Nominees For Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards

Culture

A very diverse group of artists round out the best new artist category, which is strange for a year that had a lot of pop super hits from emerging artists. Only one of the nominees is a pop group.

The Grammys are all about pop. No matter how they try to bill themselves as encompassing all styles and genres, all music, all quality it's only the songs and artists with pop appeal or pop sensibilities that get the big awards or any of the airtime. 

The artists up for the award are:

Frank Ocean

Hunter Haze

fun.

The Lumineers

Alabama Shakes

Where's the One Direction? Where's the Carly Rae Jepsen? It's so unlike the Grammys.

This is a pretty respectable collection of talents. Well, actually, I don't really consider the collection of bubblegum twang sounds that Hanky Haze assembles to be music, and I don't really know The Lumineers' music all that well, but Frank Ocean and Alabama Shakes are good choices. It all just makes me nervous. All this odd diversity just gives fun. a much greater chance of winning. I despise fun. (Haha I sound like such a scrooge!) I hate “We Are Young”, I never liked it and when it became super popular and omnipresent I began to hate it. The Grammys’ obsession with fun. is how you know they’re still all about their gimmicks.

I hope Frank Ocean wins. He probably will. He deserves it. He is a goddamn light in the darkness.

More about Frank Ocean later...