How to Tell That the Grammy's Are Clearly Irrelevant

This question would seem to be one that would be quite obvious until you look at the format of the modern award show, particularly the one this article will focus on - The Grammy's. This year's Grammy's went like this. Washed up performer hosts, someone sings a song that is not the song everyone wanted them to sing, washed up performer presents an award, washed up performer performs, washed up host talks, washed up performer performs, washed up perfomer performs, someone completely unrelated to music presents an award, Taylor Swift dresses up like a hillbilly, washed up performer performs...three hours later we discover what everyone knew all along. Adele is the greatest!

Seriously, there were so many performances by so many old geezers, I thought I was watching an extended Super Bowl performance. The only thing that would have made it any more age inappropriate would have been if someone had actually broken a hip during the performance. I can neither confirm nor deny that this didn't in fact happen.

Of course The Grammys pride themselves on mashing two hugely dissimilar artists in one shockingly profound performance. However, this year the mash ups were more head scratching than the infamous Eminem/Elton John pairing. Do DeadMaus, David Guetta, Chris Brown, the Foo Fighters, and Lil Wayne really have that much in common? Should Bonnie Raitt and Alicia Keys really have been paired up for a 30 second duet? Should Taylor Swift ever be allowed a banjo again? The definitive answer to the above questions is of course, "NO!!!!!!!!!!!" But for some reason the academy thought they were all excellent ideas.

For sure, I am one of the millions of people around the world who think that Adele is absolutely amazing. Sure, she deserved six Grammy's. Sure, her voice's triumphant recovery deserved to be the semi-highlight of the award show. And here comes the ominous, "but." But, did we have to make it so shockingly obvious that she deserved to win every stinking award. No nominee even came anywhere close to her talent. What's really scary is that this really speaks to the state of music right now more than it speaks to the award show itself. As to the second big winner of the night, the Foo Fighters. Need I really say more?

To say that the performances were atrocious would actually be an insult to the state of being atrocious, so let's just say that they were subpar. However, even if you would have loved to hear what they were screeching about, you would have a similar chance of hearing a rat pee on cotton. For some reason, the Grammy's can afford a wonderful lighted tower of Legos for Chris Brown to strut on, but they can't spring for mikes that actually output sound as they are supposed to.

That is why Dave Grohl sounded like an underworld monster with a throat condition. Oh wait, that's how he always sounds. Bad example. Well, that is still why Jason Aldean did a very good job of imitating a mime during his performance with Kelly Clarkson, one that would have actually been a bright spot in an otherwise glaringly lackluster awards show. It is also why Nicki Minaj's choppy, robotic, obviously auto-tuned voice sounded like well, yeah, that was pretty much the same.

Lastly, this is an issue that has stuck in my craw about the Grammy's since Esperanza Spalding's puffy haired, finger-stuck-in-light-socket win for Best New Artist last year. Why does the academy try to kid themselves and go deep with their Best New Artist category? Why must there always be an artist on the list who no who showers either knows about or cares about? It is like this is there one little way to prove that other than the fluke of Adele and Florence and the Machine doing well in the U.S., the state of music is in a bad shape.

I'm sorry. Bon Iver does not make up for Nicki Minaj, who should have won by the way. I know she's a joke, but she actually sold the most records and was one of the artists who got people to actually buy instead of bootleg her CDs. Esperanza Spalding does not make up for the fact that all of Drake's songs sound alike. Give the people what they want. Note to the Academy: Best New Artist should be based on airplay, the same as Record of the Year. Stop trying to make it a political statement to prove that musicality is not dead. That argument ended when you allowed Lady Gaga to exist.

P.S. Academy, if you are going to award some amazing phenom, flash in the pan artist who will be stuck on the folk circuit for the entirety of his foreseeable non-career, make sure he presses his shirt first and looks a lot less like a drunken serial killer. Please and thank you.