So I was listening to the oldies station this weekend, and a couple of things that are weird occurred to me: first, that the Grammys have always sucked. When I was a youngster and cringing at the thought of Celine Dion's Falling Into You being the best album released in 1997, I sort of assumed that the contest was decided by a bunch of fat old men with visible chest hair and gold chains who maybe had been kind of cool at one time but now were not cool any more. From what the Oldies DJ was saying, this is apparently not true - the Grammys have actually been steadily getting cooler as time goes on, and have just now reached a point of moderate suckiness from the depths of awfulness where they once resided. Interesting aside: what was the best album of 1997, or rather 1996, since that's when all the nominees were released apparently? From my itunes I'd pick Squarepusher's Feed Me Weird Things, but I think The Score from the Fugees is the most awesomely 1996ish of the albums released that year. Obviously certain people are going to choose Pinkterton, and I have no problem with that. I do have a problem with anyone who picks DJ Shadow's Endtroducing. If you haven't admitted to yourself that that shit was vastly overrated by now, I have no use for you. It's been 13 years. It's time to admit it and move on.Anyways, back to the Grammys always having sucked. Now, maybe I should be rejoicing because apparently the Grammys also share my distaste for the Beatles, but they take it a little too far. I'm not bringing Abbey Road to a desert island with me, but I sure as hell wouldn't shaft it to give a Grammy to Blood, Sweat and Tears by Blood, Sweat and Tears. Which same also beat out At San Quentin, which just makes you angry. I mean, c'mon. The best album of the year 1970 was a jazz fusion record? Do you hate posterity or something?
The one that really got my goat was 1981, though. Christopher Cross by Christopher Cross? Beats Pink Floyd's the motherfucking Wall? The movie version of The Wall had a very strong role to play in my adolescence, so perhaps I'm a bit biased (note for those who knew me in college - remember the eyebrow thing? That was because of the Wall). But this seems insane. I have never even heard of this pasty motherfucker, but apparently this album was noted for being one of the most influential soft-rock albums of the early eighties. Christ.
In any event, the fact that Outkast could win or Radiohead could get routinely nominated is like a miracle when you think about how lame the Grammys used to be. So Kanye should stop complaining.
Here's the second thing that is weird that occurred to me because of the oldies station: the DJ was describing someone's rise to fame as being meteoric, and I was like, that sounds very familiar but it can't possibly be the right expression. But then I looked and it is the right expression. This expression makes no sense, this meteoric rise. Meteors do not rise, they fall. They are one of the few objects in the world that are defined by their falling. If you were trying to create an expression that served as an intensifier for rising, it would seem that you could not pick any worse word or phrase than meteoric, save maybe dead monkey. Also, why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway? Airplane food, it's the worst! And those peanuts they give you!
In fact, if you bother to look at the definition of meteoric (which I just did), you realize that the aspect of meteors that is meant to be analagous to persons in the midst of a rise to fame is not the vector of their trajectory, but rather its swiftness and sudden but temporary brilliance, which makes it really quite a lovely turn of phrase when you think about it. Now I feel stupid.
