I know I haven’t posted in a while (been busy and lazy and uninspired lol). Since I did my afterthought review on the CMAs in November, I figured I’d do one for these two important items (as you can see from my glorious poster-like creation on the right side in this entry lol):
- The 51st Grammy Award Nominations
and
- CMT Giants: Alan Jackson
I decided to combine my thoughts into one post, since I’d rather not make two separate ones (I like them big posts! Tags’R'Us). Believe me, there are better ways of organizing these opinions, but I don’t feel like worrying about it lol. They are placed in different sections. Scroll down for the CMT Giants review.
The nomination for the 2009 Grammy Awards were announced a few days ago, and I’ve already commented on them already at a few sites, but here’s my more extensive analysis.
First of all, as I first read through the list, I was absolutely thrilled by their choices. The Grammys has a respectable tendency in its history to appreciate and honor actual good music (well, in the country genre, at least. I’m not sure about other genres.), and while they do have some questionable choices sometimes, they are definitely a lot more smarter and better judges when it comes to art and music than people are for say… country award shows (yeah, record sells always equal talent, don’t they Nashville?). The Grammys enormously pleased me with the Dixie Chicks wins last time. Anyway, like other people online have commented, the nominations for 2009 (or is it for 2008? Whatever it is, for the upcoming awards) are really exciting and one of the best they’ve ever came up with. I’m not going to list all the nominations or the categories, but I’ll give my opinion on what songs I want to.
Let’s start in the country genre (here’s an easy list to look at for country related noms from CU and here for the full noms), and let’s look at the nominations for “Best Female Country Vocal Performance”. I thought they were pretty good, though I wouldn’t necessarily place Martina McBride‘s song in that category (it’s a decent song, but there are better choices). I’ve never heard LeAnn Rimes‘s song until just right now: wow, very good vocals and not a bad song. My choice (unsurprisingly) would be Lee Ann Womack‘s “Last Call”. I wouldn’t mind if Carrie Underwood or Trisha Yearwood‘s songs won, because I love those ones too. I’m glad Taylor Swift was left off.
Now: “Best Male Country Vocal Performance”… I’m not really blown away by any of those songs, but they’re not horrible horrible choices. I gotta go with my man, George Strait, though. I’ve grown quite a liking to “Troubadour”, as I heard it more as a radio single.
“Best Country Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals”. Hmm… I’m gonna have to go with Lady Antebellum. But wow, I just listened to The Steel Drivers‘s “Blue Side of the Mountain” and I love it… edgy mountain-sounding vocals with hard-driving bluegrass instruments. Will definitely check them out! Looks like Chris Stapleton sings for them… forgot about that. I’d be fine if Sugarland‘s song or Brooks & Dunn‘s won too, but definitely don’t want Rascal Flatts to win a thing.
I really like the choices with “Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals”, except for the obvious song that stands apart from the rest: the Kenny Chesney/Strait duet (which is only saved by George, but is still not a good song). You know I’m dig the Alison Krauss/Robert Plant song (more on them later), and the Strait/Patty Loveless duet (my two most favorite male and female artists singing and honoring Johnny and June Carter Cash? Excellence-ness. And I hope they win). Oh yeah, I’m not too fond of “Life in a Northern Town”, like I mentioned in my song review months ago (I would rather hear Chesney and Strait’s tune, to be quite serious). I enjoy Trisha Yearwood‘s (with Keith Urban‘s harmony) song, so if she won, I wouldn’t cry. It’s very nice.
