On Sunday night, CBS aired the 52nd Grammy Awards . Dozens of popular artists were recognized for their…popularity. The show has always had problems because they often spotlight artists who already receive spotlight instead of giving honorary accolades to the thousands of other artists in the music industry. But this is understandable: millions of songs get released yearly with new singer/songwriters and producers popping up weekly, so no one can fairly judge all the music out there. But shouldn’t viewers at least expect the voters to choose the best choices from the nominees given?
One of the best albums of 2009, Big Whiskey and GrooGrux King by Dave Matthews’ Band, deserved its nomination for Album of the Year. Possibly the best recording of the famous band’s longstanding career, the album was met with wide critical acclaim and it honored the death of the band’s brilliant saxophonist LeRoi Moore. What did it lose to? Fearless by Taylor Swift, which wasn’t even released in 2009. The album that will theoretically define 2009 for the rest of musical history was released in 2008.
Two days later, the poorly nominated Grammy’s got upstaged by the announcement of the 82nd Academy Award nominations. The most interesting facet of these nominations was the expansion of the Best Picture category from five to ten. Even though some great pictures (Where the Wild Things Are, Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes) didn’t make the list, some fantastic and extremely daring movies (District 9, Inglourious, Up, An Education ) did. The inclusion of the aforementioned Pixar film also marks the second time in Academy history where an animated film has been nominated, the first being Disney’s Beauty in the Beast back in 1991.
However, all of these great movies barely stand a chance against front-runners Avatar and The Hurt Locker, so what really is the point? Both films received nine nominations apiece, and no one would bet money against either of these acclaimed and technically groundbreaking films. Both directors, James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow (who interestingly enough used to be spouses), are also bound to fight for the Best Director award.
The movie industry is a place where great films pretty much always get noticed, but it’s great the Academy is making a step to further broaden just how many films get honored. It is just very unfortunate this fantastic change could not have been implemented last year, where the amazing films that got left off the list (Revolutionary Road, Gran Tarino, The Visitor, and oh yeah, WALL*E and The Dark Knight) all would have had a strong fighting chance against the winning Slumdog Millionaire. But all one can really do now is hope that 2010 is an even better year. Enjoy it while it’s good.
