Wind," whose album was played only on San Diego's DFSX Comedy Radio in the past year among the local stations broadcast OR Internet-only.

Best Dance Recording went to Kylie Minogue for her largely-ignored pure dance hit "Come Into My World." Thanks to XM radio's channel 81 for playing the song.

Some other notable Grammy winners include Best Bluegrass Album: "Live," Alison Krauss and Union Station. Best Short Form Music Video: "Hurt," Johnny Cash. And Best Long Form Music Video: "Legend," Sam Cooke.

Best Traditional Folk Album: "Wildwood Flower," June Carter Cash, who, along with her husband Johnny, passed away in the year 2003. Best Contemporary Folk Album: "The Wind," Warren Zevon, who we also lost last year, and which local radio largely ignored playing. Best Native American Music Album: "Flying Free," Black Eagle. Best Polka Album: "Let's Polka 'Round," Jimmy Sturr. And Best Reggae Album: "Dutty Rock," Sean Paul, which might have gotten some airplay on "Reggae Mekkossa" on 91X.

Here's an interesting winner: Spoken Word Album for Children: "Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf/Beintus: Wolf Tracks," Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev and Sophia Loren.

D.T. Critiques the Popular Grammy Winners (Feb 8, 2004)

Record of the Year: "Clocks," Coldplay. Nice adult rock band. Too bad KGB and Planet ignores this band that has wide appeal to classic rock fans over the age of 35.

Song of the Year: "Dance With My Father," Richard Marx and Luther Vandross (Luther Vandross). Never heard that song.

New Artist: Evanescence. Boo! Yucch! Hiss! A candidate for the Musical Torture Chamber. Worst newcomer since Alicia Keys.

Rock Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal: "Disorder in the House," Warren Zevon and Bruce Springsteen. Overlooked by KGB and The Planet. Never got airplay anywhere locally. What the hell gives with San Diego rock radio?

Female Country Vocal Performance: "Keep on the Sunny Side," June Carter Cash. Never heard that song. KSON and Bob should have been playing that song regularily if they haven't.

Female Pop Vocal Performance: "Beautiful," Christina Aguilera. The dance remix on XM 81 sounds great. Christina is an otherwise underdressed great pop singer. Hey Christina, you don't need to reveal so much skin. Let Janet Jackson do the honors to plug her forgettable new songs.

Male Pop Vocal Performance: "Cry Me a River," Justin Timberlake. Another candidate for the Torture Chamber.

Rap Album: "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below," OutKast. At least OutKast has some older music fan appeal.

Pop Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal: "Underneath It All," No Doubt. Nice song. Too soft for 91X and 94.9. Too bad you had to tune in the awful My and Star to hear that song.

Contemporary R&B Album: "Dangerously in Love," Beyonce. Looks good, but her "Crazy in Love" is monotonous.

R&B Song: "Crazy in Love," Shawn Carter, Rich Harrison, Beyonce Knowles and Eugene Record (Beyonce featuring Jay-Z). See above.

Male R&B Vocal Performance: "Dance With My Father," Luther Vandross. R&B Album: "Dance With My Father," Luther Vandross. Never heard that song.

Female R&B Vocal Performance: "Dangerously in Love," Beyonce. Never can remember that song after repeated hearings.

R&B Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals: "The Closer I Get to You," Beyonce and Luther Vandross. Never heard that song either.

Traditional R&B Vocal Performance: "Wonderful," Aretha Franklin. Well-deserved of a win, though local radio ignored the song.

Female Rap Solo Performance: "Work It," Missy Elliott. Rap Performance by a Duo or Group: "Shake Ya Tailfeather," Nelly, P. Diddy and Murphy Lee. Never heard those songs.

Rap/Sung Collaboration: "Crazy in Love," Beyonce featuring Jay-Z. Rap Song: "Lose Yourself," J. Bass, M. Mathers and L. Resto (Eminem). Male Rap Solo Performance: "Lose Yourself," Eminem. Urban/Alternative Performance: "Hey Ya!" OutKast. Heard them, didn't care for most of them.

