Grammy voters couldn’t make up their minds this year.
So they wound up acting like counselors at a particularly indulgent summer camp: They gave everybody a prize.
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Unfortunately, they gave the least-deserving artists the biggest ones.
While it’s nice that a folk-rock band nabbed “Album of the Year,†Mumford & Sons hardly rates as the modest or intimate group their press would suggest. They play their “folk†instruments like heavy-metal huns, pounding banjos and mandolins without mercy or nuance.
Similarly, it’s encouraging that Fun. has an original sound. Too bad it’s such a corny and florid one. They sound like an emo band that saw one too many Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals. Their biggest song, “We Are Young,†has the self-glorifying smugness of a kid who believes he’s the first person in history ever to get drunk and have a friend drive him home.
As for Gotye: Can you say “one-hit wonder�
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He’ll be the Christopher Cross of his generation.
Not that the voters got it all wrong. The Black Keys richly deserved the awards they received â€" four in all, if you count the one big one for their producer/guitarist, Dan Auerbach. The group revives ’70s-style blues rock with a current verve.
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It’s notable, too, that the awards acknowledged Frank Ocean, who made one of the most challenging R&B albums of the year. While Ocean could use some coaching in the melody department, and in his editing, he has a voice of pure cream.
Miguel also got some deserved love. The R&B singer put out one of the most exquisite soul songs of the year with “Adore.†While he didn’t get the top prizes he was up for, Miguel did bag Best R&B Song.
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Jay-Z and Kanye West also earned their three statuettes. Their joint disc could have been a self-indulgent victory lap by two satisfied kings. But it had the toughness and edge you’d expect from far hungrier artists.
If only choices that informed trickled up to the top.
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jfarber@nydailynews.com
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