Hucksterism

hucksterism \'huk-stuhr,iz-uhm\ noun
1: persuasive showmanship in advertising or selling : COMMERCIALISM

Having not updated my blog in a while, being occupied with other exciting things such as the furtherment of learning and whatnot, I feel that the time has come for some words to show that I do in fact wish to continue being blogtastic. The Grammy Awards present a fine opportunity.

Each time one such awards show comes around every year, I am freshly astonished by the unstable but insistent veneer placed over the proceedings. Or, rather, the blatant and aggressive commercialism, the over-the-top musical numbers, the emphasis on business rather than art, the forced feel-goody-ness. This applies not just to the Grammys but all of its various cousins-german: Emmys, Tonys, Oscars, Golden Globes, heck, even the SAGs are a little too glossed-over for my taste. Being a musician myself, I like to imagine the artistic ideal of art for art's sake, rather than art for survival's sake, and seeing the Biz in action is a new disillusionment every time.

There were some impressive musical features of this year's show, however. John Mayer caused my ears to perk up (which he also did last year sometime with his cool single "Daughters"), as did Gnarls Barkley (with vocals by the bizarre-looking but excellent-sounding Cee-Lo Green, seen at right) and Corinne Rae Bailey. Carrie Underwood raised herself in my esteem slightly (counteracting her Jesus the Truck Driver song) by covering Bob Wills and Graham Parsons songs, and Christina Aguilera raised herself in my esteem vastly with her James Brown imitation. Like so many other female music stars, they're hot and they can sing but their material is so awful that I have no desire to listen to it. Neither am I a tremendous fan of the excessive melisma popular among doyens of popular music. Justin Timberlake, oddly enough, wrote a halfway decent song called "What Goes Around Comes Around," which was tolerable even bypassing the cliches and... well, the fact that it's Justin Timberlake, after all. It also has very similar chord changes to the Staind song "It's Been A While", which I was mucking with on the guitar earlier today.

Wyclef Jean made me laugh by singing "u really swing it like u ya come 4rm colombia" during "Hips Don't Lie" with Shakira, who is always entertaining to watch but was slightly lacking in vocal force tonight due to being out of breath from dancing. And, of course, the Dixie Chicks, a personal favorite, received plenty of recognition from the Academy (or whatever the music one is referred to as) for their latest excellent record (album? what's the difference?) "Taking the Long Way." Natalie Maines showed some tactful restraint in not assaulting Bush or the government or the establishment or anything in her acceptance speech. Perhaps she's figured out that America doesn't like free speech. Hm.

Returning to the commercialism theme, the almost grotesque spectacles of the various musical numbers (with some tasteful exceptions such as the Dixie Chicks and weird-voiced James Blunt) were a little too much. The pyrotechnics, strobe lights, choruses of scantily-clad women and so on are only to be expected from such a major concert- but in order to fit all of this in, they had to sacrifice presentations of some pretty major awards, which I guess were not pop enough to make it on the air, and the performances of some pretty major songs. So I'll wait until next year, shaking my head at the way it is and doing nothing to alter it, because actually, in the grand scheme of things, there are a lot worse problems in the world than the fact that some of my favorite bands failed to be acknowledged at the Grammy Awards.