Pop Collaboration With Vocals: "Whenever I Say Your Name," Sting and Mary J. Blige. Pop Instrumental Performance: "Marwa Blues," George Harrison. Pop Instrumental Album: "Mambo Sinuendo," Ry Cooder and Manuel Galban. Traditional Pop Vocal Album: "A Wonderful World," Tony Bennett and k.d. lang. Never heard these either.

Pop Vocal Album: "Justified," Justin Timberlake. Didn't deserve to win, regardless of last week's Super Blow stunt.

Hard Rock Performance: "Bring Me to Life," Evanescence featuring Paul McCoy. Another piece of shit release that got too much airplay on My, Star, 94.9, 91X, and others. Worst song of the year. Whoever keeps requesting this song on the radio should be tarred and feathered.

Metal Performance: "St. Anger," Metallica. Never heard that one.

Rock Instrumental Performance: "Plan B," Jeff Beck. Never got deserved airplay on KGB and Planet, which ignored new adult rock as usual.

Rock Album: "One by One," Foo Fighters. Rock Song: "Seven Nation Army," Jack White (The White Stripes). Alternative Music Album: "Elephant," The White Stripes. Got deserved airplay on 91X and 94.9.

Female Rock Vocal Performance: "Trouble," Pink. Can't recall that one.

Male Rock Vocal Performance: "Gravedigger," Dave Matthews. Got airplay. Didn't care for that one.

Male Country Vocal Performance: "Next Big Thing," Vince Gill. Country Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal: "A Simple Life," Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder. Country Collaboration With Vocals: "How's the World Treating You," James Taylor and Alison Krauss. Country Instrumental Performance: "Cluck Old Hen," Alison Krauss and Union Station. Country Song: "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere," Jim "Moose" Brown and Don Rollins (Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett). Country Album: "Livin', Lovin', Losin': Songs of The Louvin Brothers," Various Artists. Never heard those either, but sounds interesting.

Musical Show Album: "Gypsy." I'm not gay so I can't comment on musicals.

Compilation Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media: "Chicago," Various Artists. Boring!

Remixed Recording, Non-Classical: "Crazy in Love (Maurice's Soul Mix)," Maurice Joshua, remixer (Beyonce featuring Jay-Z). Not sure if it's the house mix I've been hearing on XM 81.

Engineered Album, Non-Classical: "Hail to the Thief," Nigel Godrich and Darrell Thorp, engineers (Radiohead). Can't recall hearing that mix.

Other winners: Traditional Blues Album: "Blues Singer," Buddy Guy. Contemporary Blues Album: "Let's Roll," Etta James. New Age Album: "One Quiet Night," Pat Metheny. Contemporary Jazz Album: "34th N Lex," Randy Brecker. Jazz Vocal Album: "A Little Moonlight," Dianne Reeves. Jazz Instrumental Solo: "Matrix," Chick Corea. Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group: "Alegria," Wayne Shorter. Large Jazz Ensemble Album: "Wide Angles," Michael Brecker Quindectet.

U-T Columns Have Wrong Idea About Dance and Other Matters (Feb 8, 2004)

Excerpt: Today's 46th annual Grammy Awards should be more colorful – and distinctly hip-hop-oriented – than any of the 45 previous editions of the music industry's most prestigious awards fete.

(perhaps so far hip hop oriented that sales of CDs have taken a nosedive, thanks to radio overembracing this genre at the expense of others for airplay on Top 40 radio)

Excerpt: For better and worse, though, the real Grammy newsmakers this year are hip-hop and R&B, two idioms that dominate the major categories like never before. Witness the four top nominees – Jay-Z, Out-Kast, Beyonce and Pharrell Williams – who earned six nominations each.

(none of which has wide appeal outside the younger demos)

Excerpt: But how hip is it for the Grammys to suddenly spotlight a genre that's become so mainstream – in fashion, language, advertising, films, TV, magazines and video games – that it's now on the verge of becoming passe? "I can honestly say I'm bored with hip-hop," Jay-Z wrote last year in Vibe magazine, after stating that his latest release, "The Black Album," would be his last.

