About 10 days ago, the Grammy Awards issued a shocker, giving the Album of the Year award to The Arcade Fire, a band that's had very little in the way of commercial success, but lots of praise and critical success from music fans. What's happened since has been an interesting mix of praise and outrage over this decision.
First off, The Album of the Year award is a bit of an oddball for the Grammy's. While most of the other big awards usually go to the big commercial acts, Album of the Year sometimes goes to a left-field candidate. Among all the safer choices like Taylor Swift last year, or the Dixie Chicks a few years ago, the award has also recently been awarded to Allison Kraus, Herbie Hancock and Steely Dan, along with the "career achievement" style awards they do occasionally, such as Ray Charles and Santana. But, it seems particularly egregious and shocking that Arcade Fire won this year.
First, Arcade Fire are an independent act, signed to Merge Records, who are unaffiliated with a major label. Bands not on major labels don't win Grammys, and, if they do, they do so rarely. Album of the Year is pretty much the biggest award that can be given to an artist, and giving it to an artist on a small label is a major coup. The award wasn't telegraphed either, which was quite strange. Normally, the winner of Album of the Year has already won another category, in the Arcade Fire's case, Alternative Album of the Year, which went to the Black Keys. There was no indication that the Arcade Fire would win. But win they did. But is this a good thing?
By now, a lot of you have seen the tumblr site Who is Arcade Fire? The backlash from the Beiberites and the Lady Gaga fans are predictable. The main outrage seems to come from people who hadn't heard of the band before the Grammys. Why should a small band from Montreal steal thunder away from established artists? Well, why shouldn't they? One thing I love to say about the music industry is that 97% of the artists recording aren't played on mainstream radio. Why pick the best album of the year from the 3% of music played in mainstream media? Isn't that unnecessarily limiting? Shouldn't we be choosing the best album, not the most popular album?
Of course, there will be the inevitable backlash against the band from the hipster contingent. Sites like Pitchfork are awash with gushing praise for Arcade Fire's win, but that praise will be cold comfort when they do make a jump to a major label or being heard on mainstream media, then the hipsters will turn on them promptly, claiming they sold out. But, isn't good music good music? Does it matter if Tom Petty's album was put out independently or if it was on a major label? Mojo is a damned good record regardless of Tom Petty's history.
Whether The Suburbs was the best album of the year is irrelevant to me, at least. I'm happy the recording academy took a chance and named a winner not expected. Perhaps this opens a few people's eyes that music isn't just what's fed to you by commercial radio. There's a vast range of music out there other than Justin Bieber (thank goodness) that can stand up with any band on a major label. It's worthwhile to explore even if you don't like the music. Exploration is fun to boot!
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