Watched only a few minutes of it (obligatory “I’m really out of synch with today’s music, etc. etc. grumble grumble get off my lawn) but afterwards read how the late David Bowie won every Grammy his last album released a mere two days before his passing, Blackstar, was nominated for (the below link is for the article found on Slate.com and was written by Matthew Dessem)…
Even Death Couldn’t Stop David Bowie From Sweeping His Grammy Categories
While astonishing to find Mr. Bowie’s final album won all five Grammys it was nominated for (Best Alternative Music Album; Best Rock Performance; Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical; Best Rock Song; and Best Recording Package), it was disheartening to read in the very same article the following, the very first lines in this article:
Over the course of his decades-long career, David Bowie earned critical and popular acclaim for his extraordinary songwriting, singing, and performance. What he didn’t earn was a Grammy—at least not for his music. (He won in 1985 for Best Video, Short Form, and was given a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2006.)
He previously won Grammys for Best Video?! In 2006 he received a “lifetime” achievement?
Yet not one of his albums, many of which are stone cold classics, merited any Grammy love until now?
Mr. Bowie, of course, isn’t unique in the entertainment field with respect to getting respect. A couple of days ago I found a short interview on the Guardian with Mel Brooks (you can read it here) and he noted this regarding Alfred Hitchcock…
In his opinion, Hitchcock is “the greatest director ever. The stories, the way he set up shots, everything.” Yet Hitchcock never got the respect he deserved. “In France they worshipped Hitchcock,” Brooks says. “But as he once told me, ‘In England and America they view me as an entertainer.’”
While Mr. Hitchcock was nominated for “Best Director” for five of his films (Rebecca, Lifeboat, Spellbound, Rear Window, and Psycho), his only Oscar, kinda/sorta like what Mr. Bowie received, was the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial given in 1968 for “Creative producers, whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production.”
Like Mr. Bowie (until this Grammys, of course), he was awarded for his body of work yet was never given an award for his individual works
Mr. Brooks goes on to talk about how good actor Gene Hackman was in his hilarious cameo role in the movie Young Frankenstein and why he didn’t do more comedies. Mr. Brooks talked about how hard it is, as an entertainer, to pull yourself out of audience expectations:
So why didn’t Hackman make more comedies? “…it’s all baggage. Once they (Hollywood) see what you can do, that’s all that they’ll let you do. I could produce The Elephant Man as part of Brooksfilms. But Mel Brooks couldn’t direct The Elephant Man. I had baggage.”
Its worth mentioning, as if the above should clear any doubt, that Mr. Brooks loves film and, while primarily known as a comedy writer/director/actor, he has produced some very serious films yet is forced, because of his name and, as he puts it, the “baggage” attached to it, to hide his involvement in more “serious” works because of fears audiences will think its a comedy or at the least couldn’t possibly be serious.
Mr. Bowie, during the first decade of his career, was a trailblazer. He flaunted his sexuality (and possible homosexuality/bisexuality) when just about no one dared do so. But while the images he projected were daring, his music was, IMHO, incredible. Especially for those times, he was a controversial figure and I can’t help but think because he was so “out there” in his looks and stage presence that staid organizations like the Grammys perhaps didn’t dare take note of him.
In doing a Google search of David Bowie nominations for Grammys, it was even more shocking to find the following: Mr. Bowie had a total of 19 Grammy nominations, the first three of which came for his 1984 album, and two songs on, Let’s Dance!
So, get this: Mr. Bowie’s first nominations to the Grammys happened to be for what was arguably his most audience friendly (some say it was his first “sell out”) album.
Think about it. Until Let’s Dance, the Grammys never thought him worthy of nomination for his glam rock years (The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs), his venture into soul (Young Americans), his incredible -though drug fueled- album Station to Station, his highly rated “Berlin Trilogy” (Low, Heroes, and Lodger), and the early new wave Scary Monsters.
While The Man Who Sold The World was all but ignored by audiences and critics alike upon its initial release (though it gained much more love since), all ten of the albums following that one were critically and, for most, commercial hits. There is a wealth of great music in all those albums and, while not denigrating Let’s Dance (I happen to love the album even thought others do believe Mr. Bowie was selling out), it is astonishing that each and every one of those albums didn’t merit any Grammy love.
Ah well.
I suppose its better late than never and I suppose it helps to die just days after releasing your last (and, again, critically lauded) album.