Grammies or whammies?

On a completely unrelated note, I noticed that the White Stripes' album Get Behind Me Satan won a Grammy for Best Alternative Album.

I didn't watch much of the Grammies, but there is the Internet to find out such things. What I did watch was a tape of last night's The Daily Show (because a leak in the ceiling caused a short in the smoke detector which caused it to blare hideously yesterday at 5:30 a.m., so I was a bit tuckered by the time it aired at 11:00 p.m.) during which there was a commercial promoting this very same album. I had seen this commercial previously (and in fact, the band performed on the Daily Show a while back--the show's first musical guest--to promote the album.

I have not seen commercials for the others in the category (The Arcade Fire, Beck, Death Cab For Cutie, Franz Ferdinand). I'm just saying.

Some people might think advertising on basic cable to be a sign that the album isn't selling as well as expected, which is probably the case, but I like to think it just means their label likes them more than do the labels for the other artists nominated. Or they like recouping their investment. (Note: I have no idea how much money V2 has spent on the band or their promotion. Pure glib conjecture.)

My take: The White Stripes were never meant to be this popular. I've seen them the last two times they toured, and they put on phenomenal live shows. However, the people who were screaming out for "Seven Nation Army" during Jack's twenty-minute blues jam really need to be culled from their fan base.

So screw you, Grammy voters; you're not helping by giving them awards that are revered by the people who don't like good music. You're just contributing to their demise. Not a dip from unnecessary popularity--a rise to a stratosphere in which they don't belong, and from which they will only plummit.

(Wow. That went in a totally different direction than I thought it would. Oh well.)