Not Dead Yet

Welcome to Open Up and Read, the newsletter from music journalist Jason Brow. Thanks for reading. Tell your friends to subscribe at OpenUpAndRead.com. You can also toss a few dollars his way via Ko-Fi. Be kind to cats. Music is the best.

How’ve you been keepin’? You okay? Probably not, but here we are.

First, hello to new subscribers and everyone following me over on Bluesky. Find me over there.

It’s been a while so I’m rusty; a bit of navel-gazing will shake out the cobwebs and hopefully, we’ll find some poignancy. If not, forgive any of the following offending shadows.

Firstmost: the shitheads are preparing to hurt a lot of people. I had a whole slab of copium about the past election, but you’ve read enough about it. Now is the time we steel ourselves ahead of the deranged promises of mass deportations, detentions and detransitions. Protect your friends.

Talking about music seems stupid at this point, especially if we’re discussing the Grammys. But low-hanging fruit is the best to grab if you haven’t raised your arm up in a while, so how better to bring back an inconsequential newsletter than by chatting about what feels like the most inconsequential slate of nominations (since the last one).

For the most part, they were okay in how they were equally predictable and underwhelming. CEO Harvey Mason Jr will always swear that the Recording Academy (and thus, the Grammys) is improving by expanding the voting body’s diversity. To his point, it has; many of my colleagues, female and non-white, announced their Recording Academy memberships in recent months.

But the results of these efforts are still the same, Harvey.

Take, for example, his praise for how Beyoncé scored 11 nominations across the pop and country categories:

But those different subsets still voted for Beyoncé, one of the biggest artists on the planet. Diversity in voters should also mean diversity in votes, right?

McDonald’s winning Best Burger and Best Chicken Sandwich isn’t a culinary achievement; it shows that everyone eats at only one restaurant.  

I’m not debasing Cowboy Carter’s country credentials (I enjoyed it; she says it’s not a country album; in that case, give it to Lainey Wilson).

The issue is that if the Recording Academy wants to accurately reflect what this artform—music—is doing and reward the creatives pushing boundaries forward, then its big award ceremony shouldn’t come off as a sheltered suburbanite whose music diet is just iHeartRadio station happens to be on when they run errands.

Nor should they get to be loud and proud when they show off the Best New Artist category and it’s full of people who have been at it for a decade or more (Still, I’m glad to see Teddy Swims get a nod, having spoken with him in 2021 about his debut EP.)

This is also an indication of how the Grammys can be behind the times: I’m nobody. I’m a schlub on the internet. Any time I come close to being a tastemaker/kingmaker, you know we’ve done fucked up.

André 3000’s New Blue Sun is this year’s Album of the Year wildcard. The role was previously played by Jon Batiste, ABBA, Jon Batiste (who won!) and Black Pumas. I’m glad it got nominated, just to remind people it happened.

The Rock categories are an undead affair; literally, with The Beatles’ “Now and Then” getting Best Rock Performance (and Record of the Year!). Best Rock Performance/Best Rock Albums of the Year are embarrassing because of how stale the nominees are (The Black Crowes! The Rolling Stones! Pearl Jam!).

Again, not to dismiss the quality of these albums, but rock is currently more exciting than what these nominees would indicate (even if I liked Green Day’s album).

The Alternative fields are slightly better, with Clairo, Kim Gordon, Brittany Howard and St. Vincent breaking up the boys’ club.

Let’s hope Gojira’s performance of "Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!)" wins Best Metal Performance. I wonder if the election might skew the Recording Academy’s votes that way.

I did have a half-baked thought that the election results might doom Charli XCX’s chances since the “Kamala is Brat” tweet would be this election cycle’s “Fight Song.” It’s unlikely that she will become a pariah. Nobody’s going to care. Expect Charli to win something. They want her to come back. They want to be cool enough for Charli.

The Grammys often relegate the Rap categories to the pre-show ceremony, choosing instead to spend the bulk of its three-plus hour show on performances, self-congratulatory bullshit and Trevor Noah’s hyperactive poptimistic puppy yapping (seriously, can we not have him come back?)

But Kendrick Lamar’s feud-ending diss track “Not Like Us” is up for Song and Record of the Year. Will they offer him a chance to perform? Will he call Drake a pedophile from the Crypto.com arena stage—one week before he (presumably) does it during the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show?

I don’t have faith that Cowboy Carter will win AOTY. The Recording Academy may be waiting for the final entry of this album trilogy to give her that coveted accolade. They may also think brat was more impactful (or maybe they were one of the millions who bought multiple copies of The Tortured Poets Department).

Still, it would be nice. Cowboy Carter was enjoyable, cohesive. t gave Shaboozey a good co-sign. And it would be nice for Beyoncé to finally dispel the notion she always comes up blank in the Big Four categories. A woman of color voted the best in America? Can you imagine?

Yes, they messed up when they didn’t give AOTY to Lemonade. Yes, Renaissance deserved it more than Harry’s House. Having Beyoncé end the night victorious might be a little bit of restitution and repair a few reputations.

They’ll probably give it to Chappell Roan. 

Mulatu Astatke released a new album with the Hoodna Orchestra. Instrumental music is really good at disconnecting me from the sins of the world. I think we all need to get out of our skins for a while.

I’m not an expert on Ethiopian jazz. Hopefully, there are some books at my library I can rent before both they (and it) are gone forever.

I think the algorithm recommended Mulatu to me because I picked up a Hailu Mergia 7” back when I was deejaying. It might have been in a reggae box at Almost Ready Records, or maybe it was an odd Discogs purchase. Either way, I’m glad it crossed my paths.

Hailu put out an album last year. I need to get a copy of it on vinyl. In the meantime, I recommend Bandcamp.

In the last three months, I’ve started a full-time gig that swallowed up my free time. It also disrupted the hell out of my normal listening and reading habits. I’ve started Doug Brod Born with a Tail, The Devilish Life and Wicked Times of Anton LaVey. He also wrote They Just Seem A Little Weird, a book about how Starz, Cheap Trick, Kiss and Aerosmith transformed rock.

I hope he writes more books; so far, Born With a Tail is an interesting portrait of America’s most famous Satanist.

My concert calendar also dried up (more to the layoff that came in May rather than the new gig). I caught Soul Coughing (still great), Fontaines D.C. (same), and saw Starcrawler play “Pet Semetary” to an exhausted Wednesday NYC crowd (who were there to see Boris). Overkill opened for King Diamond and…that might be it for shows this year.

Though. Dark Thoughts are playing with Pure Terror and Blue Hundred in December. If fortune favors this fool, I might close out 2024 with them. But, Dark Thoughts was the last band I saw in 2019. Three months later, and well….

Thank you for subscribing to Open Up and Read, the newsletter from music journalist Jason Brow. It’s free (and whenever it’s not, it’ll be cheap). Support by recommomending others to subscribe. You can also toss a few dollars his way via Ko-Fi. Be kind to cats. Music is the best.