Why the Grammy Awards Suck

As everyone who knows me knows, I hate commercial music these days. OK, I've pretty much hated it for a long time, but nowadays it's just pukeworthy. A whole generation of kids have come up without a clue about stickin' it to the Man, without a hint of danger or subversion in their music. A whole generation wasted on sappy shit, a whole generation that doesn't know what it means to rock. A whole generation raised on lip-synched bullshit, fancy dance moves, cutesy-putesy crooners, sensitive dudes with carefully tousled hair, and the ever-profitable flavor-of-the-week teenaged virgin.

Fuck this shit. I wanna rock. That's what everybody wants, really, even if they don't know it.

Speaking of which, somebody needs to kick the asses of these music executive assholes who have turned the guitar into an instrument of douchebaggery. The guitar is made to rock. It's made to scream. It's made to scare. It's made to drive you into a momentary frenzy of blissful self-inflicted insanity. It's been that way for 1,000 years. Pantywaist pretty boys and girls who sing sappy love songs should learn to play the harp or the flute or some other appropriate instrument. They're all masters of the skin flute. Please don't douche with the guitar, you pussies. Rock that shit.

(OK, props where props are due: that song "California's Alright (somebody check my brain)" is pretty cool, but even it's over-produced -- needs more feedback and needs to be played live in the studio instead of having the hook looped the way it is.)

You know why the music industry is in the toilet? It's not because of free downloads on the internet; it's because nobody's making music that fuckin' rocks. They're making saccharine shit. Give us something to sink our teeth into instead of this over-packaged, over-produced, over-hyped Ghost of Frankie Avalon bullshit.

Give us something that makes young people want to riot and fuck (not necessarily in that order), something that scares their parents. That's the winning formula. All the lip-synching fancy dancers and pretty boys and girls in the world won't revive your piece-of-shit business.

I think Flava' Flav said it best way back in the day with the lyric,

Who gives a fuck about a goddamn Grammy?

It's truer now than ever.
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By the way, this has nothing to do with genre!

When I say, "rock" as a verb, it doesn't mean "rock music." "To rock" is to whip a crowd (and oneself) into an orgiastic frenzy or to write a musical composition that does the same or to simply create music that moves somebody in a deep place. James Brown rocked. Willie Nelson rocks. Aretha Franklin rocked (Will Beyonce ever do anything as socially transformative or long-lasting as the song "Respect?" I really hope so.). Fela Anikapulo Kuti rocked. Bob Marley rocked. Frank Sinatra rocked. I've seen bluegrass bands and jazz outfits that rock like maniacs. I've heard club bangers that rock. As far as I can tell, not a single Grammy contestant these days rocks, unless Alice in Chains is up for something, and even they're well past their prime.

Anyway...