Grammy preview: Youth will be served

Two of this year’s album-of-the year nominees (Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift) are on their first or second albums, and the remaining three are coming off big commercial successes (Beyonce, Black Eyed Peas, Dave Matthews Band). That these artists were nominated for the big prize in the same year as acclaimed but commercially flat new releases by Bob Dylan and U2 speaks volumes about the shifting mindset of the National Academy of Recordings Arts and Sciences. Black Eyed Peas’ rapper-songwriter-producer will.i.am is no Dylan as a creative talent, but the two mega singles he oversaw in 2009, “I Got a Feeling” and “Boom Boom Pow,” sold more than 9 million digital downloads. Dylan can’t compete with those numbers, but in past years he might’ve been nominated simply because he happens to be Bob Dylan. Not so in 2010.

This year’s nominees suggest there’s more at work here than “artistic excellence,” which is what the academy claims to personify. For decades, the Grammys have been as much a television show as a music-industry fete, and ratings certainly play a role in how each year’s telecast is put together. Like the music industry itself, the numbers for the Grammy telecast have been slumping. Last year’s telecast drew 19 million viewers, a 10 percent increase from the previous year, but still way down overall – the Grammys consistently attracted 30 million or more viewers until 1994, and have been struggling to reach 20 million the last four years. Among the coveted 18-to-49 demographic, the Grammys scored a 7.4 rating last year, a 14 percent boost from 2008 but still the third-lowest performance since 1992.

So it wouldn’t be far-fetched to assume that the Grammys are loading up on young performers this year to attract the viewers the academy needs to put on a viable television show. All five best-album nominees are scheduled to rock the Staples Center in Los Angeles on the broadcast, and the hope is that millions of young viewers will tune in to watch Fergie strut, Lady Gaga warble and Dave Matthews jam.

And yet the mind-boggling number of nominations accorded Beyonce (10) and Swift (8) sounds like the Grammys are taking this let’s-get-hip impulse too far. Ratings and behind-the-scenes political powerplays are the only reasons to fathom how Beyonce’s “I Am … Sasha Fierce” got the nod ahead of superior albums by Maxwell (“BLACKsummers’night”) and Kanye West (“808’s and Heartbreak”) in the best-album category. The academy may have had its fill of West’s boorish awards-show behavior, but he’s still making great music, and “808’s” is one of those rare albums – deeply personal, artistically daring and commercially successful – that doesn’t come around that often.

As for Swift, she’s still pretty callow as a songwriter, the country-pop answer to Avril Lavigne or Nick Jonas. I don’t doubt that she’s got a solid career ahead of her, but the Grammy avalanche is too much too soon. 

On the other hand, be careful what you wish for. Do we really want the Grammys to return to the days when they were handing out career awards to veteran performers while ignoring contemporary acts? This year’s nominations contained far fewer examples of such crusty nostalgia, but a few doozeys still slipped past. Even Hall and Oates have to be wondering how they got nominated for best pop performance by a duo or group with vocals for a live rendition of their 1976 hit “Sara Smile.” Can the academy be serious when it tells us there weren’t five better pop vocal performances in 2008-09 than this quaint remake? As Quincy Jones would say, “Unbelievable!”

greg@gregkot.com