(where have you all been? Hip hop has been passe since 1996)

Excerpt: OutKast's two members – Andre Benjamin(Andre 3000) and Antwan Patton (Big Boi)– are even more outspoken about how dull and predictable their musical field has become. "Right now, hip-hop is the most uninspired, deadest (stuff) ever on the radio," Benjamin told Entertainment Weekly last year.

(Oversaturation on the radio and other media such as MTV and commercials are to blame for the over dominance of hip hop pretending to be the way for today's American pop music.)

Move it or lose it... The beat is back – get ready to shake your money-maker By Karla Peterson ARTS WRITER

Excerpt: In addition to being a belated tribute to hip-hop, the 46th annual Grammy Awards nominations are an ode to the booty. For the first time in Grammy history, the major categories – Record of the Year and Album of the Year – are dominated by songs that make you want to dance and artists with hearts full of old-school soul.

(Some factual errors are in this piece. What's this "dance" music she's talking about? Most of it is hip hop and R&B, but not dance. Karla doesn't know any better thanks to radio ignoring real dance music such as what you don't hear on Channel 933 until after midnight on weekends, or 24 hours a day on the Sirius and XM dance channels such as the XM 81 BPM channel.)

Excerpt: In the Record of the Year category, we have fun-house funk (OutKast's "Hey Ya!"), "What's Going On"-style pop protest (Black Eyed Peas' "Where Is the Love"), body-rocking hip-hop (Eminem's "Lose Yourself") and one big disco inferno (BeyoncT's "Crazy in Love").

(none of that is pure dance music, unless they're house remixes that I heard on some Internet dance channel.)

Excerpt: The beat goes on in the album category, where the nominees include Missy Elliott's twitchy "Under Construction," Justin Timberlake's R&B-fueled "Justified" and OutKast's club-to-bedroom epic "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below."

(still not dance music by any stretch of the imagination. Karla isn't working on all cylinders today. Karla continues in her piece to confuse hip hop as dance music, which isn't for the most part. Dance music can be a mix with a hip hop genre among other genres, but hip hop is not always dance, but mostly R&B, soul, or other urban subgenres.)

Excerpt: "It's been going that way for some time, and the Grammys are starting to recognize that they have to acknowledge hip-hop," says Erik Parker, music editor for Vibe magazine. "In 1988, the Grammys didn't even televise the best rap award. But now, the best pop artists are influenced by hip-hop."

(Vibe magazine is over biased towards hip hop flavored genres. They don't know what they're talking about either. The best pop artists are influenced by adult rock, synth dance, alternative, folk, rock-country, or comedy, with or without some influence on the hip hop flavor in some degree.)

Excerpt: Which brings us to 2004, where pop artists are influenced by hip-hop, hip-hop artists are returning to the R&B warmth of their old-school youth, and audiences who were raised on teen-pop's dance moves and rap's heavy bass are ready, willing and able to groove.

(but they need to get back from the kind of hip hop that doesn't appeal to music fans outside the outer edge of college age and start exploring other genres that appeal to older music fans. No wonder CD sales are way down, thanks to the oversaturation of a genre such as hip hop and teen pop.)

Excerpt: And whether it is Justin Timberlake channeling Michael Jackson, OutKast blending new-wave and Rick James, or BeyoncT putting a disco spin on an old Chi-Lites horn sample, the Top 40 has become a nonstop dance party. And this time, the music is way too loud and much too popular for the Grammys to tune out.

(again, Karla doesn't have a clue what she's talking about. There's no disco in any of Beyonce's pop tunes. Top 40 on local radio is a nonstop R&B, hip hop, and pop alternative chill zone, but far from dance that was once a mainstream on the San Diego airwaves in the late 80's and early 90's. Can't Varga and Peterson at the Buffoon listen to some real dance radio stations on Satellite and the Internet and get some clues to tell the difference between dance and hip hop/R&B/pop music?)