I’m watching the Oscars right now. I usually write my articles relatively in advance, but I figured if I’m going to be topical this week I should stick it out and be on hand for the big event of the week. Steve Carrell and Will Farrell just did the makeup award (it went to Howard Burger and Tammy Lane). Having a few extra days to think about what to write gave me some time to reflect on the subject, and I’ve come up with something else entirely.
My original point had to do with music awards themselves. I’ve always found them sort of arbitrary, and I figured that reason was because award shows never seem to give credit to the group of folks that I believe really deserve it, and instead seem to champion really horrible music makers and the people they act with. I was going to talk about perhaps disposing of the dozen or so award ceremonies that happen throughout the year to create one that dedicated itself to actual quality rather than financial success. As a naive, simple practice, this worked in my head.
The reasons I was thinking this linked themselves directly to the Oscars, a sovereign sphere of ideas and hopes that people get riled up about every year even though most folks have never seen half the films. The Oscars, unlike say, the Billboard awards, don’t award their statues to movies that made a ton of money. From what I know, there really is no music award that does the same, which means there is no fair avenue for artistic expression in music to be rewarded if it doesn’t necessarily pay off financially. And isn’t that really the way things should be?
I’m glad I took a few days to think about this article.
Ideally, some award shows give credence to the hard workers of their respective industry, but realistically, this is only done in theory. Award shows as a whole are done for one reason only, and that’s marketing. And yes, we’re all part of that in a sense, but are we integral to it like ‘they’ say we are, or are we simple participants who take a shot when someone screws up their acceptance speech?
The reason summer blockbusters don’t win awards at the Oscars because they aren’t marketed to what the Academy wants in a ‘good’ movie. The Oscars themselves are marketed to artful types as the end of the cinematic year, but whose cinematic year, really?
The music business doesn’t really have anything to do with the movie one, however, even though sometimes MTV gives awards to movies and every now and then a real song will win an Oscar. Their similarities are general and rather arbitrary; their differences, however, are interesting. The similar nature is that an audience pays money to see a product, and the amount that they enjoy this product has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not they win an award for it. It’s the same sort of logic as the news. If it bleeds, it leads.
The differences are astounding for two pieces of pop culture that aren’t really that different audience-wise. Movies have awards for quality purposes, and they push that as a selling theme. Each has their own mythos and unwritten rules that all the real fans of the awards know (The Golden Globes are really what represent the best movies of the year, the Oscars always celebrate the good actors way too late, etc) and on the whole, we buy that these academies at least nominate those that deserved it (or at least that they have a good batting average.) Music awards, however, are quite open about the fact that billboard placements, CD sales, and concert receipts weigh heavily on the choices for those in charge. This one difference changes everything, but at the same time changes absolutely nothing.
For one thing, the main difference with music is that it attracts those that like those certain artists that sell very, very well, whereas pretty much everyone will watch the Oscars, even if they have no idea what Good Night and Good Luck is about. People will really only watch the MTV video awards if they like the videos on MTV (I’ve heard in general there aren’t very many.) And that runs the gamut. People in the east coast indie scene are fairly aware of Canadian Music Week happening in Toronto right now, which began last Friday with the Canadian Indie music awards, which is something I know about for the sole reason that I enjoy Canadian indie music. If this tells us anything, it’s that we’re all pretty much exactly the same, no matter which dial we turn.
The second reason is that while esteemed actors are expected to get awards, esteemed pop musicians aren’t. When was the last time Radiohead received an award for an album? Bob Dylan? Bruce Springsteen? Tom Waits? Neil Young? The Fugees? Kate Bush? I mean, there’s a lot. And forget about the Grammy’s. The music industry’s “Oscars” have been for a long time little more than a punch line, such as when Homer Simpson tries to pay his hotel bag boy, but fails because he tries to pay him with his Grammy. Anyways, what I’m saying here is that real musical artists don’t even necessarily think about getting awards because the avenue isn’t really there for them to get them. At the same time, while somebody like Jack Nicholson will show up to the Oscars (in the front row…sitting next to Kiera Knightley), most bands and artists really couldn’t care less.
Since it is quite common knowledge that music awards and quality of music have nothing to do with one another, artists that actually care about the quality of music stay the hell away from the music awards. But none of this is neither here nor there. There is a deep, scientific measurement I could quantify here to show you the exact grid of music importance and musical decoration, but that would really place importance on award shows in general. This is not something I want to do.
What I briefly mentioned before is that the audience has the product, and they either enjoy it or they don’t. At some point in time or another you’ll buy a CD and you’ll do with it what you will. You’ll either listen to it or you’ll give it to someone you love or you’ll place your beer on it or perhaps you’ll format your skeet machine so that you can propel it skyward for your backyard shooting pleasure. But you won’t give it an award. We, the audience, have absolutely nothing to do with the award process, and that’s why they don’t at all matter.
