Safe sound

The 42nd annual Grammys

by Matt Ashare

Best New Artist? Kid Rock

Perhaps the most telling drama surrounding this year's Grammy Awards nominations had to do not with who got the nod from NARAS to compete for the big prize on February 23 but with who got their chances for another win stripped away. At first it appeared that Fugee Lauryn Hill would once again capitalize on the success of her 1998 Ruffhouse/Columbia solo debut, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (one of last year's big winners), when the single "Everything Is Everything" was one of the five songs picked in the Best Female R&B Vocal Performance category. The nomination, however, was rescinded shortly after the announcement when it was noted that "Everything Is Everything" was released as a single before the October 1, 1998, cutoff point -- which makes it ineligible for 42nd Annual Grammy Awards consideration. Instead, Faith Evans will now be competing against Mary J. Blige, Brandy, Macy Gray, and Whitney Houston with her "Love like This" single. Wait a second? Brandy? Wasn't her appropriately titled "Almost Doesn't Count" part of the 1998 Never Say Never (Atlantic)? Well, yes, but apparently it was released as a single during the eligibility period, which does makes it legal for consideration this year. Still, it's hard to shake the feeling that the 2000 Grammys are as much about what happened in 1998 as in 1999 -- i.e., that NARAS has fallen behind the times.

To a certain extent, it's a problem that's endemic to an institution like the Grammys. After all, when you're dealing with an award designed to recognize mass success on an industry-wide level, it's only fair that an artist, album, or single be allowed a certain amount of time to make such an impact. And a year isn't necessarily a long time in the life of a multi-million-selling album that yields more than a single or two. But it is a little odd to find Shania Twain being recognized yet again for something she recorded for an album that came out not in '98 but in '97. Her "Man I Feel like a Woman!" is nominated in the Best Female Country Vocal Performance category, and her "You've Got a Way" captured a nomination in a category, Song of the Year, that she won last year with "You're Still the One" from the same album.

The most troubling category of all, however, is Best New Artist, where last year Miss Lauryn Hill was a contender even though she'd clearly established herself as the fontwoman of the Fugees in previous years. This year she's not in the running, but both Kid Rock and Susan Tedeschi are. The Kid may be new to a lot of people -- including the great majority of NARAS members who actually vote on the Grammys. But he's been doing his thing for a good decade now, and the album that propelled him to prominence in 1999, Devil Without a Cause (Atlantic), didn't get any other nominations because it was released before October 1, 1998. Similarly, blues guitarist Susan Tedeschi is nominated on the basis of an album that came out two years ago. However, like Hill in last year's awards, both Kid Rock and Tedeschi are considered new enough to be in the running for Best New Artist, which seems to suggest that sometimes it take more than even a couple of years recording, performing, and moving units before one can actually be considered a "new" artist. (The other New Artist nominees, Christina Aguilera, Macy Gray, and Britney Spears, were, at least, new in '99.)

In general, Grammy has always preferred the old, tested warhorse veteran to the young upstart. So though there are plenty of teeny-popper nominees (Backstreet Boys, Ricky Martin, Aguilera, Spears), the winner of this first round of Grammys is Carlos Santana, who comes away with 11 nominations, including Album of the Year for Supernatural (Arista). The area Supernatural most deserves a nomination for -- Most All-Star Cameos on a Platinum-Selling Album -- doesn't exist, but one does have to wonder how many of the veteran guitarist's own ideas went into the making of Supernatural and how much of the disc was simply a by-committee A&R coup designed to get the maximum possible mileage out of guest spots by Matchbox 20's Rob Thomas, Dave Matthews, Everlast, and Eric Clapton. Well, it's good to see Carlos getting some props after all the years he's spent in the business, even if he has to share the spotlight.

There is a point, however, where it becomes difficult to tell the difference between playing it safe and plain old laziness. Was Sheryl Crow's cover of Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child o' Mine" really one of the best five female rock vocal performances of 1999? Was it even a very good cover? Ditto for Lenny Kravitz's "American Woman," which will compete with songs by Chris Cornell, Everlast, Bruce Springsteen, and Tom Waits in the Best Male Rock Vocal Performance category. If Crow's cover or Kravitz's is an accurate reflection of the state of music in 1999, then it was a much worse year than I remember.