Daft Punk stole the show, by the way. They won almost every relevant category - and rightly so. If you're unaware, Daft Punk is a French electronica duo who, in those rare instances they appear or perform in public, wear elaborate robot masks that make them look like a Storm Trooper's cool older brother.
Since they're essentially producers, most of their album was collaboration with other artists. They didn't win any award just the two of them. As I was suffering through a second acceptance speech made impromptu on their behalf by the colossally awkward Pharrell, I began to wonder why they remained so silent.
It's not as though their faces are a mystery. They give interviews. They even did a photo spread for GQ, partly without the masks. They're not mystery men. It's a public image thing. While I wouldn't have expected them to perform without the helmets, I was surprised to see them wearing them the rest of the show (maybe it's just easier to recognize them that way?).
When they won Best Album, the Grammys' biggest award, Paul Williams took to the mic. Paul Williams has an interesting back story. He's no stranger to the Grammy stage, winning numerous times in the 1970's. He wrote Rainbow Connection. He was on Johnny Carson. He was a big deal. Then he disappeared until a year or two ago when a filmmaker did a documentary about just where he went. It's a story of addiction, loss, devastation, and redemption. If he'd only known, the film might have ended Sunday night.
It was touching that Williams got to speak on the Grammy stage one more time. That moment alone was worth the atrocious production they put together and I (willingly, I guess) sat through for four hours. It was a profoundly beautiful moment.
It wouldn't have been possible if Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter hadn't decided to remain silent.
In a way it is the ultimate artistic expression. When people make public art, it ceases to belong entirely to the artist. People begin to interpret and take some measure of ownership. When you enter a partnership, if it is a true partnership, you give up your rights to power and control - some part of your life is now no longer entirely within your grasp.
Daft Punk had to stand there while Pharrell riffed and stumbled over two odd acceptance speeches. They seemed to do so happily, I suspect, because they were grateful for his collaboration. His part in the music made possible something they could not have done on their own.
Their silence also led to profound beauty.
I thought a little about God and creation. I am coming more and more to believe God created this world in partnership with creation. Not that God had to do things this way, but the overflow of God's love allowed us - and allows us - to participate in our ongoing creation.
For good or for ill.
There may be times of embarrassment or awkward moments, times when that decision for partnership looks like a poor one. There are also moments of pure beauty. In the end, though, neither moment is a bad moment. Neither moment is a mistake. Both are indicative of true creative partnership. They are the embodiment of public art.
What is the world other than a work of art? What are our lives other than a public statement of some core belief resonating out from inside us?
I need this lesson, perhaps more than most. I hate to give up control of anything. I'm that guy who always has to correct some factual error in an otherwise unrelated story. I pass it off sometimes as a mild neurodevelopmental disorder, and I'm only half kidding (I certainly have lots of Asperger symptoms). I have this ingrained compulsion to "make things right," a difficulty discerning the difference between fact and opinion.
It gets me into trouble.
So I am glad for these moments. These expressions of silence that allow for collaboration. So many artists and musicians hold tightly to their work and struggle for it to be seen the ways in which they intended. Daft Punk made their art and released it to the wild.
Perhaps creative partnership is the key. Perhaps becoming accustomed to outside influence births the capacity for letting go. Or perhaps they're just super-evolved, futuristic, French robots who have a lot of complex things figured out.
Either way, there's something to be said about the openness in which we live life and the ways we allow the genuine contributions of others to impact who we are.
Random Access Memories is the only nominated album I'd listened to before the nominations were announced. I spent a good deal of time with it over the summer. Mostly I liked the fun, dance groves and appreciated the homage to 70's dance music with all the modern twists. I haven't heard it (besides the odd radio play of "Get Lucky") in probably four or five months.
When the nominations came out, I figured this was the preordained winner. There was so much critical buzz, it's a long-suffering, oft forgotten group in a genre that hasn't quite come of age, who actually put out a complex album, layered with deep musical knowledge and loads of production experience, it seems fun, tough, serious, light, deep, and easy all at the same time.
Despite the hit single, this album most reminded me of Herbie Hancock's a few years back - an album that won because it's pure genius was impossible for voters to ignore, despite its more popular and commercial rivals. Grammy usually gets these things right, somehow.* Random Access Memories seems like the next in line.
It provides everything you could have ever hoped for from Daft Punk and then all manner of different, more imaginative, unpredictable things - from the piano-based, introspective ballad-of-sorts "Within" to the collaboration with forgotten 70's iconic songwriter, Paul Williams - "Touch."
I really enjoy the opening track, "Give Life Back to Music," which combines a lot of the best qualities of the album in one place, especially the ability to entertain. Where Daft Punk is weak is their tendency to focus so much of production and invention they can miss the sweet spot and overproduce. A song like, "Lose Yourself to Dance" might have been even better with a little less Pharrell input.
If I'm picking a favorite track, it has to be "Giorgio by Moroder," the nine minute, mostly spoken/instrumental tribute to the German producer who essentially invented electronica. It features the man himself describing his musical vision of encapsulating the past, present, and future of music in the early 70's. It's a wonderful celebration of innovative creativity and a helpful concept summary for Random Access Memories itself.
It checks all the boxes: depth, variety, creativity, musicality, style, innovation. It's just a plain good album. I think it will win. I think it should win. It's a landmark album of the highest quality, by a group that's been working in near-obscurity for the better part of a decade to legitimize a genre of music that's been otherwise snubbed and ignored by the general public.** This is the kind of thing the voters reward.
At the same time, when I come back to it, some of the songs fade into the background. A number of them go on too long, take mis-steps, or are otherwise forgettable (in parts). That doesn't happen on any of the other albums. There are duds all around, but you know it right away and they don't hang around forever.
I've not stopped thinking about (and appreciating) the Sara Bareilles album, even as it was understated upon first listen. Random Access Memories is good, great even, but it may ultimately be forgettable once others build upon the foundation provided here. If they don't win, you might see a song on an album forty years from now paying tribute to some long-forgotten French electronica outfit that only true diehards remember as revolutionaries of the sound. They could be going out on tour with the next big thing, a la Muddy Waters and the Rolling Stones.
I just don't know how to handicap this race. Macklemore is the frontrunner, I guess. Daft Punk has the critical acclaim and the benefit of most voters probably hearing each album once (if at all). Taylor Swift is the darling and Bareilles probably falls closest to my personal style preference - thus making her impossible to judge accurately.
I can see why any of them might win. They all make their case in their own way. I don't think Kendrick Lamar has a shot. Only his win would be a surprise to me. A Swfit win would be disappointing, just because of the "been there, done that" aspect. I'll be happy for any of the others.***
Thanks for reading and enjoy the show!
*But not always. But sometimes. (Now I just feel like Malcolm McDowell.)
**"Around the World" was big when I was in high school and college - it's a great track, a really great one that holds up over time - the guys who did that song were entirely capable of the layered, sophisticated performance you see on Random Access Memories, but they were a mysterious french electronica group, no one actually expected them to do it.
***Gun to my head? It's still Daft Punk. There's a larger narrative here; Macklemore will be happy with the Best Song award.
