MUSIC: At 50, The Grammys Show Their Age Again

This is the beginning of a piece from NPR that I found through my Netvibes page. - OlderMusicGeek

At 50, The Grammys Show Their Age Again
By Joel Rose

All Things Considered,
February 8, 2008

Over the years, voters for the Grammy Awards have been widely ridiculed for choices that make them seem out of touch with popular music.

Those who decide the winners say the picks have gotten better. But as the awards approach their 50th anniversary this Sunday, change may have come too late.

Decisions, Decisions

The Grammys started out as the music industry's answer to the Oscars. It was 1958, and rock 'n' roll was tearing up the charts. But at clubby awards banquets in New York and Beverly Hills, Grammy voters awarded album of the year to... Henry Mancini.

Los Angeles Times blogger Tom O'Neil wrote a book about the Grammys. He notes that it would be 10 years before a rock record won Album of the Year, though the Grammys did add a separate category for rock 'n' roll — in 1970.

"There was an outright conspiracy in those early Grammy years not to reward rock 'n' roll," O'Neil says. "Remember who the Grammys are: They're the industry establishment. They're going to punish the hooligans at the door, and try to keep them out."

And a lot of young fans noticed — including Sasha Frere-Jones, pop-music critic for The New Yorker. "They were corny," he says. "As a kid, I just got the impression that they didn't know what music was out there. And the show itself was just so lame."

The Grammy for Record of the Year in 1971 — the first year the awards were broadcast live on TV — went to Simon and Garfunkel for "Bridge Over Troubled Water." It was a reasonable choice, in hindsight.

But the members of the Recording Academy, who vote on the Grammys, have made some stunningly questionable decisions over the years — and not just the notorious Best New Artist Grammy they gave to the lip-sync act Milli Vanilli. The academy has never given a Grammy to Neil Young, The Who, Led Zeppelin, or The Kinks...

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