I had the good fortune of being able to attend the 53rd Grammy Awards yesterday. While my feelings are incredibly mixed about what the awards are actually accomplishing, I first have to say that I had a great time.
The show is SO much more fun in person — this may seem ridiculously obvious, but it’s not something I ever really thought about before as I’ve always just watched it on television. The energy from a live show just can’t be pushed through a screen, I suppose, and the telecast is like 14 mini-concerts. It’s quite a spectacle… and really fun to see with 20,000 other people.
In any case, on this day after, per usual I find myself pondering what’s happening behind the scenes.
The Grammy Awards are an interesting thing. First, they’re serving an industry that has been gloriously ripped to smithereens over the last decade. Second, they’re predicated on an idea that there is a “singular mainstream” of music.
Think about it: the entire televised awards ceremony focuses on 11 awards (out of the 109 given out) under a huge assumption that the majority of people still care about those 11 categories more than any other.
The entire show is based on the idea that a “mainstream” still exists.
I’ve always found this concept fascinating — the notion that there exists a primary flow of “normal-ness” in the larger culture: a “mainstream.” Back when I wanted to make music my career, I had a grand vision for how I’d “break into” the mainstream. I would guess many musicians still want this. But the “mainstream” doesn’t really exist.
At least not anymore.
I think it did exist, for a time. But the so-called “mainstream” was just a construct of 20th Century marketers, who, through the usage of very limited, controlled distribution channels, were able to create a mass-market population the likes of which the world had never seen. “Creators” could perfect a “product” and deliver it to virtually everyone at the same time.
In music, it was Studio to Album to Radio to your CD player. It was linear and sensible. It was perfect, a flawless system.
And now it’s disappearing.
Like most things in our Mosaic world, the music supply chain was reduced to pieces by a changing mentality and new technologies.
I probably don’t need to get into why the mainstream is fragmenting (in short: almost limitless competition from other attention-hoarders like, say, everything on the internet), but I do wonder how much longer the “mainstream” fabrication will stay afloat. As it is, it’s a house of cards, an illusion being propped up by old-minded industry types who somehow think the world still works like it used to.
This makes for some very complicated questions for the good people at the helm of these awards shows, like NARAS.
Because, that’s the thing: these are good people. They’re not dumb, nor do I think they’re intentionally living in a fantasy. It’s just a really, really complex revolution we’re in. And revolutions require armies of pioneers. They demand dreamers and visionaries and prophets. Unfortunately, these are not qualities many organizations have placed at the top; beancounters with MBA’s are much more popular.
We have a long journey ahead to reorient the world around the emerging values of tribes, transparency, and democracy (in its truest sense). The old world was not good at these things, but the new world is.
It’s the transition time we’re in right now that’s messy.
Prepare for it to get a lot messier before it gets cleaned up.
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Music You Need On Your iPod by Josh Allan Dykstra on July 20th, 2007
The Tytler Cycle by Josh Allan Dykstra on November 10th, 2008
Paradoxical Art by Josh Allan Dykstra on November 4th, 2008
Copyright © 2005-2012 Josh Allan Dykstra
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This particular awards show has a lot going on behind the scenes the other 364 days of the year. Even for people who aren’t a fan of awards shows, if they like music, they would appreciate all the GRAMMYs are doing to support and preserve incredible music, and also the advocacy work they do in Washington on behalf of music makers who don’t often get a voice in the political arena. Every week, in Chapter cities, musicians are meeting, networking, being educated and encouraged to further their art at the highest level because the awards show provides revenue which allows the GRAMMYs to operate as an organization. The GRAMMY Museum and Hall of Fame is part of a music preservation project, preserving for future generations the greatest songs, sound bites, and historic musical moments that have ever taken place. In DC, artists and musicians are represented before congress in the fight for performance royalties for music played on terrestrial radio stations. MusiCares, as part of the GRAMMY Foundations provides financial care and substance abuse care for musicians who fall on hard times. So yes, ratings are important and the show tries to appeal to the masses, but truly, is the music being played on the show really that “bad” when people like Arcade Fire, Mumford & Sons, Muse, and Florence Welch are included? Is a little “mainstream appeal” worth the benefits the organization provides throughout the year as the largest encourager and supporter of music in the world? I think the GRAMMYs are working hard to survive in an ever-changing and let’s hope that they do in the long run
25 Feb 2011 09:02 pm (@Twitter Name)
Josh Allan Dykstra
You’re absolutely right — and thank you for bringing this up.
I think the things you’re mentioning are sides to NARAS and the GRAMMYs that most people probably don’t know much about. It would be a tremendous tragedy for us to lose sight of the historical significance of past musicians, and the fact that there is an organization that truly cares about preserving and fighting for those things to be remembered is spectacular!
I wasn’t questioning anyone’s intention to appeal to the mainstream — that’s just good business sense.
What I’m suggesting is that the mainstream itself is disappearing, so it may not be a good strategy for much longer.
Like I said, this is a complex revolution. And like you said, and for all the reasons you mention, I hope the GRAMMYs can survive, too!
P.S. And holy crap, did I mention how awesome it was to go?
25 Feb 2011 10:02 pm (@joshallan)
David Brownstein
hey josh, we should meet up and talk about the grammy’s. or see you at pcma this week?
28 Feb 2011 10:02 am (@@hollywoodcoach)
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