[78-L] Polkas eliminated as a Grammy category -- to be replaced by Lituanian Thrash Metal Band of the Year Award category

[Tom]

A Grammy award category for Polkas?
 
It's no wonder that people don't take the Grammys seriously and that the awards convey the appearance of a bunch of industry types patting one another on the back in a love-fest of self-congratulatory narcissism.
 
One hundred and twenty categories for Grammy awards is at least 100 too many, and is probably 105 too many.
 
And when you have a category, like the Polka, where you've got a total of 20 entrants, the folks who run the Grammys succeed in making themselves look like the bunch of fools they are.
 
If the folks who run the Grammys really tried I bet they could find 20 Lithuanian thrash metal bands they could use to create yet another awards category.
 
Just my $0.02 worth, as always.
 
Tom


--- On Fri, 6/5/09, Dnjchi at aol.com <Dnjchi at aol.com> wrote:


From: Dnjchi at aol.com <Dnjchi at aol.com>
Subject: Re: [78-L] Polkas eliminated as a Grammy category
To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
Date: Friday, June 5, 2009, 2:37 PM



Does anyone from the NYC area remember Ed Poli's Polka Platter Party on  
WKEY every Saturday?
Don Chichester


In a message dated 6/5/2009 12:33:24 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
petquality1 at gmail.com writes:

This is  sad.  I see their reasoning, but it's a shame.  The music of  the
past seems to be getting more and more marginalized in the media... or  am I
wrong?  Well at least there;s still the Big Joe Polka  show...

Andrea

On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 9:25 AM,  <soundthink at aol.com> wrote:

>
> June 5,  2009
>
> Polka Music Is Eliminated as Grammy Award  Category
>
> By BEN SISARIO
> After 24 years, polka has had  its last dance at the Grammys.
>
>
> Jimmy Sturr, polka  superstar, has won 18 Grammy Awards.
>
> The Recording Academy,  which bestows the Grammy Awards, announced late on
> Wednesday that the  polka category would be eliminated, saying in a 
statement
> that it had  been cut “to ensure the awards process remains 
representative of
> the  current musical landscape.”
>
> To many in the polka world, that  read as a kind of industry code meaning
> that their genre — once  capable of supporting artists with 
million-selling
> hits, but long  since relegated to micro-niche status — had slipped off 
the
> mainstream  radar entirely.
>
> “It’s devastating,” said Carl Finch of Brave  Combo, a band from Denton,
> Tex., that has won the Grammy twice. “Polka  is so misunderstood, you 
know,
> the butt of jokes. Having a polka  category was the most important step to
> legitimacy that we could ever  hope to achieve. To have that taken away, 
it’s
> like it was all for  nothing.”
>
> The news was met with sadness but little surprise.  The number of albums
> considered by the Recording Academy for the polka  award has dwindled in
> recent years. In 2006, for example, only 20  albums were considered, and 
of
> the five nominees, only one album had  wide distribution.
>
> “When it gets down to around 20 entries,  just by entering, you have a one
> in five chance of being nominated,”  said Bill=2
> 0Freimuth, the academy’s vice president for awards.  “That’s not as
> competitive as we’d like these awards to  be.”
>
> Winning a Grammy can be a huge career boost for any act,  particularly 
those
> in genres like polka that get little other  mainstream attention, said 
Jimmy
> Sturr, who with 18 Grammys — only one  fewer than Bruce Springsteen — is 
the
> music’s biggest  name.
>
> “There are a lot of great bands in the polka field,” Mr.  Sturr said. “I’
m
> not going to say I’m the best band in the whole  world, but we’re just as
> good as any. But this put us over and above.  It made us almost, almost a
> household word.”
>
> The polka  Grammy was first given in 1986. (It went to one of the genre’s
> last  big stars, Frankie Yankovic, who died in 1998.) But it has long been
>  under fire by critics of the awards, who say that the field is simply  
too
> small to sustain its own category. Some also complain that it has  lost 
its
> value since the competition has been so dominated by Mr.  Sturr, a slick
> nontraditionalist whose albums feature guest  appearances by the likes of
> Willie Nelson.
>
> “It’s  basically the same person winning it all the time,” said Dave
>  Ulczycki, president of the International Polka Association in Chicago.  “
I
> like his music, and I like the person himself. But Jimmy is not a  polka 
band
> per se.”
>
> Polka is not the only genre  affected by the reshuffling. The best
> contemporary folk/Am
>  ericana award — which was won this year by Robert Plant and Alison  
Krauss’s
> “Raising Sand” — will be split into two categories (best  contemporary 
folk
> album and best Americana album), and best Latin  urban album has been
> combined with best Latin rock or alternative  album into best Latin rock,
> alternative or urban album. The total  number of categories decreases by 
one,
> to 109.
>
> Next  year’s Grammy Award ceremony will take place earlier than usual, on
>  Jan. 31.
>
> Mr. Sturr said that the loss of the Grammy and the  mainstream visibility 
it
> brings would cause damage to polka as a  genre, but that he had no doubts
> about its ability to endure. “Polka  isn’t the biggest,” he said, “but 
it’s
> not the smallest,  either.”
>
> ***********
> Cary Ginell
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