So it's this time of the year again. No Linkin Park nominations, but no surprise there. Here are the major categories. ALBUM OF THE YEAR Daft Punk - Random Access Memories Kendrick Lamar - Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - The Heist Sara Bareilles - The Blessed Unrest Taylor Swift - Red RECORD OF THE YEAR Bruno Mars - "Locked Out of Heaven" Daft Punk feat. Pharrell - "Get Lucky" Imagine Dragons - "Radioactive" Lorde - "Royals" Robin Thicke feat. T.I. and Pharrell - "Blurred Lines" SONG OF THE YEAR Bruno Mars - "Locked Out of Heaven" Katy Perry - "Roar" Lorde - "Royals" Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Mary Lambert - "Same Love" Pink feat. Nate Ruess - "Just Give Me a Reason" BEST NEW ARTIST Ed Sheeran James Blake Kacey Musgraves Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Kendrick Lamar BEST ROCK ALBUM Black Sabbath - 13 David Bowie - The Next Day Led Zeppelin - Celebration Day Kings of Leon - Mechanical Bull Neil Young with Crazy Horse - Psychadelic Pill Queens of the Stone Age - ...Like Clockwork BEST ROCK PERFORMANCE Alabama Shakes - "Always Alright" David Bowie - "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" Imagine Dragons - "Radioactive" Jack White - "I'm Shakin'" Led Zeppelin - "Kashmir" (Live) Queens of the Stone Age - "My God is the Sun" BEST ROCK SONG Black Sabbath - "God is Dead?" Dave Grohl, Paul McCartney, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear - "Cut Me Some Slack" Gary Clark, Jr. - "Ain't Messin' Round" Muse - "Panic Station" The Rolling Stones - "Doom and Gloom" BEST METAL PERFORMANCE Anthrax - "T.N.T." Black Sabbath - "God is Dead?" Dream Theater - "The Enemy Inside" Killswitch Engage - "In Due Time" Volbeat feat. King Diamond - "Room 24" BEST ALTERNATIVE MUSIC ALBUM Tame Impala - Lonerism The National - Trouble Will Find Me Neko Case - The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight, the Harder I Fight, the More I Love You Nine Inch Nails - Hesitation Marks Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City Since most people here are rock fans, I've decided to put the rock category here. The rest of the nominees are here: http://www.grammy.com/nominees
I'm not surprised Kanye barely has any nominations, since Kendrick had an awesome year. What blows my mind is how Jay-Z got so many noms, how Sara Bareilles, despite her not being bad, is nominated for Album of the Year and how Justin Timberlake, despite having a best-selling double album, does not have Album of the Year nom.
The past 3 years I've actually liked the Grammy nominations for the most part. They obviously aren't going to include a ton of lesser known music, but I felt they struck a good balance between music that was both mainstream and well written. This year though...not so much. Taylor Swift and Macklemore for album of the year? I'm not trying to say those are bad albums or bad artists. But when you're the biggest, more prestigious music awards show, and you're trying to figure out what 5 albums represent the best music of the entire year, you come up with those two? Wow. 20/20 Experience Part 1? Vampire Weekend is hardly *underground*, if you could nominate Arcade Fire for The Suburbs surely you could nominate Modern Vampires of the City. You could have nominated Yeezus for album of the year. The National got a lot of acclaim. Yeah, not a fan of a lot of these nominations. Although the "Alternative" category, whatever that means anymore, is great. Also important to note that anything that came out after Sept. 30 I believe? Is up for nomination in 2015.
My Picks: ALBUM OF THE YEAR Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - The Heist The Heist is a modern classic. Enough Said. What The Heist has that the other four nominated albums don't is imagination and power. The Heist sets itself around many issues and enlightenments upon everyday life as we know it. Tracks such as "Wing$", which strikes down consumerism and its effect on people, "Same Love", which is a LGBT rights anthem, "Jimmy Iovine", which targets the music industry, "Neon Cathedral", which looks upon Macklemore's former alcohol addiction and his religious side, and so on. The Heist itself is one very moving piece. Kendrick Lamar's Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City is also an equally moving piece, but The Heist has the upper hand mainly because the music of The Heist is overall a much more powerful and diverse mix of sounds where as Good Kid had a low singular tone throughout the whole album. RECORD OF THE YEAR Imagine Dragons - "Radioactive" In my honest opinion, all the nominees except for "Blurred Lines", which has a really off-putting and messy production, are worthy of this award. Bruno Mars' "Locked Out of Heaven" is a very jumpy and catchy track, which manages to blow out all of its energy from the start and maintains it right until the very end. The rattling jump-start-go beat and the fine tones on Mars' vocals make this track a worthy choice for the award. Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" is also equally a good choice because of how daring it was in bringing back Disco into the mainstream, and not only did it work, it's probably one of the best tracks of the year! Lorde's "Royals", which captures a perfect sense of emptiness in the echoing percussion and over-production of Lorde's vocals, is also a great choice. However, Imagine Dragons' "Radioactive" is my choice simply because of Alex Da Kid's absolutely ripping production work. The perfect fusion of electronic music and traditional alt rock progression gives the track not only a great kick, but is simply that has to be heard to be believed, and upon believing it, to be played over and over again. "Radioactive" is addictive, much like "Get Lucky", but the addiction for "Radioactive" is simply unique because "Get Lucky" is dance music, and would be addictive. "Radioactive", however, is not. SONG OF THE YEAR Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Mary Lambert - "Same Love" "Save Love" is a bold song, and triumphs over all of the shortlisted nominees for this award. Bruno Mars' "Locked Out of Heaven", Katy Perry's "Roar" and Pink's "Just Give Me a Reason" are simply traditional pop songs, with a love song, a break-up song and a get-back-together song. Lorde's "Royals" has merit, however, as it puts out a message of defiance against what contemporary society deems 'cool', but "Same Love" deserves the award mainly because it is a well-written argument against Conservative America. It has a political stance and a strong one at heart as well. It's doesn't address the issue of gay rights too early to draw criticism and not too late to be deemed late-to-the-party. It comes at a perfect time where society is once again evolving, and manages to bring across a message that is both important and well written. BEST NEW ARTIST Macklemore & Ryan Lewis For The Heist. there really isn't more to be said. Nobody on the shortlist has made more powerful music than Macklemore and Ryan Lewis have.
