John's Grammy Ballot (Pt. 2)

So, album of the year.

The nominees are:

Coldplay, Viva La Vida
Lil Wayne, Tha Carter III
Ne-Yo, Year of the Gentlemen
Robert Plant and Alison Kraus, Raising Sand
Radiohead, In Rainbows

So most of these albums I had already listened to when they came out. And a track from Year of the Gentlemen was a topic of a previous post. So I decided to dive into the one record that I had only listened to very vaguely, Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III.

Lil Wayne got a lot of Grammy nominations, but he seems to be a pretty polarizing figure. I read one review of this album (in Guatemala, no less) that said that it was basically unlistenable, and that every beat and every rhyme was crap.

I wouldn't quite go that far. But I do have to admit to being a being surprised that people seem to like this record quite a bit. The singles aren't exactly bad. "Mr. Carter" is at least salvaged by the fact that Jay-Z shows up on it. I'd like "A Milli" if the bass and snare didn't come in every time that I sort of get into the strange groove conjured up by sampling someone saying "A Milli" continuously (that's a 3+3+3+3+2+2 pattern for those of you keeping score at home). "Got Money" with the ever-Auto-Tuned T-Pain guesting on it reminds me a little bit of "Yeah" by Usher. I do like the line where he tells people to clap their hands if they've got a bankroll. But I think this album actually should have been disqualified from the first song ("3 Peat") which is TERRIBLE. Lil Wayne's raspy, whiny voice is particularly irritating on this track, and he doesn't have any guest artists around to save him. And I'm sorry. But any song that name-checks Stuart Scott is grasping at straws, don't you think?

Anyway, there's already been a little bit of discussion of Ne-Yo on this blog and in the comments section of another blog. I do think Ne-Yo is pretty much a genius. He reminds me a bit of Michael Jackson in the early 1980s. I hope that things turn out better for Ne-Yo, though.

So yes, the synth on "Miss Independent" is pretty cool. And Ne-Yo in general seems to be able to sing without too much studio trickery (though, these days, who knows?). There are lots of nice grooves and timbres on this record. It's definitely state-of-the-art pop music, everything is in its right place, if you know what I mean. But there's nothing that's really grabbing my ear, no irresistible hooks, no tracks that are begging to be replayed. It's very solid, but just not too exceptional. I could listen to this all night, but I don't think I'd remember much of it afterwards.

Raising Sand is pretty obvious Grammy bait. All of these collaborations with older respected artists we haven't heard from in a while and newer, critical-darling artists are. (See, for example, Van Lear Rose.) Sometimes the hype is worth it, sometimes it isn't. But, as I said on the "Record of the Year" post, I'm less than impressed by this album. Fine music for playing at a Starbucks (is that going to become the dis of the 21st century?). But can't really hold a candle to some of the other nominees (not to mention all the albums that came out that weren't nominated).

Coldplay shouldn't be overlooked as easily as they sometimes are. There's always going to be a place for big, loud, chiming guitar-based rock. And if you want to ever discover how good Coldplay is at doing what they do, go see a mediocre Coldplay tribute band (I'm convinced that all tribute bands to Coldplay are probably mediocre). Because, at least in the studio, Chris Martin is really a very impressive singer, far better than he gets credit for. I used to think that his voice was some sort of unholy, faceless amalgam of every successful tenor in 1990s rock (a little bit of Jeff Buckley, Bono, Dave Matthews, and Thom Yorke). But I've changed my mind. Maybe it's just that those four have faded a bit into the background, but Martin's voice seems to have taken on a bit of personality, at least to my ears. There's some interesting stuff on Viva La Vida (particularly, I dig "Lovers in Japan"), but it's actually not as good as A Rush of Blood to the Head. Snicker all you want, but that album was great. Even if you're a Coldplay-hater (which I sometimes am), there are some inarguably great tunes on that record.

It's unfair for me to name Radiohead's In Rainbows as record of the year, but I'm going to anyway. It's unfair because Radiohead is unequivocally my favorite band of the last 15 years and I'm moderately obsessed with them. I of course actually paid to download In Rainbows, and then I bought it legitimately on vinyl (cause I'm cool like that) when it came out on January 1st of 2008. And I downloaded the free videos that they put up on iTunes. And I paid to download the "From the Basement" videos from iTunes, as well. (And they're GREAT, by the way! Highly worth downloading.) And I saw Radiohead in Camden this last summer, basically my last night of carousing and listening to music before I left the U.S. this fall.

The first four tracks on the album are great, man. I hate to be so positive, but can you really find anything at all that isn't AWESOME in "15 Step," "Bodysnatchers," "Nude" [finally we get to hear an official version of this track which had been kicking around for like 10 years, check the Meeting People is Easy documentary], or "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi"? No, you can't.

I'm less impressed with the rest of the album. "Reckoner"--another old bootleg finally released officially--has lost my favorite part somewhere in the wash (the part at thend where Thom used to say, "Reckoner, Ba ba ba. Reckoner . . . whoo."). Check out the original here. But it's still pretty good, just not approaching the brilliance of the first few tracks. "House of Cards" keeps showing up places (for example, Grammy nominations and an episode of the ludicrous television show Brothers and Sisters that also had "Nettie Moore" by Bob Dylan in it), and I'm not sure entirely why. I'm not as impressed by the album-ending "Videotape" as some other people seem to be. I've never quite understood this thing where people go crazy over the last songs of Radiohead albums. I never really liked "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" or "Motion Picture Soundtrack," either. ("The Tourist," though, the last track from OK Computer is wonderful.) "Jigsaw Falling Into Place" salvages the second half of this album, though. That, coupled with the sheer brilliance of the first four songs makes this my favorite album of the last year.

But I should say that there's NO WAY it will win the Grammy. Unless you weren't paying attention last year, you know that Radiohead first released this as a pay-as-you-wish (including nothing) download on its website, only releasing it in conventional physical formats several months later. The record industry is deathly afraid of this type of stuff, and there's no way they're going to reward Radiohead with a Grammy for pulling the kind of stunt that they hate. Not that Radiohead have really been darlings of the Grammy voters, anyway. I'd sort of like to see Thom give a Grammy acceptance speech, though. But I don't see it happening this year.