Nomination Celebration

I think we all know one person in our lives who seems to think their birthday should be treated as a national holiday. You know the people I am talking about - they send you obnoxiously-long emails regarding the theme and dress code for their party and incredibly detailed descriptions of exactly what they expect you to bring as tribute since they made it another 365 days. (As always, if you can't figure out which person in your group I may be talking about, there is a good chance that is because it's you.) In fact, most of the time time these people aren't satisfied with a party on their birthday, they want several days of celebration as a run-up, as if they are Jesus or the Queen of England. And, since an inflated ego is never accompanied by self-awareness, these people are also blissfully unaware that not only are most people not planning to celebrate any of their pre-birthday parties, their self-aggrandizing is making people want to ignore their actual birthday. I can only assume the people who organize the Grammys are just these sort of people.

Obviously, I have come to expect people who work in the entertainment industry to have inflated egos. I'm not knocking them for this, as it clearly works for them - if they didn't think they knew what most of America would enjoy for entertainment they would probably work in a more normal profession. However, that doesn't mean I'm on board with all the self-congratulating they do. You see, rather than be that person who tries to make their birthday an epic night, Hollywood tries to celebrate itself a little more subtly by throwing award show after award show. Previously I have written my theory that we should cut all awards ceremonies down to the big five: the Emmys, the Grammys, the Oscars, the Tonys and the ESPYs. The way I figure it, that cover just about everyone. So far my plan doesn't appear to have much support, but at least they haven't added any more awards to the mix and the ones that still happy can be easily ignored. Still, you can imagine my confusion this morning when I saw a news blurb about Justin Bieber's manager being unhappy his client did not win any Grammys this year - I'm pretty good about blocking out shows I don't want to watch, but I didn't think I was that good. Besides, I always thought award shows were on Sundays to get the biggest crowds. That was when I found out that the show which was on last night was the Grammy nomination concert. Yep, you read that right - the Grammys have a separate show just to tell you who has been nominated.

I guess on some level it makes sense - people hear what movies are up for Oscars and immediately want to run out and see them, so assuming they would also want to hear more from the artist who have been nominated for a Grammy is not an giant leap. (With radio stations playing the same 10 artists on 4-hour loops you certainly won't be finding any new music through that medium.) Every year the Grammys release a compilation of all the nominees and it appears to do well, so trying to get people to buy the songs individually before that CD comes out is just good business. (I may not like iTunes policy of charging extra for a band's biggest hit, but I understand it.) Not to mention, with the sorry state of the music industry these days they could use any bump they can get. If a couple hundred people were persuaded to buy a song they heard last night than the show has to be considered a win for anyone involved. Plus, the people who watch the show always says the performances are the best part of the ceremony (further proof that maybe we don't actually need an awards show) and this provides them the opportunity to have more performances than usual.

However, this does feel like the Grammys are immediately expressing some level of bias. If you are going to let a few of the musical acts perform, don't you have to let them all perform or risk tipping your hand in one direction or another? Going into the Oscars we all have a pretty good idea of who is going to win, but the producers at least have the common courtesy to put a camera on every nominee. If five bands are nominated and we only hear from two of them, doesn't that pretty much give away the winner? On top of that a show like this can be can be a double-edged sword in terms of over-exposure. What if you were thinking of watching the show and were incredible turned off by the nominees? I guess in the end I just don't like the idea out of making a show out of reading a list of names. Yes, the Oscars will show it when they nominate people but it's on extremely early in the morning, on a random channel I'm not even sure is carried by all cable providers and doesn't include any of the actors coming up to reenact a moment from their film. It is much more simple and classy. If by comparison Hollywood is seen as the model for restraint you must be doing something wrong.