For better or worse, the Grammy Awards can be extraordinarily
difficult to watch. With an annual viewership of almost 30 million
and a long, successful history, the Grammys are the oldest and most
respected of any music awards show. But in any year in recent
memory, dozens of brilliant albums have fallen by the wayside, for
the most part not even nominated, due to a lack of sales or media
juggernaut status.
Take 1997 for instance. Two landmark albums, Beck’s
“Odelay” and Radiohead’s “OK
Computer” ““ both unanimously respected modern classics
““ were nominated for the coveted Best Album of the Year
award, and for once it seemed that whichever won, the result would
still be a victory for pop music. The winner? Celine Dion’s
“Falling Into You.” Even after this apparent triumph,
the Canadian singer didn’t reach her greatest success until
she sang “My Heart Will Go On,” the love theme from the
high-grossing film “Titanic.” Her sales went through
the roof, dwarfing any boost she may have gotten from the Best
Album Grammy win.
Though the goal of the Grammy Awards, in the words of
Communications Vice President Ron Roecker, is to “celebrate
excellence,” in the post-millennial era, award shows, ranging
from the Grammys to the Billboard and MTV Video Music Awards, often
seem a dime a dozen, with only the hosts and wardrobes changing.
Much like Dion’s foray into film, many artists have found an
unexpected venue to celebrate their excellence for new audiences:
the weekly television serial.
Music and television have always gone hand in hand, from the
Beatles’ first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan
Show” to MTV. The entrance of the pop song into the world of
dramatic television is a newer development, reaching its greatest
current apex with FOX’s “The O.C.” The show, much
like “Dawson’s Creek” and other series from the
WB network before it, aims at a younger, more adventurous
demographic than the Baby Boomer-leaning Grammys and often features
music so current that it’s not even out yet. The Beastie Boys
and U2, both Grammy nominees this year, premiered their new tracks
on the music-embracing show.
“I think that from its inception, (series creator) Josh
(Schwartz) wanted music to be its own character,” said
Alexandra Patsavas, the show’s music supervisor.
The first season of the show made a household name of Adam
Brody’s nerdy Seth Cohen character, as well as a few of his
favorite bands. Aside from his beloved Death Cab For Cutie,
currently in pre-production for their major label debut, the
beginning of the wave of success for groups like Franz Ferdinand
and Modest Mouse coincided directly with their songs’
placements on “The O.C.” Modest Mouse returned to
perform live this season, along with The Thrills, The Walkmen,
Rachel Yamagata and fellow Grammy nominees The Killers. Using
lesser-known bands serves both the show and the musicians;
licensing fees are far lower for up-and-comers than big name
artists, and having a song or appearance featured on a popular show
might be the beginning of a group’s journey to stardom.
With the music industry being harder than ever to break into,
the selection of music played on television shows might be
equivalent to that of the early days of FM radio, without the
mandated playlists of the ClearChannel era. Musical directors like
Patsavas play as DJ, providing both a soundtrack for the show and
exposure for the artists.
One such artist is Tyrone Wells, who gained notoriety at UCLA
last year by performing “Need” with Mark Chipello at
Spring Sing, winning the awards for Best Solo/Duet Entry and Best
Overall Entry. Wells has had several songs from his album
“Snapshot” featured on four different television shows,
including “One Tree Hill” and “Rescue
Me.”
“They used one of my songs at the end of “˜Rescue
Me,’ and they used almost the whole song which is pretty
crazy, to let it play for that long. Because that song was so well
placed with what was going on in that show, all of a sudden my CD
just started selling like mad online, and I ended up going all the
way up to No. 2 on CDbaby.com. They have over 70,000 artists on
there, and for me to be No. 2 in sales for several weeks,
that’s great. And that’s a direct result of TV
placement,” said Wells.
CDbaby is a prominent venue for independent artists to sell
their work. And with a primary fan base in Orange County, the
nationwide exposure for an artist like Wells is invaluable.
Youth-oriented shows like “The O.C.” and formerly
“Dawson’s Creek,” briefly feature album covers
and a snippet of songs played during the episode at its end, giving
name and face to the audio. Sections of many shows’ Web sites
are devoted to listing the soundtrack for the latest episodes, much
like the DJ playlists posted on the sites of free-form radio
stations like KCRW.
For the more casual fan, a more direct form of exposure is
provided by retail soundtracks. Movie soundtracks have always been
successful, but television has only recently taken advantage of the
medium. “The O.C.” has taken the art of the soundtrack
to a new level, presenting them as “mixes” and even
releasing one based on Seth Cohen’s imaginary
“Chrismukah” holiday. The album creates the impression
that Seth burned the mixes just for you, helping to establish the
personal connection between characters and fans, which in turn adds
meaning to the songs ““ and incentive to buy the albums they
originated from.
But the Grammy Awards portray themselves as the music
industry’s foremost showcase on television, though most of
their purported diversity is absent from the actual telecast.
“We’re really about introducing people to a wide
variety of music and performances and talent,” Roecker
said.
But this vision doesn’t necessarily come through on
screen. A vast majority of the awards ““ approximately 95 out
of the 107 categories ““ are given before the show, leaving
only a few to be awarded on air. An avid listener may seek out the
nominees for Best Traditional Folk Album at the local record store,
but with a few minor exceptions, the nominees and winners presented
on the telecast are familiar, marketable faces. When the variety
offered by the Grammys is so large, it almost seems a waste not to
reveal it to the world.
“In terms of satisfaction and prestige, Grammy awards are
important, especially in fields other than popular music. No other
awards are given for many of the genres the Grammy covers,”
said Professor Anthony Seeger of UCLA’s ethnomusicology
department.
Grammy nominees and the eventual winners are selected by an
18,000-person vote. Anyone is eligible to become part of the group,
as long as they have six professional credentials. While this may
open the field to submissions by independent musicians, seeing one
in the “top four” categories is a rarity. With such a
large voter panel, the Grammy telecast ultimately reflects the
pre-existing preferences of the public, with little in the way of
surprise.
“The categories that we put on air are people who we know
are attending, categories that are diverse and that people would be
interested in knowing who the winners are,” Roecker said.
Though the major awards rightly remain static from year to year,
with 18 performances in the upcoming telecast, the Grammys might be
better served by drawing musical acts from some of the more
esoteric categories. With the best performing slots reserved for
the marquee acts, showing off on the Grammy stage isn’t an
easy peak to reach for even the most talented of emerging artists,
and that’s assuming they nab a nomination in the first place.
Modest Mouse, for instance, toiled in obscurity for years before
winning Best Alternative Album, with the promotional tools of
Epic/Sony Records behind it. Receiving radio or MTV airplay is a
similarly difficult task, and so for many bands, the hottest place
to be is on your television.
“As far as breaking into, say, MTV or radio, they are such
controlled and guarded environments. It’s heartbreaking from
a songwriter’s point of view because a lot of radio play is
not on the merit of the song or the artist, it’s the money
that’s behind that artist or song,” Wells said.
This is not to say that corporate America will never rear itself
on the shores of “The O.C.,” but for now, television
seems to be the final frontier for new music. Though lacking the
global appeal of an annual extravaganza like the Grammy Awards,
successful shows like “The O.C.” rake in ratings and
millions of viewers on a consistent basis. With a new episode each
week, the opportunities for exposure and discovery are nearly
endless.
“I think that consumers and music lovers are really ready
for great music,” Patsavas said. “I know I
am.”