Why not? They gave every ARIA Award to Tame Impala this year! It happens! Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are really great artists, after all.
(most of the) WINNERS Record of the Year - "Get Lucky" - Daft Punk featuring Pharrell and Nile Rodgers Album of the Year - Random Access Memories - Daft Punk Song of the Year - "Royals" - Lorde Best New Artist - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Best Pop Solo Performance - "Royals" - Lorde Best Pop Duo/Group Performance - "Get Lucky" - Daft Punk featuring Pharrell and Nile Rodgers Best Pop Vocal Album - Unorthodox Jukebox - Bruno Mars Best Dance Recording - "Clarity" - Zedd Best Dance/Electronic Album - Random Access Memories - Daft Punk Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance - To Be Loved - Michael Bublé Best Rock Performance - "Radioactive" - Imagine Dragons Best Rock Song - "Cut Me Some Slack" - Paul McCartney, Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear Best Rock Album - Celebration Day - Led Zeppelin Best Alternative Music Album - Modern Vampires of the City - Vampire Weekend Best R&B Song - "Pusher Love Song" - Justin Timberlake Best Urban Contemporary Album - Unapologetic - Rihanna Best R&B Album - Girl on Fire - Alicia Keys Best Rap Performance - "Thrift Shop" - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz Best Rap/Sung Collaboration - "Holy Grail" – Jay-Z featuring Justin Timberlake Best Rap Song - "Thrift Shop" - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz Best Rap Album - The Heist - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Best Country Solo Performance - "Wagon Wheel" – Darius Rucker Best Country Duo/Group Performance - "From This Valley" – The Civil Wars Best Country Song - "Merry Go 'Round" - Kacey Musgraves Best Country Album - Same Trailer Different Park – Kacey Musgraves Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media - Sound City: Real to Reel – Dave Grohl & Various Artists Best Song Written for Visual Media - "Skyfall" - Adele
So proud of Daft Punk's clean sweep at the Grammy's. They won all five of their nominations! Well-deserved success, IMO.
Don't get me wrong guys, I love Daft Punk and I am fond of Random Access Memories as an album, but why did "Get Lucky" win record of the year? It's just a disco beat...
Reading stuff like this makes the musician in me hurt... The syncopation and soul, musicianship and just plain fucking amazing technique from a pure, technical recording engineer level just isn't appreciated anymore. I love all the songs nominated but when you get down to staying power and pure song craftmanship, Get Lucky by far. You have to understand the difference between SONG of the year and RECORD of the year. SONG of the year is for the songwriters. Lorde and her producer wrote her entire album so they (Ella and Little) won best SONG for writing Royals. Daft Punk won best RECORD which is an award for the technical side. Production, mixing, engineering, mastering. The overall sound. The people who had a hand in the record other than the songwriter/artist. From that standpoint DP definitely had one of the best if not THE best album in terms of just the sound. The drum sound on that album, christ! Just my two cents if people didn't know the difference between Song and Record of the year.
I do understand the difference, which is the reason why I asked "why did a simple disco beat won record of the year" instead of "why did a song about sex win record of the year?". I wasn't really expecting it at all, to be fairly honest, to me it's just another disco beat. There's an entire history of dance songs from the 70s that sound nearly the same, which is why disco died in the first place, other than the fact that thousands of disco records were burned in a bonfire during a baseball game. I was honestly expecting either the out-of-this-world electronic rock symphony ("Radioactive") or the hauntingly beautiful bass production ("Royals") over Cowbells and Michael Jackson impersonations ("Blurred Lines"), the song that goes woop-woop-woop-UHHH ("Locked Out of Heaven") and the simple disco beat ("Get Lucky"). I did say, however, that I wouldn't have minded if they gave "Get Lucky" or "Locked Out of Heaven" though, but I really was not expecting these two to even come close to the award, let along "Get Lucky" winning it! It's just a wild shock to me, that's all.