Why am I so surprised?
They were supposed to win four years ago for "All That You Can't Leave Behind" and lost in an upset to "O Brother Where Art Thou?" They had front row seats. Their wives were all there. They had little clever speeches prepared.
And instead of the final Grammy going to "Best Album of the Year," that year, it went to "Best Record of the Year" (which U2 won). But this year, the buzz just didn't seem to be there. In fact, VH1's Rachel Perry interviewed an ex-Backstreet Boy yesterday who talked about each of the nominees for "Album of the Year" and he could only remember four albums... and forgot about U2.
That seemed to be the way it was in all the write-ups, in the predictions. I don't think U2 was the likely candidate for Album of the Year... So this year, U2 sat six rows back, Ali and Morleigh were not there, and the band looked as surprised as everyone else in the room when their name was called.
Yet if you look closely at last night's Grammys, a few things were clear. This is a conservative voting crowd. They picked "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" over "Gold Digger." Why? Green Day has already earned how many Grammys? I think this voting crowd is radio driven and conservative. They like the home grown Kelly Clarkson over the rehabbed Mariah Carey. They like the predictability of a Green Day band over the not as-yet-tested Kanye West. They voted for U2 so that no one could cry that U2 was overlooked again - isn't U2 the one band deserving of winning "Album of the Year" twice in its career?
I have a hunch that what knocked the votes in any direction was a desire to be in step with what the public loves and to avoid upsets.
Interesting.
Well, I'm happy.
2 comments:
Greetings Dear Julie:
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I,m happy as well Julie. Didn't anticipate they would win so many awards last night. If I had suspected as much I would have watched. Am going to celebrate the occasion by entertaining a group of friends tomorrow night. We are going to watch the Virtago concert and you can anticipate we will pay homage by hooting, hollering, cheering, and being silly. It's what U-2 fans do best....
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