The latest issue of the Knoxville Voice is on the stands, and I have a column in it. I can't say much for the column itself, it's pretty tepid, but I recommend picking up the Voice. It's chock full o' stuff, including a column by Don Williams, a piece by Jack Rentfro about R.B. Morris, and lots of news you won't find anywhere else.
Eventually I'm sure the issue will be up on their web site, but you can check out older stories there right now: http://www.knoxvoice.com/
Update: The column's on the Voice web site now: http://tinyurl.com/2dj4wu
Anyway for worse or worser, here's my piece from it:
Yo Grammy!
A better method for identifying the best music
by Scott McNutt
The Grammys have come and gone, and you’re disappointed. Maybe you feel the Dixie Chicks didn’t deserve to win Record, Album and Song of the Year, and their doing so only shows that, for the academy, other agendas supersede honoring the best music. Or maybe you had $50 riding on Neil Young for Best Rock Song. (In which case, you have only yourself to blame.) Could be you’re stilled pissed that the heinous "Wind Beneath My Wings" won Record and Song of the Year in 1989. I know I am. Or maybe you just think the Grammys are fucking lame. I feel your pain.
Part of the problem, of course, is that the secret machinations of the industry insiders who select the winners are, well, secret and inside the industry. There’s no telling what some of the choices are based on—other than drugs, that is. Seriously, when Jethro Tull’s Crest of a Knave stole the 1989 Hard Rock/Metal Grammy from Metallica’s ...And Justice For All, didn’t you say to yourself, "What are those assholes on?" All we know for sure is that, as often as not, the process isn’t about selecting the best candidate.
Similar issues infest critics’ best-of lists. A local rock critic even admitted to me that he and other critics have no formal criteria for compiling these lists. They just go on gut. The problem with this—oh, let’s be honest, there are many problems with this. But the one I can attest to is this: Having been a critic for a few alternative papers, I can attest that the problem with critics basing stuff on nothing but their guts is that most critics are gutless. Meaning their selections are based on nothing at all.
Happily, I’ve given this problem the full two seconds of thought it’s worth, and I’ve arrived at a solution. What’s needed is a Grammy Fantasy League, where all the pertinent information could be fed into a computer program, and then Grammy winners for the past 50 years could go head to head in a playoff system. It’d be the Ain’t Yo Grammy’s Grammys Fantasy Playoff. This would give us the opportunity to answer those timeless questions always asked about the Grammys, such as: "Who really is the top pop artist ever?" "Which would win in a real throw-down between Grammy winners Rick ‘Working-Class Dog’ Springfield and Rick ‘Superfreak’ James?" "Who was the toughest Grammy prima donna, Madonna or Debbie Boone?" And "Best New Artist, 1963, the Swingle Singers? Seriously?"
I’ll leave it to someone more versed in fantasy to figure out how to calculate and compile data for the various artists and how the bracketing would actually work, because a lot of details that I don’t care about have to be decided. For instance, do nominees get included? The argument for inclusion is that we could have mildly pleasurable spectacles like lame 2003 nominee Kriss Kross taking on the truly annoying Record, Song, Album and New Artist of 1980 winner Christopher Cross. With luck, they’d crucify each other.
Or perhaps single-time Grammy winners would start out the matches. In this category, the first order of business would be to let honky-tonkin’ Hank Williams go walkin’ the floor all over Hank Williams Jr. Why? Because of Bocephus’ complicity in arranging 1989’s posthumous-duet travesty, "There’s a Tear in My Beer," which netted father and son the only Grammy either of them ever got. (1989 was a very bad year for the Grammys, eh?) For that humiliation, Hank gets a free pass to give the bitter dregs of his flesh bottle a little attitude adjustment.
The rest of this bracket would provide wildly eclectic pairings. Of course, it would also be so enormous that matches would run on into the next century. It might be best to throw together groups of one-time winners based on common criteria. For instance, you could assemble a team consisting of Patsy Cline, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and the Everly Brothers. Their common denominator is that the only Grammys they have are Lifetime Achievement Awards. Then you could pit them against the team of John Cougar Mellencamp, Macy Gray, Chamillionaire, and Fleetwood Mac, whose common trait is that the only Grammy they each have is the only Grammy they’ll ever have.
Or perhaps a different approach entirely should be taken, bracketing winners from previous decades against more modern winners. That way, beloved artists of yesteryear, such as multi-Grammy winner The Henry Mancini Orchestra, could take on the likes of rap heavyweight Eminem in a fair fight. Me, I’d put money on the orchestra. Why? Because you should never underestimate the tenacity of has-beens trying to stay on top. Don't believe it? Just take a gander at the Knox County Commission.
It’s also possible that the bracketing could take more creative approaches to the match-ups, using criteria beyond musical performances, such as dance moves and physical attributes. For instance, six-time Grammy winner Prince and Tom Jones, Grammy’s Best New Artist of 1965, could battle in a bulge off, with the vanquished required to "Kiss" the victor’s unit. Or vice-versa, depending on who would be more thrilled with what.
Okay, my daydreaming has taken us far afield of the original, serious point, which was that, given sufficient data points on the various acts, somebody could come up with a Grammy fantasy league that would allow us to identify, scientifically, the greatest pop artists of all time. So come on, you fantasy league specialists, get working on this thing. Because I, for one, can’t wait to see Madonna light up Debbie Boone’s ass.
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