| My goodness, I’m so over the moon. |
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Best New Artist and Best Global Music Performance nominee Arooj Aftab.
(Soichiro Suizu/Motormouthmedia)
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“My goodness, I’m so over the moon.”
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Wisdom of the Crowd
If there's one lesson we can take home from this year's somewhat random, somewhat chaotic, somewhat reasonable GRAMMY nominations, it may be that, secret committees or no secret committees, asking 12,000 voters to whittle down 22,000 submissions may not be the best way to go about picking nominees for anything. What are the guiding principles? Would a committee have saved us from that ABBA song (which, for reasons of category and alphabetization, will be the first song anyone sees on the official Grammy nomination page for the next two months), or would it have doubled down and given us more? Would a committee have found any more room for BTS or DRAKE? Would a committee have denied us the happy surprise of those AROOJ AFTAB and JAPANESE BREAKFAST nods? Would a committee have been able to locate a single rock album made by anyone under 50 who isn’t the BLACK PUMAS? Would a committee have nodded its head in agreement or shook its head in confusion at the 11 nominations for traditional R&B jazz contemporary classical roots pianist JON BATISTE (or would the fact that he's prominently employed by the same network that broadcasts the Grammy ceremony have forced everyone on the committee to leave the room while those questions were asked)? And what does a traditional R&B jazz contemporary classical roots album sound like anyway? (Like a really well-played, well-produced, oft-enjoyable pastiche. It also sounds like something that 12,000 people spanning 60-ish years and 60-ish genres can agree on if they must agree on something.) Would a committee have said, "Wait a minute. *That* KANYE album?!?" Would it all have looked all that different?
We could quibble for week about the 2022 Grammy field—isn't that what the whole enterprise is for?—or we could use the day before Thanksgiving to give thanks for the small miracles that the strange wisdom of that strange crowd produced. It's easy to forget how meaningful, life-changing even, a Grammy nomination or, better, a Grammy win can be for working musicians. The Grammys have nothing to do with why the vast majority of those musicians are making music, but they can be a hell of an unexpected reward. So here's to the first-time nominees. They really did nominate Arooj Aftab, the mesmerizing Pakistani-born Brooklyn composer and singer who records for the indie new-music label NEW AMSTERDAM, for Best New Artist and Best Global Music Performance. Respect. And the wonderful jazz harpist BRANDEE YOUNGER for Best Instrumental Composition. And pioneering Chicago house musicians MARSHALL JEFFERSON and BYRON STINGILY, aka TEN CITY, for Best Dance/Electronic Music Album (where they're among several other first-time nominees). MICKEY GUYTON is technically a second-time nominee but she's now the first Black artist ever nominated for Best Country Album. And pop star OLIVIA RODRIGO, who had zero nominations and now has seven, including one in each of the big four categories, for one of 2021's defining albums. (I might have given her a Rock Performance nomination, too, if I were in charge.) Oh, and it's Abba's first-ever Grammy nomination, too, which is mind-boggling and not at all surprising.
There are plenty of inspiring stories within this 86-category sprawl, many of which will be told in the weeks ahead. They're what makes it all worth it.
Plus Also Too
With three 2022 nods bringing him up 83 total, JAY-Z is the most nominated artist in Grammy history. PAUL MCCARTNEY boosted his total to 81 with two rock nominations, and is #2 all-time. QUINCY JONES, long the Grammy standard-bearer, drops to #3 with his 80 nominations. Jones was last nominated three years ago, when he won for Best Music Film, though as my friend JEM ASWAD points out, he wrote the liner notes for this year's most-nominated album, Jon Batiste's WE ARE... The WEEKND, despite his continuing Grammy boycott, has three nominations, for his collaborations with Kanye West and DOJA CAT... Surprise: The big four categories now have 10 nominees each, up from eight... MORGAN WALLEN, who's been persona non grata at a number of awards shows in the past year, was eligible for Grammy nominations with one of the year's best-selling albums but was shut out by the voting membership. But MARILYN MANSON, who's been accused by multiple women of rape (he's denied all allegations), has two nominations from his appearance on Kanye West's DONDA. Don't expect to see Manson at the CRYPTO.COM ARENA in January. "We're not going to be in the business of restricting people from submitting their work for our voters to decide on," Grammy chief HARVEY MASON JR. told the Wrap. "What we will control is our stages, our shows, our events, our red carpets."
Rest in Peace
Jazz trombonist SLIDE HAMPTON, who played with Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Max Roach, Lionel Hampton and many others as well as leading bands of his own. Critic Gary Giddins once called Hampton "perhaps the most underrated bebop virtuoso soloist alive." He may have been more acclaimed as an arranger, for which he won both of his Grammys. He also worked for a spell at Motown, where he was music director for Stevie Wonder and the Four Tops... DAVE HICKEY, art—and sometimes music—critic and author of "Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy."
