Dance to the music

(Regular blog entry tonight due to two very important subjects…)

As always, I must start off with my daily Lindsey Lohan report. Heard through the celebrity gossip grapevine that Lindsey is currently dating one of my idols in Ryan Adams. Apparently she has been spending a lot of time at his place in Greenwich Village and they are bonding and stuff. First of all, this just proves that Ryan Adams has something incredible going for him because he has already dated Winona Ryder, Parker Posey and Beth Orton. Not bad for a punk from North Carolina who can write some songs and plays an ok guitar but has only had one song that could even be called a marginal hit. However, this makes last week story of Lindsey getting her leg cut by a broken teacup at Bryan Adams’ (the Canadian Summer of ’69 guy) house all the more confusing. It is quite possible that Lindsey got Bryan and Ryan confused and forgot which one she was dating at the time. I swear she probably looked up, went “Wait, you’re not my boyfriend” and then dropped the teacup. Only time and the inevitable E! True Hollywood Story will tell.

Here’s the other subject for the night. I was asked by someone today what I thought of the Grammy’s and I answered, “I didn’t think of them.” Here are some reasons why: Steely Dan “Two Against Nature”, Celine Dion “Falling Into You”, Phil Collins “No Jacket Required”, Eric Clapton “Change the World”, Phil Collins “Another Day in Paradise” and Toto “Toto IV”. All of those won either Album of the Year or Song of the Year. Add in Christina Aguilera winning Best New Artist a few years back and you can see why I have absolutely no respect for the Grammy’s whatsoever. They in no way reflect who is the best at music.

But the thing is, there really is no way to give out awards for music. Even as someone who is living proof that one can rank order every aspect of their life I have a hell of a time when someone asks me what the best album of the year is. I can tell you the one that I like the most right now but that doesn’t mean that I’ll like it next month or next year. Ten years ago I still would have claimed that R.E.M.’s “Out of Time” was one of the best albums ever. Now I listen to it and I can barely make my way through the disc. Music is a very malleable medium.

Also, there really is no qualitative way to measure the quality of a piece of music. You can’t just rely on technical mastery or lyrical inventiveness. If you listed the Top Ten songs of all time, regardless of genre, era, what have you there is only one song that I can guarantee you will make the list. That song is “Louie Louie” by The Kingsmen. There has never been a better rock and roll song written than that one. Even the mention of it makes you smile. Play it at any party, any gathering and everyone will be singing and dancing along. This from a song that is unintelligible and may potentially contain a chord. So music isn’t like movies where you can try to set some artistic standards, there is a much more visceral side to the equation.

That’s why the Grammy’s will never work. It’s impossible to judge what is better when what is better depends on all the things that make up your world view. Sure, occasionally they’ll be right and say that Coldplay’s “Clocks” deserves an award but there is no way that you can tell me that U2 put out a better album than The Arcade Fire. And it’s tough to respect an award that Aerosmith has several of, a band whose entire song catalog can be played without moving the fingers of your left hand on the fretboard. So we can have the award ceremony for the industry to congratulate itself and to have a celebrity fashion show and to bring Sly Stone out of hiding but don’t look to it to judge what is best. Because it simply can’t. Because if it did, Josh Rouse’s “Nashville” would have won every award.