On music, awards, and choosing to ignore

 So I guess the Grammamawatchamathingies have announced their nominees.  Now, I know what you're thinking.  How does a pretentious, hipster douchebag like me even know that the Grambonis have a nominee list?  I have a legitimate reason.  No Depression.  They had an article last week.  So, I'm a-gonna ramble about it, awards, popularity, and in the process, touch on some vaguely-political concepts.

Here's the link to the No Depression article.  First, you may wonder, what the hell is with that title, "No Depression?"  There's history.  Long ago, an old-time country band called The Carter Family wrote a song called, "There'll Be No Depression In Heaven."  Care to guess when they were around?  Anyway, round-about 1990, a movement that came to be called "alt-country," which had nothing to do with the alt-right, got going in earnest when a band called Uncle Tupelo released an album called... No Depression, with the title track being a shortening of The Carter Family's tune.  Uncle Tupelo split apart eventually when its principals couldn't stand each other anymore, and you may have heard of the more famous band that came out of it-- Wilco.  I... don't care for Wilco.  However, Son Volt was the other band that came from the ashes of Uncle Tupelo, and Son Volt, like Uncle Tupelo, was great.  Ramblin' here, but anyway, the album, No Depression, was so influential that there was actually a magazine founded with the title, and the term eventually came to refer to a whole roots music thing.  Terms changed.  Somehow, now the term, "Americana," is what everyone says.  Whatever.  But 30 years after that album came out, the website is still kind of a known thing in the "Americana" music world.

So that's why I know that the Grampappy nominations came out.

Do I care?  Um... Well, I'm writing a post about it, so if I said no, it'd ring rather hollow, wouldn't it?

Anyway, like I said, the term for the genre is no longer, "No Depression."  Right now, the term, "Americana," is in use as a broad category that can include everything from folk, country, blues, bluegrass, some kinds of rock, and, um... it's kind of vague.  Nobody really knows what it means.  Hell, "Americana" fans love Richard Thompson, as a general rule, and that guy's a Brit, and the question of jazz-- that most quintessential of American art forms-- brings the whole term into the opposite of focus.  Do we have a word for that?  We should.  There's probably a word for that, but as a writer, I suck.  You've noticed, I'm sure.  Regardless, because of the breadth of categories, the No Depression web site bothered with a post on the Gramophones.  So, I clicked.

Look, my tastes are weird.  I listen to a lot of jazz.  Yesterday morning's music post was an old Blind Lemon Jefferson tune.  I spent some time yesterday afternoon listening to Japanese zeuhl music.  As a general rule, I don't expect my tastes to line up with whatever gets nominated for the Grammatical Errors.

Of course, things happen.  Quick comments, just 'cuz.  In the Folk category, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings were nominated for All The Good Times.  I have commented before that Welch & Rawlings are basically the best alive.  I consider them country, but they're old-time country (as in The Carter Family), so someone put them in the Folk category instead of country because you bunch of philistines don't know what "country" is.  Whatever.  Should they win?  Fuck yes.  They should be feted as gods.  But, they're up against Leonard Cohen.  Who... has not only been dead for four years, all music critics are required by law to say that he is the messiah, so hallelujah.  Get it?  Personally, I think Cohen is vastly overrated, and I don't own a single Cohen album, even if I have a bunch of Cohen covers (Concrete Blonde, Jeff Buckley most notably).  Welch & Rawlings will lose.  I haven't listened to that album, I know nothing about it, and I don't care, but music critics are required by law to have pictures of Leonard Cohen's face tattooed on their ass cheeks.

And this is kind of why you shouldn't give a shit.

How about the bluegrass category?  My love of bluegrass is well-documented.  Holy shit!  Danny Barnes got a nomination!  You almost certainly don't know who he is, but this guy is an authentic wacko.  I love him.  His first band, the Bad Livers, was one of the weirdest acoustic bands ever, and their debut album was actually, seriously called Delusions of Banjer.  Yup.  I love Danny Barnes.  Danny Barnes got a nomination?  And Billy Strings?  OK.  I'm not actually that surprised by that.  He's pretty big right now.  Very good, and he appeals to the kids.  There's a Hartford tribute album, though.  I miss John Hartford, but I don't see the point of this stuff.  Anyway, with a bluegrass category, stuff can happen.

Then, somehow very talented people like Sarah Jarosz and... Grace Potter can get recognition.  Potter, I kind of get.  She can pull off the rock star thing.