Gobble Gobble Hey (Jude)
MusicREDEF will be off for a few days for Thanksgiving. The next newsletter will hit your inbox on Tuesday, Nov. 30.
In the meantime, if you're looking for new music to fuel or distract you on Black Friday, look out for new arrivals that day from Memphis rapper YO GOTTI (double album), Canadian singer/songwriter JULIE DOIRON, UK punk rockers the CHISEL, death-metallers-turned-prog-rockers CYNIC, NELL & THE FLAMING LIPS (14-year-old Lips fan Nell Smith fronting the band on an album of Nick Cave covers), RICHARD DAWSON & CIRCLE, GEORGIA ANGIULI, JASSS, SHERELLE, the late DAN SARTAIN, DEEP PURPLE, BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, WESTLIFE, REMEDY and FAWNS OF LOVE.
And, as you may have heard, PETER JACKSON's three-night BEATLES epic, GET BACK, launches on DISNEY+ at 3am ET Thursday.
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Culture Notes of an Honest Broker |
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Billboard |
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Recording Academy |
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| 2022 GRAMMYs Awards: Complete Nominations List |
| Find out who's nominated in each of the 86 categories at the 2022 Grammy Awards show |
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The New York Times |
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| Grammys Snubs and Surprises: Kacey Musgraves, Jon Batiste and Abba |
| by Jon Caramanica, Joe Coscarelli and Jon Pareles |
| A jazz musician snagged the most nominations, and the Weeknd, an artist who said he’s boycotting the awards, found his name on the ballot. |
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Vulture |
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| The Biggest Snubs and Surprises of the 2022 Grammy Nominations |
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Music x |
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| I said no. With this post, I hope to convince others who got the same invitation to say no, or to cancel. |
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The Ringer |
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| How DMX’s First Tour Helped Usher in a New Era of Hip-hop |
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GQ |
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| How The Kid Laroi Made the Biggest Song in the World Without Even Trying |
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TorrentFreak |
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| RIAA Takes Down Popular Music Piracy Discord Over Adele '30' Leak |
| by Andy Maxwell |
| A popular Discord server has been taken down by the RIAA after reportedly offering Adele's album '30' in advance of its official release. |
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VICE |
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| How A Teenage DJ Went From Torrenting Software to Playing With Skrillex |
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The Bitter Southerner |
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| by David Peisner |
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The New York Times |
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| Prince Paul Dives Deep Into Music History |
| by Iman Stevenson |
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Billboard |
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| Grammy Nominations in the Post-Committee Era: Who Benefited & Who Didn’t? (Analysis) |
| by Paul Grein |
| Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga and ABBA might want to thank the Recording Academy for getting rid of its nominations review committees. Wizkid might feel differently. |
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Variety |
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| Grammy Chief Harvey Mason jr. Talks Rule Changes, Jon Batiste’s Big Nominations, and Rock Category |
| by Jem Aswad |
| The Grammy Awards arguably have undergone more major changes in the past year than they have at any time in their history. |
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Pitchfork |
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| Gavilán Rayna Russom on Why She Left LCD Soundsystem |
| by Madison Bloom |
| The transdisciplinary artist and longtime LCD Soundsystem synthesizer player discusses her decision to leave the group she's performed with since 2008. |
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Vulture |
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| There Is Nowhere Damon Albarn Can’t Create From |
| by Craig Jenkins |
| His latest solo work is, in part, a dispatch from Iceland. |
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BBC News |
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| One in three UK musicians earning nothing after the pandemic, charity says |
| by Mark Savage |
| One-third of musicians were still earning nothing after restrictions on live events were lifted this summer, according to UK charity Help Musicians. |
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The Sydney Morning Herald |
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| No pay, no play: The campaign to give Australian musicians a minimum wage |
| by Nick Galvin |
| Under a motion introduce into State Parliament by John Graham, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Upper House, venues using public funding would be required to pay musicians a minimum fee of $250. |
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British Vogue |
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| Dua Lipa Turns Lifestyle Guru -- And Opens Her Little Black Book Up To The World |
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Texas Monthly |
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| The Go-Go’s’ Big Night at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame |
| by Kathy Blackwell |
| Kathy Valentine takes us behind the scenes at the star-studded ceremony. |
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| Music of the day |
| "Dile a Él" |
| Rauw Alejandro |
| From "Afrodisíaco," nominated for Best Música Urbana Album. |
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YouTube |
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From "Afrodisíaco," nominated for Best Música Urbana Album.
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Nominated for Record and Song of the Year. She has seven nominations in all.
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