While this year's Grammy awards show was a great night for Bruno Mars, proving yet again that whoever he has incriminating photographs of is capable of moving heaven and earth to ensure that those photos do not see the light of day; first getting Bruno the Super Bowl halftime show when he only had two albums to his name and now buying off the Grammy's.
Now, if people were actually buying Bruno's records in such undeniably high numbers that he was single-handedly keeping the industry's pressing plants afloat and that callers were inundating radio stations with so many requests for his music that there was no other option but to give the people what they want, I'd be the first to applaud, but nobody cares or else they'd have tuned in.
Even Bon Iver, himself no stranger to the Grammy awards, was aghast upon finding out that Bruno Mars had dominated the awards, proclaiming on Twitter, and I quote: " You absolutely have to be shitting me."
So, in addition to next year's mandatory Bruno Mars dunk tank where, anytime Mars is nominated for a category, they put Bruno Mars on the dunk tank and hand Bon Iver three balls, here are five other ways to fix the Grammy's:
1. New host: Ricky Gervais.
Come on, if you really wanna beef up the ratings, let Gervais do to the music industry's sacred cows what he did to Hollywood's when he roasted, er, hosted the Golden Globes.
2. Apropos of nothing, pay better tribute to those who pass away.
I don't care if you have to stick two or three interns on this project, for the love of all that is good, do a better job paying tribute to the musical luminaries who passed away during the previous year. Every year, without fail, there are a number of very obvious omissions that wind up being seized upon by the media to once again drive home how out-of-touch the whole exercise is and how maybe we should just call the whole thing off.
During this year's broadcast, NARAS (the National Academy of Recording Arts And Sciences, the organization behind the Grammy's) omitted from this year's tribute Husker Du's Grant Hart, Can's Holger Czukay, The Fall's Mark E. Smith, and U.S. rocker Tommy Keene, among others.
3. For fuck's sake, televise all categories or none at all.
I remember watching the Grammy awards as a kid and noting the brief segment every year where they announcer would mention that some awards had been given out prior to the broadcast, at which point, they'd flash a list of those who won for lesser categories as Best Children's Instrumental Album Without Music, Best Spoken Word Album Without Dialogue, and Best Foreign Language Album That Even Those Who Speak That Particular Language Can Barely Understand.
Lately, though, the Grammy's have been pushing a lot of the artier categories off of the main broadcast, leaving us more time to listen to big-name winners prattle on about how they didn't expect to win so they didn't think for even one moment about who they should thank.
The solution: Broadcast all the categories and let the chips fall where they may so that even those who win for Best Folk Album That Isn't Really Folk, Best Audiobook Not Read by Morgan Freeman, or Best Album Artwork Composed Entirely Of Pirated Stock Photographs will get to share in the experience of being a part of a Grammy awards broadcast.
4. Losers walk the plank.
Gone are the days when the losers of each category put on a brave face and said how honored they were just to be nominated. Once these also-ran's realize that all losers must walk the plank, people think twice about accepting future Grammy nominations. I dunno, I'd still accept the nomination for Best Instrumental Vocal Performance By A Blogger Kicked Out Of Their Own Band.
5. Call the whole thing off.
Hey, there's no shame in just walking away.
Tags:
can bruno swim?