JCC Amph 2020 Grammy Awards

The nominations are out for the 2020 Awards.

 

I'll try to listen to some of the Album of the Year nominees, as I have for the past couple of years. I did really poorly this year in terms of listening to new albums; I haven't heard any of the nominees, but I have until January, I guess, so I'd better get started.

 

is DJ Khalid just Khalid now? When did he drop the DJ part of his moniker?

 

whoops, nevermind, I was way off



I was confused with about how Lil'Bow Wow dropped the Lil' and is just Bow Wow now for artistic credibility, thought the same thing happened here.

 

Given that I had to scrape this off the back wall of the forum, nobody really cares, but just for fun, here is my ranking of the categories Record of the Year and Song of the Year as I have now given all of these songs repeated listens.

Song of the Year (best to worst)

bad guy - Billie Eilish

I have loved this song since the first time I heard and my love has not diminished one iota.

Truth Hurts - Lizzo

This is the weirdest song in this category and that's enough reason to love it. Lizzo's performance is towering.

Lover - Taylor Swift

Lush retro-pop goodness. The lyric "Have I known you twenty seconds or twenty years?" is her best lyric in ages.

Hard Place - H.E.R.

I love H.E.R. This isn't as good as most of the songs on her debut full-length which was in 2018, but it's still really good and she needs to break super-big.

Someone You Loved - Lewis Capaldi

Yeah, what? I'm as pissed off as you are that Lewis ******* Capaldi, the less-talented, more annoying Ed Sheeran, actually has a good song, but it's true.

Always Remember Us This Way - Lady Gaga

This one and the next one are really close; they're both sappy piano-ballads (as is the one directly above this one), but Gaga's performance elevates this one.

Bring My Flowers Now - Tanya Tucker

And Tucker's performance does the same for this one. She has the raspy cracked voice of a veteran and she saves a good ninety percent of the lyrics from their selves. But no one could save the line, "There's always rainbows and puppies and babies." Kill me now.

Norman ******* Rockwell - Lana Del Rey

I cannot BELIEVE Lana Del Rey is coming in last in any ranking of anything I've ever done, but this song is pretty weak sauce for her and, look, IS the lush string thing getting played out for her? Even a bit? Maybe?

Record of the Year (best to worst)

Quite a few duplicates here; see above for my thoughts on the duplicates.

bad guy - Billie Eilish
Truth Hurts - Lizzo
Old Town Road - Lil Nas X feat. Billy Ray Cyrus

Yeah, I'm that guy. This is so catchy.

Sunflower - Post Malone & Swae Lee

The production alone makes this one a lot of fun and it's also super-short and has a great chorus. I hate Post Malone & Swae Lee. But this is a good song.

Hard Place - H.E.R.
7 rings - Ariana Grande

"Been through some bad ****/I should be a sad bitch." I mean, yeah, it's not good.

Hey, Ma - Bon Iver

I never got into Bon Iver and I have no idea why anything about this is supposed to be good. Horrible production, awful vocals, forgettable melody. Why is this anything?

Talk - Khalid

I've listened to this song upwards of ten times. I still couldn't sing the hook. Hey, Ma is bad, but Talk is absolutely, unbelievably boring and that is worse. Khalid had some great stuff out and didn't get nearly enough recognition at last year's Grammies, so they're trying to catch up by honoring him this year, but, man, this is as dull as pop music gets. And this is produced by Disclosure which deserves a mention, I think. Has anyone burned out as fast as Disclosure? They were great for like the first five tracks of their debut album. Like they couldn't make it through a single album without being played out.

On the whole, several really good songs and a couple of great ones. I would say of the thirteen total songs nominated in these two categories, seven of them are worth listening to. I mean, that's not great, but it's more than half. But remember a couple of years ago when these categories were all like off of Jay-Z's 4:44 and Kendrick's DAMN and Bruno Mar's 24K Magic? What the hell happened? These categories were amazing that year.

 

We might as well get this one locked too.

 

Grammys rigged claims suspended CEO.

 

Counterargument: no one cares enough about the Grammys to rig them.

 

Rigging is the only possible explanation for an eighteen minute EP getting nominated for Album of the Year.