Old Music

The Grammy Awards are forever caught in a nostalgia loop, with “representatives of yesteryear weighing in on the acts of today,” writes Jon Caramanica in The New York Times (2/12/13). This is evident in the winners: “The garage-rock revivalist Black Keys won three awards … The Queen imitators Fun won best new artist and song of the year and the Peter Gabriel-manque Gotye” also won three awards. “The Dust Bowl fetishists Mumford & Sons won album of the year, the night’s top prize.”

While these acts are “are all young, or youngish, they unfailingly hew to old styles, dating back in some cases to the 1930s. If the Grammy narrative is to be believed, the last time there was musical innovation worthy of celebration was the mid-1980s, which may well line up with the prime creative period of many Grammy voters.” Meanwhile, “hip-hop and dance music, which reached their commercial primes more recently, were shut out of the main category nominations.”

R&B singer Frank Ocean was the “primary, loosely construed exception to the forward-looking nomination freeze-out,” winning twice. The only hip-hop performance of the evening featured Chuck D and LL Cool J, “rappers two decades past their peak relevance.” While Frank Ocean, Taylor Swift and Rihanna performed solo, “many were effectively supervised by an older peer — Ed Sheeran with Elton John, Bruno Mars with Sting,” for instance. “What’s left,” writes Jon, “is an impression that the generation of musicians genuinely driving pop into a bolder future isn’t to be trusted.”