Weekly Music Roundup: Unpacking the Grammys, Bettye LaVette Covers Dylan, and Demo Taped
Week of Jan. 29: This week, the Grammys Return to NY; Bettye Lavette Covers Dylan; Chris Thile’s New Gig.
Grammy Awards "Surprise"? Not Really...
So once again, Planet Earth belongs to Mars. The diminutive singer, songwriter, and dancer Bruno Mars walked off stage at Madison Square Garden last night with six Grammy Awards, including a sweep of the big three: Album Of The Year (24K Magic), Song Of The Year ("I Like It Like That"), and Record Of The Year (the title track "24K Magic"). Just to be clear, Song Of The Year is an award for songwriting (and in this case went to the posse of 8 guys who co-wrote Mars’ song), while Record Of The Year is supposedly more about the actual sound of the recording and officially goes to the artist and the producer(s) and engineer(s).
Fans of “Despacito,” the record-setting single and video from Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, featuring Justin Bieber, were perplexed. Fans of Kendrick Lamar and Jay Z, which probably included the majority of music critics, were incensed. To which I can only say: it was the 60th Grammy Awards, people. We’ve had 60 years of this and by now you should know what Grammy voters like. They like familiarity. They like to reward contemporary artists who remind them of the good old days. They prefer not to be provoked. Bruno Mars reminds them of the 80s, not just for his clever use of vintage funk but also for his uncanny ability to evoke Michael Jackson whenever he and his dancers start moving on stage.
This is why it’s often more instructive, and certainly more fun, to look down the ballot at some of the other awards. It was hard to feel too bad for Kendrick Lamar when he was given the opening slot in the telecast, and a clean sweep of all five awards in the Rap categories. I did feel that Jay Z was hard done by; “The Story Of O.J.” is brave, biting, and brilliant. It deserved something, but Jay Z was shut out. But Lamar was a worthy repeat winner, and his opening performance, featuring a brief cameo by Bono and The Edge from U2 (and some confusing asides from Dave Chapelle), was stunning.
In the Rock categories, the late Leonard Cohen won a Grammy for “You Want It Darker,” the wonderful title track of his farewell album; The War On Drugs will have been a popular winner in the Rock Album category; and in a battle of indie stalwarts, The National topped Arcade Fire, Gorillaz, LCD Soundsystem (who won Best Dance Recording for “Tonite”), and Father John Misty in a very strong Alternative field. Indie rock heroine Aimee Mann won a Grammy… for Best Folk Album.
The Rolling Stones loomed over the field in the Best Traditional Blues Album and were duly awarded a Grammy since all the voters recognized their name.
Another very strong field was in the category Best Latin Rock, Urban and Alternative Album. Bomba Estereo and Jorge Drexler were among the contenders left in Residente’s wake when he won the Grammy. Residente is half of the Puerto Rican band Calle 13, who dominate the Latin Grammys.
But you didn’t have to go too far down the Grammy ballot to find a real puzzler. In category 6, “Best Pop Duo/Group Performance,” the alternative rock band Portugal. The Man, originally from Sarah Palin’s hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, were rewarded for upping the pop quotient in their music with a Grammy for “Feel It Still” (which may have reminded older voters of “Please Mr. Postman”). The band has become enormously popular, but still, this award came at the expense of, among others, “Despacito.” I guess 5 billion Youtube viewers can be wrong, after all…
Grammy Shouts Outs To NYC: Some Worked, Some Didn’t
I saw Mayor Bill Di Blasio this morning, and asked if he had a chance to go to the Grammy Awards. “Well, we worked pretty hard to get them here,” he replied, and said that he attended the red carpet event to speak about how important it was for the Grammys to be back in New York. That feeling was echoed on stage at Madison Square Garden at several junctures – host James Corden tried a joke or two about it, including a tiresome “Subway Karaoke” skit; several award winners mentioned the host city; and the organizers were inspired to offer a two-part tribute to Broadway that included Ben Platt singing “Somewhere” from West Side Story (meh… “Tonight” would’ve been a better choice), and Patti LuPone rolling back the decades to sing “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina,” from Evita. But the most NYC-centric thing the Grammys did was to put U2 on a barge near the Statue of Liberty to perform “Get Out Of Your Own Way,” from their politically-charged recent album Songs of Experience. The performance was pre-recorded at sunset on Friday, and you could see that the wind was blowing and the band was cold. Somehow, though, the sound was suspiciously full and clean. On the album, the song ends with a few stinging thoughts from Kendrick Lamar. On the barge, Bono apparently riffed on that through a megaphone, incorporating Donald Trump’s reference to “shithole countries” that “gave us the American Dream.” We of course did not get to hear that on the broadcast. But it was visually arresting, at least, and the occasional New York vibe was a welcome change from the antiseptic feel of L.A.’s Staples Center.
