past the margins
Feb 12, 2012
I remember that middle school English reminder not to use the word you're trying to define when defining it, that explaining that something is amazing because it truly is amazing is an infinite loop. But with apologies to my 6th grade teacher, Mrs. DiLorenzo, my favorite of the tracks nominated for best pop solo performance of the year is my favorite because it's the best pop solo performance.
The nominees for this Grammy are:
Adele
From 21
Lady Gaga
From Born This Way
Bruno Mars
From Doo-Wops & Hooligans
Katy Perry
Pink
And my choice for the 2012 Grammy for Best Pop Solo Performance of the Year is:
Someone Like You
Great pop in this section. And now that the Academy has combined a few former categories (Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, and Best Pop Instrumental Performance), we get the best of what would've been in those categories rolled into one.
Yoü And I is great stadium pop. It's loud, has a bit of country in it, and is so catchy that it has this Jersey kid ready to profess love for Nebraska at the top of his lungs. The vocal is powerful, gritty, and contagious.
And Katy Perry's Firework, the chorus: it's clean (almost no vibrato), and grows into something explosive and bright. The musicality is strikingly obvious. It's almost visual.
But Someone Like You hurts. It hurts.
It's in the phrasing. It's in her fragility at the peak of the chorus. It's in the story. It's so full, so rich, from the first breath to the last. It's an absolutely incredible performance.
Feb 11, 2012
Honestly, I'm not 100% sure what the rules for differentiation are here. I understand the rules for qualifying: "A new artist is defined as any performing artist who releases, during the eligibility year, the recording that first establishes the public identity of that artist as a performer."
But once we've established that these five nominees are new artists, uh, then what?
Is it based on best release? That seems wrong. The Band Perry had one in the eligibility year. Skrillex had multiple. Besides, if it was best release, I imagine the Academy would've made this category Best Album by a New Artist.
So the award criteria is likely more inclusive than that. And if no one's going to box me in, well, I'm making my own rules. Below is my formula, where each factor on the right side of the equation is an admittedly qualitative analysis that I'm just going to assign a number.
Best New Artist = [release(s)] + [originality] + [solo/band potential] + [influence potential].
And with that, the nominees for the Best New Artist Grammy are:
I vote for Skrillex.
I think he's the one with the most potential to influence the careers of others, which significantly weights the right side of the equation in his favor. And that's not just because he's a producer in addition to being a solo artist. It's also because, of the five, his sound is most likely to push artists around him. He's ushering in a post-David Guetta world. The other nominees had solid releases. Nicki Minaj will sell more records (an acknowledgement that's not at all criticism). And Bon Iver will probably receive more critical acclaim. But which one of them sounds like the beginning of something new?
This category may be the best example of why all I'm doing is talking about what I liked most and not what I think is actually likely to win. It's also probably the toughest grouping.
The nominees for the 2012 Grammy for Song of the Year are:
Jeff Bhasker, Stacy Ferguson, Malik Jones, Warren Trotter, Kanye West
From My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Ted Dwane, Ben Lovett, Marcus Mumford, Country Winston
From Sigh No More
Brody Brown, Claude Kelly, Philip Lawrence, Ari Levine, Bruno Mars, Andrew Wyatt
From Doo-Wops & Hooligans
Justin Vernon
From Bon Iver
Adele Adkins, Paul Epworth
From 21
Over the last couple of weeks, I've wanted to pick different songs at different times. When I decided Rolling in the Deep was my favorite of those nominated for record of the year, I wanted it to win every category it's in. When the emo kicked in, and I imagined a cross-country train ride while watching the snow fall on the world passing by, I knew Holocene's simple beauty was unmatched. But then I found The Cave's inescapabale references to Plato's Allegory of the Cave unbelievably timely for a former philosophy major like me who's on a mission to have a different kind of year.
But my winner is All of the Lights.
Kanye assembles Rihanna, Alicia Keys, John Legend, The-Dream, Elly Jackson of La Roux, Fergie, Kid Cudi, Ryan Leslie, Charlie Wilson, and Elton John (among others). And not only does he manage to not make it sound like a USA for Africa charity single, the integration is so seamless, you don't know who you've heard until you check the liner notes. As ensemble pieces go, it's Love Actually instead of Rat Race.
And when he pairs that with a chorus which may borrow from the idea of sunlight as a disinfectant to expose a story the verses tell about a man setting a path of destruction (for himself and those he loves), Kanye's got a production of enormity.
