roots rocks: americana gets its own grammy

The music media is bizarre. Late last week the Recording Academy announced the following:

Due to the increasing growth of traditional music, The Academy has split the category Best Contemporary Folk/Americana into two categories: Best Contemporary Folk Album and Best Americana Album. Additionally, the Folk Field has been renamed American Roots Music, which will now include the Best Traditional Blues Album, Best Contemporary Blues Album and Best Bluegrass Album categories. In the Latin Field, the Best Latin Urban Album will now be combined with Latin Rock or Alternative into Best Latin Rock, Alternative Or Urban Album. To ensure the Awards process remains representative of the current musical landscape, the Best Polka Album has been eliminated, which brings the total number of GRAMMY categories to 109.  

The news lead in several hundred stories on-line? Polka eliminated from Grammys. While my heart bleeds for Jimmy Sturr who has won EIGHTEEN Grammys in this niche-of-all-niches category, I humbly submit that the key story here is just what NARAS said. Traditional music is growing and Americana is worthy of its own album award. Only our local Music Row got the point. 

And here's what really scorches me in general. Even after the surprise mega-success of O Brother, even after last year's Grammy triumph for Alison Krauss/Robert Plant, even after Norah Jones's earthy-country-jazz hybrid went multi-platinum, the mainstream media still treats roots music like some distraction from  whatever Lady Gaga bullshit is getting the most downloads at that moment. A lot of folks in the industry  get it or they wouldn't be voting  for Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Willie Nelson year after year. But the media has been AWOL in the enterprise of music for so long, so much more concerned with who's going to look hot on the cover than who's got the goods for the ages, that they've doomed themselves to irrelevancy. 

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