Carnegie Hall Unveils Its New Featured Composer: Chris Thile
The “composer’s chair” position at Carnegie Hall is a hugely prestigious post: the artist in question gets to program a series of concerts during the course of the season. Past holders of the chair have included Philip Glass (this year, in fact), Pierre Boulez, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. On Thursday, Carnegie announced that the 2018-2019 series will be created by Chris Thile – the mandolinist and singer who came to fame as part of the alt-bluegrass trio Nickel Creek, and is now host of the public radio show Live From Here (formerly A Prairie Home Companion). Thile will be a popular choice: he’s done progressive, almost orchestral bluegrass with Punch Brothers, solo mandolin arrangements of Bach, collaborations with Yo Yo Ma, and a wide array of other projects covering a startling diversity of music. Among the things Thile will be presenting are a first-ever double bill of his two bands, Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers, and a program built around the Scottish and Irish folk music and its American descendants.
For now, here’s a quick video of Chris and the rest of Punch Brothers playing on a Soundcheck episode that we did live in the Greene Space (click here to view the whole program).
Bettye LaVette Covers Bob Dylan, And It Is Good
The great soul singer Bettye LaVette has a remarkable gift for singing rock classics – as anyone who watched her version of The Who’s “Love Reign O’er Me” at the 2008 Kennedy Center Honors program knows. Well brace yourselves, LaVette fans, because on March 30 she releases Things Have Changed, an album of Bob Dylan covers, and if the title track is any indication, it will be a killer. With a few amended lyrics and a lot of anguished but soulful singing, LaVette and an all-star band take what was already a dark and dusty tale and add Larry Campbell’s scuzzy guitar and a strolling bluesy gait. Other tracks on the album will feature guest solos by Keith Richards and Trombone Shorty, but LaVette’s version of “Things Have Changed” shows that the focus will always be on her emotive, pliable voice.
Young Singer Demo Taped Takes On Anxiety With Help From A Pack Of Gum
The singer known as Demo Taped (born Adam Alexander) is a 19-year old from Atlanta who has written several songs about his battle with depression and anxiety. “Insecure” was the first, somewhat fidgety single from his forthcoming EP called Momentary to be released, now he’s following up with a song called “Pack of Gum.” "When my anxiety was at its peak,” he says, “it affected me physically. Sometimes I would get sick and so I resorted to carrying around a pack of gum at all times.” The song has a comforting electro-R&B groove, and perhaps a hint of the church. His grandfather is a pastor who marched with Martin Luther King; his dad is the church’s musical director. The video is a charming bit of stop-motion animation that follows a lonely wad of gum on its sidewalk journey.
Demo Taped’s EP Momentary comes out on February 23.
Loma Issues Mysterious New Single
Loma is the new band formed by Jonathan Meiburg, the longtime leader of Shearwater, and Emily Cross and Dan Duszynski, who together are the band Cross Record. As we’ve detailed here before, they met when Cross Record were touring as Shearwater’s opening act, and decided to try collaborating. Meiburg found the experience of writing songs for someone else to sing to be quite liberating, but this new Loma single takes things a step further: it’s the first song that all three musicians wrote together. It’s called “Joy,” and it has an eerie, ambient-folk quality to it; but it also reminds me of Brian Eno’s music, in that you can’t always tell what you’re listening to. Emily Cross’s vocals are of course easy to pick out, but what’s that long, sustained high instrument at the end of the chorus? “I remember the hairs on the back of my neck standing up,” Meiburg says, “when Emily hit that high, screaming note on the clarinet; it sounded like a human voice.” It’s one of several telling moments in this apparently unassuming song.
Loma’s first album, otherwise untitled, comes out on February 16. They’ll play in New York at Baby’s All Right on May 4.
