Category Archives: Grammy Awards

How the Grammy’s turned from a prestigious award into a joke.

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Whatever happened to music? What happened to the Grammy’s?

Over the last decade or so the music industry has been complaining about the decline of sales figures, and they blamed everything and every one. First it was Napster. Then it was the illegal downloading of music from other websites like ‘limewire’ which was shut down.

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Now they are blaming the several streaming services like “Spotify’ and also Youtube.

However they forget to blame the massive elephant in the tiny room. The music industry itself, the music has gone dire as if all songs were thrown into a big blender and came out less then blend. There are still a few exceptions that perform great music but in general the quality is just bad. It is not a surprise that some of the old timers still tour.

If any proof was ever needed how bad the music has become, we only have to look at the recent performance of the EIGHT time Grammy awards winner Fergie at the NBA All star game.

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Fergie won 8 Grammy’s the most prestigious music price in the world. But the Grammy’s are no longer that, they have become a bit of a joke. It has become more of the musical equivalent of the Razzies.

Let’s just have a brief look how it went from a platform of the world’s greatest performers to the manufactured a-musical rubbish nowadays. I will not go though all 60 editions, just a few but it will illustrate the decline of music perfectly.

Winners at the 1st Grammy awards in 1958

Frank Sinatra,Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Perry Como.

 

Winners at the 10th Grammy Awards in 1967.

The Beatles,Glen Campbell,Chet Atkins, Duke Ellington

 

Winners at the 20th Grammy Awards in 1977

The Eagles,Barbra Streisand,Steely Dan,Al Jarreau

 

Winners at the 30th Grammy Awards in 1987

U2,Paul Simon,Sting, Whitney Houston

 

Here we take a small detour to the 33rd Grammy awards in 1990. You will not find any records of this ‘band’ on the Grammy website because it caused a major scandal and embarrassment because this band won the award of best new comer by miming or lip syncing. The band was of course Milli Vanilli.

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But the damage was already done and  the rot started to kick in at the Grammy’s

Winners at the 40th Grammy Awards in 1997

R.Kelly,Backstreet,Radiohead,Puff Daddy(or P.Diddy or whatever he is called nowadays)

 

Winners at the 50th Grammy Awards in 2007

Kanye West,Justin Timberlake,Rihanna,Ne-Yo

 

At the last Grammy’s in 2017 the pendulum slightly swung back to award real musicians/,singer/songwriters  even though Bruno Mars was the biggest winner. I do actually like Bruno Mars but as a show man or entertainer. As a singer he does not stand out.

Winners at the 60th Grammy Awards in 2017

Bruno Mars.Ed Sheeran, Foo Fighters, Leonard Cohen

 

NEW YORK, NY – JULY 06: Ed Sheeran performs on NBC’s “Today” at Rockefeller Plaza on July 6, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)

If you look at the winners of the last 15-20 years or so and you compare them to artists who never won a Grammy, you can’t help but think the Gammy’s have become a joke.

Artists who never won a Grammy.

Bob Marley,Jimi Hendrix,Joe Satriani,Led Zeppelin,Queen,Guns N Roses,Ramones,Journey,The Who,The Kinks,Iggy Pop,Talking Heads,Velvet Underground and Chuck Berry.

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Resource

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Rolling Stone Magazine

 

The tragic case of Milli Vanilli

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Don’t worry I haven’t lost my Rock N Roll roots, but the Milli Vanilli case is a good indication of the hypocrisy of the Pop Music industry

On November 16 1990 Milli Vanilli were stripped of their Grammy Award because the duo did not sing at all on the Girl You Know It’s True album. Session musicians had provided all the vocals.

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Nowadays there are countless Boy bands and Girl bands where maybe 1 or 2 can hold a tune and the rest are miming and no one seems to care. I know with Milli Vanilli the real musicians were at the background.not to be seen, but the principle of it is the same.

As for the 2 members of Milli Vanilli. a German  duo from Munich. The group was founded by Frank Farian in 1988 and consisted of Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus.

After the Grammy scandal there were several feeble attempts to control the damage caused by the scandal.

The session musicians who had actually provided all the vocals were formed as a band called ‘the Real Milli Vanilli’

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The resulting album, released in Europe in early 1991, was named The Moment of Truth and spawned three singles, “Keep On Running”, “Nice ‘n Easy” and “Too Late (True Love)”. A Morvan/Pilatus lookalike named Ray Horton was depicted on the cover along with the real singers; Brad Howell and John Davis. In addition, the album featured rappers Icy Bro on “Hard as Hell” and Tammy T on “Too Late (True Love)”. Original members and vocalists Jodie Rocco and Linda Rocco remained on 95% of the tracks. One of four Diane Warren-penned songs that are included on The Moment of Truth, “When I Die”, has been covered by several other artists, including Farian’s No Mercy. For the American market, Farian chose to avoid any association with Milli Vanilli and had the tracks re-recorded with Ray Horton on the majority of lead vocals, however, The Moment of Truth was never released in that format in the USA.

In 1992, RCA signed on to release the album as the debut of the newly created group Try ‘N’ B. The self-titled release included three additional tracks not on the Real Milli Vanilli release: “Ding Dong”, “Who Do You Love”, and a remake of Dr. Hook’s “Sexy Eyes”, and featured original Milli Vanilli vocalists Jodie Rocco and Linda Rocco.

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Because of significantly better sales under the name Try ‘N’ B in America, a slightly modified Try ‘N’ B debut album was released internationally. It featured guest singer Tracy Ganser, a Ray Horton lookalike named Kevin Weatherspoon, as well as Jodie Rocco and Linda Rocco.

Meanwhile, Morvan and Pilatus moved to Los Angeles, California, and signed with the Joss Entertainment Group, where they recorded their follow-up album under the name Rob & Fab. Almost all the songs on the album were written by Kenny Taylor and Fab Morvan, while Morvan and Pilatus provided the lead vocals. Because of financial constraints, Joss Entertainment Group was only able to release the album in the United States, the priority market to Milli Vanilli. A single, “We Can Get It On”, was made available for radio play shortly before the album’s release.

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However, the lack of publicity, poor distribution, and their steep fall from the height of pop-culture visibility after the lip-synching scandal contributed to its failure. The album only sold around 2,000 copies(Still 2001 too many in my opinion)

But alas there was a real tragedy Eight years after fifteen-minute pop sensation Milli Vanilli were ensconced in the annals of pop infamy for not singing on their Grammy winning debut album and lip-syncing in concert, model/dancer/”singer” Rob Pilatus was found dead from an overdose of alcohol and pills in a Frankfurt hotel room on Thursday, April 2. He was 33.

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This case says it all about the Pop Music industry, they just don’t know when to quit even when the game is up, leaving a path of destruction behind it.

On the radio this morning I heard a record executive complaining about the breach of copyrights by the likes of YouTube and how it was costing the music industry millions,possibly billions. However he forgot to mention the elephant in the room, the quality of music is just very poor, the songs don’t have any longevity.

I tested this theory ones where I asked someone to name 3 number 1 hits of the last few years, and they couldn’t.

Ending up with that infamous song.

 

 

Donation

I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

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