Pick Your Poison: Monday 1-27-14

The Grammys happened last night. I don’t know if you watched them, but if you want to share your thoughts on the ceremony feel free to do so in the comments. Personally I saw bits and pieces of it, really more flipping over during commercials for other shows I was watching at the time, hoping to catch at least part of a performance that was worth seeing. Last week I lamented about my general dislike for the Grammys and how they often give out awards to artists based on popularity rather than artistic merit. For that main reason, I tend to not watch every year, though they were making it tough on me this year thanks to some interesting performances and artist collaborations. In terms of this year’s winners, I’ll admit it was pleasing to see Lorde win some awards, though her lack of a nomination for Best New Artist was clearly a mistake. Vampire Weekend walked away with a trophy too for their latest album, and seeing as how it was my favorite of 2013, I couldn’t complain about that. What I absolutely could complain about was the complete snubbing of Kendrick Lamar. His good kid, m.A.A.d. city record was Top 3 for me in 2012, and to see it get completely ignored in favor of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis as well as Daft Punk got me pretty upset. Hell, even Macklemore knows that Kendrick deserved to win Best Hip Hop Album, to the point where he texted Kendrick to tell him so. Speaking of Kendrick Lamar, his performance was one of, if not the best of the entire night, somehow even managing to elevate a shaky band like Imagine Dragons into something moderately impressive. Daft Punk did a nice job with Stevie Wonder, Pharrell and Nile Rodgers as they got everybody dancing to “Get Lucky.” Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr also performed together, but it’s a shame they didn’t play a Beatles song, choosing instead to do something off Paul’s most recent record New. What I was most looking forward to was the closing performance from Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, Lindsey Buckingham and Dave Grohl. Titans of rock and roll, there was no way they couldn’t deliver quality. And they did for the most part, until somebody decided to air the closing credits and a couple of ads while they were right in the middle of their song. They showed all of the full performances except for that last one? Seems pretty unfair, and Trant Reznor rightly took to Twitter afterwards to complain. But I think that sums of the Grammys as a whole – not only this year, but most years. Almost everything that’s great or has artistic merit gets the proverbial shaft in favor of things people want to buy more, be it music or ad time. Okay, I’ve said my piece. Let’s try to not do this again next year, shall we? As far as today’s Pick Your Poison goes, allow me to recommend tracks from Caleb Hawley, Champ, Franklin, Glass Spells, Baths’ remix of Grizzly Bear, Little Earthquake, The Mirror Trap and Party Dolls. In the Soundcloud section after the jump, stream songs from Actress, ceo, Elephant, The Hold Steady, Liars’ remix of Moby and September Girls.