I Mean An Award That's Worth Winning!

I want to apologize for the lack of a post on Tuesday. I had come up with a great topic at the last minute, but was informed by my colleague that my services were not needed that day. Mr. Zhuang was all set to deliver a hilarious take on local commercials, exposing to the world some of the brilliant entrepreneurs we have up in the Pacific Northwest. But Zhuang is all concerned about his edumacation, and decided that he had enough writing for the night and needed to study instead. I mean, what kind of loser studies for finals?

Anyways, since Zhuang quit writing, and I had forgotten whatever the hell it was I was going to talk about, nothing got put up. Therefore there was a gap in your daily Wayne Diego intake that we can't blame on a random holiday, we apologize. Wait a second, Hanukkah began yesterday! We were just observing the day before! Quiet, we must rest. Shh..shhh...

Lo and behold, we had a topic come about today that very much falls in line with what we discuss here at WDR. Grammy nominations were announced today, which gives us the opportunity to both discuss music AND make fun of clueless old people. Because if there's one thing that you can count on each year, it's a terrible batch of Grammy nominations.



Before we get started, we'll just mention that we realize that the Grammys aren't a real award, so it is kind of pointless to debate their merits. Whatev.

There are only a few awards that we pay attention to: anything rock-related, and stuff like "best short form music video". The rock categories are an abomination this year, as out of 40 possible slots about 4 of them are in any way halfway decent, namely nominations for "The Pretender" and "The Pot". (Note: "Icky Thump" was specifically NOT mentioned, since it's the worst song that The White Stripes have recorded. By a longshot.) I mean, Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky" being nominated for Rock Album of the year? There's very little that's actually rocking on that album, besides Nels Cline's insane solo on "Impossible Germany" (even though it's a solid album through and through). And the less said of nominations for Daughtry, the better.



The most surprising nomination, however, was the one given to the Foo Fighters' Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace for ALBUM OF THE YEAR. I know you just heard me offer some praise for "The Pretender", but the album as a whole is quite mediocre--it barely cracks the top-5 of Foo Fighters albums. Clearly it's an example of a half-assed attempt to reach the mainstream rock community by belatedly honoring a slightly over-the-hill rock group whose best days are probably behind them (Exhibit A: the nominations racked up by the Red Hot Chili Peppers last year).

That's all we have to say about the Grammys. Except that Eddie Vedder gets an award, and that this is the video of the year.