Breaking that "no comparisons" rule again, Holocene is gorgeous, and Justin Vernon's explanation of it as "this idea that places are times and people are places and times are... people" gives it great depth. But its epochs are his, and despite how beautifully he presents them, for me as the listener, they're untouchable. And as inspired as I am by the escape The Cave offers, I don't marvel that it could come to be.
I marvel at All of the Lights.
So it's pretty obvious that I'm behind on writing about all 77 nominee categories. But just like there's no crying in baseball, there's no quitting here. So rather than look at this as an exercise in futility, I'm considering it stubborn determination. And with that, moving right along.
The Grammy nominees for Album of the Year are:
Adele
XL Recordings/Columbia Records
Foo Fighters
RCA Records/Roswell Records
Lady Gaga
Streamline/Interscope/Kon Live
Bruno Mars
Elektra
Rihanna
Def Jam
My favorite surprised me:
Doo-Wops & Hooligans
I'd been so out of touch with the bigger picture since last year's Grammys that I had no idea Grenade, Just the Way You Are, Runaway Baby, The Lazy Song, and Marry You were all on the same release. It's an incredibly solid album, with 10 tracks at only 36 minutes.
There are a lot of things I look for in a favorite album (Grammy nominations aside), including but not limited to: is it a complete thought; how many tracks were successful singles; how many tracks not released as singles could've been; track arrangement/scheduling; whether the last track is worthy of being the closer.
I don't want to make these picks comparisons, but I did start this category thinking there was no way I wouldn't pick 21, for the strength of its maturity, for its soul, for its depth. But Don't You Remember is thin for me. And Set Fire to the Rain misses with its chorus, one that doesn't quite become what it could be. It's light at the verses, careful, but it builds to something heavy, weighted, and doesn't culminate in a sound that soars like a similar-in-theme chorus from Florence + the Machine would.
But Bruno's album, track for track, is easily the most listenable album front-to-back on the list. It's a complete thought, and there's versatility in the conversation. There's thunderous pop in Grenade, reggae tones in The Lazy Song and Liquor Store Blues, R&B in Our First Time, sunkissed pop a la Jack Johnson or Colbie Caillat in Count on Me (which sounds like it could be the b-side to Just the Way You Are), and brass-and-grime and hip hop in The Other Side (which sounds like it could've been plucked from The Lady Killer). And yet it works, wonderfully, without feeling scattered. If there's an exception, it's Talking to the Moon, but with its placement, it serves its role as somewhat of a prelude to Liquor Store Blues well.
Four of this album's 10 tracks appeared on the Billboard Hot 100. It opens with one of the biggest singles of the Grammy season, and closes with great energy, with a chorus that sounds like Cee Lo's take on Chris Isaak's Wicked Game. It's near-perfect pop.
Jan 31, 2012
I'm going to BiSC. You already know this; I know. Nothing to see in this paragraph. Moving right along.
But a lot can happen between now and the middle of May. Maybe I make it through the Harry Potter series, which I just started this month (probably as the last person you know of to have just started). Maybe I get back to writing songs again. Or maybe someone finally surprises me with the cheetah I've always wanted and I freak.out like Kristen Bell getting a sloth.
What I'm pretty sure will happen, though, is that I won't make any good decisions about what image should be on my iPhone's home screen without some professional help. And, yes, of course I spend time forecasting the likelihood of such things. I'm like the Al Roker of incessant nonsense.
But, thankfully, that's where Paper'd comes in. It's a custom wallpaper app for iOS devices (currently in its pre-release phase, which means sign up now to be notified the instant you can make it the latest tuft in your iCloud).
To be fair, though, I don't really meet all of the target user base criteria:
See, I've been making some poor iPhone screen choices, kids. Currently? It's Charlie Brown. Always been a fan, because he handled failure with grace and always got back up after falling when Lucy yanked the football away.
But I'm 29. And there's a picture of an animated child on my phone.
So I tried something with a nod to typography that also served as a reminder to take a deep breath sometimes.
But as much as I want to know more about typography, I don't actually know anything, which means I get that the wallpaper's supposed to be interesting but couldn't explain why. And so there's a lot of pretending with this one.
Paper'd can help me escape this sick cycle carousel. And since it's going to be free to grab from the App Store, it's exactly the kind of gamble I won't find in Vegas: a sure thing.
But, amazingly, there's a bonus. Just by admitting how much I'm in need of some professional help from Shatterboxx and Xhatch - the makers of Paper'd - I'm eligible for a refund of my BiSC registration fee!
And so to update the list of things that could happen by the time May comes around, maybe I'll be headed to Vegas for free. But I'll definitely have finally cured my iPhone home screen shame.