Mostly, though, I look at the list of the mainstream categories, and not surprisingly, I don't have a bloody clue who these people are.  Not.  A.  Clue.  Mostly, I'm just surprised when I do recognize a name, like Grace Potter.

So I consider popularity.  There is still such a thing.  By the numbers.  I don't know who is popular.  Cue one of my students saying, "OK, X-er."  Is that a thing yet?  It should be.  Anyway, I don't know who is popular.  How would I?  In my day (I had to walk ten miles to school, in the snow, up-hill, both ways), you knew what was popular either from the radio, or eMpTyV.  I don't have cable, but from what I think I know, eMpTyV stopped playing videos long ago, the kids only use their computers anyway, and is radio still a thing?  I dunno.  Is there, like, streaming?  I think, but that's all algorithmic, right?  So, the services try to base streams on what they think will keep you in the system, so it's personalized, right?

Youtube has videos, and their algorithms give you suggestions based on the last things you watched.  So, when I watch a bunch of Billy Strings videos, Youtube suggests more bluegrass guitar.  There's input, and feedback.  People click the thumbs-up icon, and between those clicks and the number of views, you've got popularity.  A popular video linked to something I see is more likely to come up next.  However, none of that Gramblin' shit is ever going to come up for me, except for, well, Sarah Jarosz, Gillian Welch, Danny Barnes, and the other oddities for whom I'd search specifically anyway.  Whoever the kids find appealing won't make it into my Youtube suggestions.  If any streaming service works similarly, it wouldn't make it into my stream either.

That, of course, is the point.  But it leaves a bizarre observation about how popularity develops.  If I actually cared that much to know, I could probably do more research and find out, but... I don't.  Why?  I'm the guy who spent yesterday afternoon listening to Japanese zeuhl music.

This is self-preening hipsterism.  For music, and entertainment more generally, I have little patience for those who would whine about how music sucks today, or anything like that.  There's nobody better than Welch & Rawlings.  If you listen to country radio, or even likely a popular country streaming thing, you probably won't hear them.  You have to dig a bit.  But once you do that, you can be happily oblivious to the all-hat-no-cattle pseudo-country garbage that most people think is "country music."  And as for pop music more generally, the nostalgia for the days of Hendrix being at the top of the charts is a blind nostalgia that misses the observation that he had one Number 1 hit, and it wasn't "Purple Haze," or, "All Along the Watchtower," or, "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)," or, "Hey Joe," or... You probably don't know what it was, and it doesn't matter.  Nor should it.

I can be happily oblivious to pop because your choice to embrace pop culture doesn't affect me.  You can listen to pop garbage, and it doesn't affect me.

The choice to turn away.  So let's turn to... yeah, politics.  Sorry, but Donald Trump.  He's getting his loser ass thrown to the White House curb.  Yet, he will do everything possible to keep himself as the center of attention.  If you choose to listen to crappy music, I don't care.  Yet, if people continue to focus their attention on Donald Trump at the cost of everything else because time and attention are finite... that affects me.

The principle of voter interdependence, as I call it.  If I buy a Bad Livers album, and you log into a streaming service, then I get to listen to Danny Barnes, and you listen to Algorithmic Drum Sequencer #24.  I'm happy, you're happy-ish, and we have a market equilibrium.  Democracy doesn't work that way.  If I vote for a neurotypical candidate with basic qualifications, and an illiterate hick votes for a batshit crazy, two-bit con man, what happens?  Well, it's a numbers game.  If there are enough illiterate hicks, I don't get to live in a country governed by a neurotypical, qualified candidate.  I have to live in a country governed by an insane con-man.  In economic terms, that's called an "externality."  As I wrote in my first book, a competitive election is the greatest negative externality-producing mechanism ever devised.

And the more attention people pay to the con-man who craves attention in a world of fixed bandwidth, the more damage he continues to do.  No damage is done by you listening to shitty music.  If Algorithmic Drum Sequencer #24 brings a smile to your face, then have at it.  Just know that you'll be so last week, when Algorithmic Drum Sequencer #25 releases its new album next week.  Am I supposed to say "drop?"  I don't get these kids and their "lingo."  There is no "dropping" when everything is digital.  This makes no sense.

Anyway, if a drum beat snapped to a grid by a computer makes you happy, listen to it.  (Without cranking it to 11 in your car, please.  Also, get off my lawn.)  But if we fail to turn away from the madman, he will continue to wreak havoc.

He says, knowing that he won't be able to look away...