If you ask me (which you didn’t), the Grammys are a pretty useless award. Of the four principal awards talented & artistic people can win, including the Oscars, Tonys and Emmys, the Grammy is easily the least important. The main reason why has to do with their general disrespect for legitimately good music. Okay, so they sometimes get things right, like when Arcade Fire won the most prestigious Album of the Year award in 2011 for their record The Suburbs. Of course that also created this Tumblr, which pulls together the hundreds of people commenting online and asking what this Arcade Fire band was all about. Yes, we live on a planet where a fair portion of the population has never heard of Arcade Fire. Outside of that isolated incident though, the Grammys often prove themselves either out of touch or reward popular but not necessarily good artists. The nominations for 2013 were announced tonight, and once again it was a mixed bag of good and bad. Grizzly Bear, for example, was robbed, as were Grimes and a whole bunch of other artists that put out great records this year. Of course the person that may have put out the greatest record of all, Frank Ocean, actually did earn his keep, pulling in a total of 6 nominations. Also earning 6 nominations were The Black Keys, who will have interesting competition vs. Coldplay, Muse and Bruce Springsteen in the Best Rock Album category. Just mentioning Muse and Coldplay as nominees should give you a sign as to what they’re working with. The Best Alternative Music Album nominees are almost always interesting though, and this year is no different with Fiona Apple, M83, Gotye, Tom Waits and Bjork all up for that one. There’s a bunch of other categories with names you’ve probably heard of getting nominations, but I’m not going to name them all. Instead, let me simply advise you to go here to see all the nominees. I don’t think any of the bands in today’s Pick Your Poison have earned Grammy nominations before, but that’s perfectly okay. There’s still lots of good stuff in this set from Amor de Dias, Beach Fossila, The Birthday Suit, Broke For Free, Burywood and Lucius (covering Freelance WHales). In the Soundcloud section please enjoy streams from Cass McCombs, Eat Skull and Thee Oh Sees, plus a holiday track from Kishi Bashi.
The Birthday Suit – Uh-Huh Uh-Huh
Giant Giant Sand – Undiscovered Country (John Parish Remix)
The Goodnight Darlings – Red Hot
Lucius – Ghosting (Freelance Whales cover)
Radiohead – Everything in Its Right Place (Jeremy Hills End of the World Remix)
SOUNDCLOUD
alt-J – Fitzpleasure (Betatraxx Remix)
Eat Skull – How Do I Know When To Say Goodnight?
Kishi Bashi – It’s Christmas But It’s Not White Here In Our Town
