Relative Something

I watched the Grammy Awards show last night. I can’t decide if it is my age that makes a show about currently popular music uninspiring or if it is the natural evolution of the industry and this event that leaves it appearing to be a forced effort, wanting to be more monumental than it really is. I don’t blame it. The whole thing is mind boggling, really.

The Grammy Awards, are presented annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States. They were first established in 1958. Think back to that time and how limited the music was that could be heard on the radio or purchased on record albums. Compare that to the explosion of recorded music available through digital technology and the internet today. I can’t imagine what the nominating process must involve.

The impression I get from so many of the currently popular performing artists and their over the top productions is that they want every song to project the culminating energy of a final encore of their greatest performance ever. It’s as if they were inspired by seeing such a moment when it was achieved by one of their favorite artists and then decided that’s what they wanted to do, only bigger. But, contrary to what they hope to accomplish, when every moment is BIG, then that becomes the normal and it is nye on impossible to employ the fine art of dynamic range. The result, even though there are strobe lights, pyrotechnics, and confetti throughout, comes across more boring than exciting.

Or maybe I’m just showing my age.