Posted on 02/11/2017 5:18:30 PM PST by markomalley
Culture critics have long hammered the Grammy Awards as tragically unhip. So CBS knew there was one way to get hip quickly: Sunday nights awards ceremonies will be their first show with a male trophy presenters and .a trans woman presenter.
Actor Derek Marrocco and transgender model Martina Robledo will hand out awards alongside the typical blonde model/actress Hollin Haley. APs Lynn Elber hailed the nod as breaking with hoary male-chauvinist tradition. Changing up the Grammy trophy presenters isnt window-dressing.
Robledo, whos from San Diego, said she was honored to join Caitlyn Jenner, Laverne Cox and other transgender people in the more-inclusive media spotlight. But she expects viewer reaction to her presence will be mixed.
I know its going to make some people uncomfortable and make others weep for joy, she said.
Im just going to step out there and strut and make sure I deliver my best, because theres people out there looking up to me.
That may include transgender boys and girls or other minorities, she said, calling them the people I want to speak for to let them know that there is a better world out there for us.
Washington Post music critic Chris Richards is one of those Grammy grumps, as he proved with a Sunday Arts piece headlined: A Grammys Pity Party: Kudos to the Recording Academy for honoring youthful voices, but why so many songs drip with white-boy melancholy and ego? The online headline is harsher: No Grammys for old men! And dont let these millennials win, either.
Richards argued himself into a pretzel, that somehow, "The deeper the Grammys sink into meaninglessness, the more meaningful our shouts become." The Grammy judges are giving the top awards to young whites, and not black "social justice" musicians:
Last February, Grammy voters chose Taylor Swifts 1989 as its album of the year over Kendrick Lamars To Pimp a Butterfly, and on Sunday, theyll be making a similar choice between soothing, white radio-pop and imaginative, black agitprop when Adeles 25 competes with Beyoncés Lemonade for the evenings most coveted prize.
Inside the paper, the headline was "Grammys Wallow in Millennial Misery." Richards gave a bit of credit that the awards aren't all thrown at artists past their prime, but....
Still, its hard to shake the feeling that this years voters are listening to young music through old ears. Thats because four songs nominated for the nights biggest trophies Lukas Grahams 7 Years, Mike Posners I Took a Pill in Ibiza, Twenty One Pilots Stressed Out, and Justin Biebers Love Yourself each seem to reinforce some of the most tedious stereotypes about millennials. These songs feel self-absorbed, superficial, entitled, whiny. Do older listeners hear that as authenticity? Let us discuss them now and never again....
Individually, these songs are little more than pesky melodic irritants, but together, they seem to be burnishing a new aesthetic of millennial white-boy melancholy a sound that has clearly resonated with the membership of the Recording Academy.
He's not wrong that a more seasoned critic can easily dismiss teen-appeal acts like Bieber or Twenty One Pilots as Lite. But part of it is explicitly racial: "Self-pity wont float a ballad if the vocalist doesnt sound genuinely wounded. Self-absorption is more magnetic when its scandalizing (see: Kanye West) than when its austere." Richards even compared these young whipper-snappers to the late Andy Rooney, the caricature of the grumpy white grandpa (now that's taking the fight to CBS):
And if whining about these whiners makes you feel as if youve suddenly been possessed by the roving spirit of Andy Rooney, its important to remember that there are still armies of young maestros forging ambitious, self-aware music out of hope, fury, freedom and desire. Some are competing for best new artist on Sunday night (Chance the Rapper, Maren Morris), some will compete for lesser prizes, (Lil Yachty, Gallant), some were unceremoniously snubbed (YG, Alessia Cara, Young Thug), and one wisely decided to boycott the Grammys outright (Frank Ocean).
Richards is championing the black millennials, like Yachty, YG, and Young Thug, who at 25 has had "six children by four women." Ocean bit the Grammy hand in just the right way to thrill journalists: he compared himself to Colin Kaepernick taking a knee. I think the infrastructure of the awarding system and the nomination system and screening system is dated, he said. Id rather this be my Colin Kaepernick moment for the Grammys than sit there in the audience.
Go AIDS STDs and ODs Go!
Off homowood!
The faggotry won’t irritate me as I haven’t watched the Grammys since...well...never.
You might notice my name.
Yeah... that’s because when I joined Free Republic Mr G and I were involved in this nonsense. We voted for them, and Mr G has worked on a number of nominated and winning albums (that word will show you how old we are).
We dropped out of the academy about 15 years ago, when they started making political statements that we didn’t agree with. When we resigned we told them why. They were so clueless that they didn’t even recognize the statements were political!
Mr G still works on nominated music.... but we no longer care. Won’t watch, won’t even bother to find out who won.
I’ve never watched the Grammies. And this move won’t change me from not watching.
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