Grammy Awards Voter Fatigue
Soooo, the Grammy's are on tonight. Sigh. I'm sitting here trying really hard to care. As a voting member of NARAS, I probably should care. But I didn't vote this year. I tried to. You wanna know why I didn't? It was too boring.
Seriously. It's an on-line voting process where you log on with your NARAS number, which takes you to a secret page of all the nominees and categories and their corresponding numbers, which you then darken in on your ballot as you make your choices.
The first time I logged in, I was bored by page one. I thought, "Well, maybe I just need to take a nap." So I did. A week later I tried again. This time, a spinning rainbow ball on my lap top screen was all it took to get me to decide, "f**k this, I'd rather eat a snack." Figuring the third time was the charm, I grabbed some coffee and a preemptive nosh and sat down at my computer, determined.
The thing is, I like Amy Winehouse 
and Kanye and Feist, etc. But whom are we kidding here? This is pop culture we're talking about... and so, even if I don't necessarily find the artists themselves boring, these mind-numbingly banal categories make me want to slip into a boredom coma. Did you know that there is still a Best New Age Album category? New Age has been called "New Age" for almost 30 years. When does it become "Old Age"? And Best Instrumental Pop album? Really? Anyway, I bailed on voting for the third and final time, and while drinking my coffee and eating my snack, scanned the Huffington Post for info about the REAL voting we have coming up instead.
And yet, I'm not one to merely complain without offering some possible alternatives. So here are some of my suggestions for some Grammy categories that might be more fun to vote for next time...
Most Pandering Pop Song -
Best New Artist Under 12 -
Best Song as an iPod commercial -
The "Oops -we-dissed-you-when-you-were-relevant" Grammy -
Best Theme song for Republican Nominee -
Biggest Commercial Success/Critical Flop -
Biggest Critical Success/Commercial Flop -
Best Female vocal (for an actress) -
The "This-is-what the-kids-are-listening-to???" Album of the Year -
Most Cynical Album -
Best Computer Voice Narration -
Oh, wait, that one is real...check it out...
Anyway, feel free to cast your votes!
Jill added: "I will be watching the Wire instead of the Grammys"
Henry David Thoreau said, "How sad it is that so many sit down to write before they have stood up to live." I think it's even sadder that a lot of these people do not even write - they just sing and look pretty. Do you think Mama Cass would have made it past the first round of American Idol?
I know we can all get too nostalgic for times that were not that good, but I am getting jaded when pretend stars (Hannah Montanna) make more money than flesh and blood people.