Another Grammy voting season is here. As usual, from every direction, email and social media, I am inundated by a tsunami of notices from musicians bringing their submissions to my attention.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t vote the same way as others do. It seems most do their listening before voting actually begins and then vote for whoever they’ve decided to support beforehand. I don’t do that. I don’t do any listening before voting starts. During the voting period, I go diligently through my 10 selected categories, giving a listen to most entries, on the hunt for any music that pops out to my ear as something different, where the music isn’t the “same old, same old.”
While there may be hundreds of entries in each category, one way I get through it is by skipping any new recordings of classical “warhorses” that have been recorded hundreds of times by others. If someone has decided to submit yet another recording of, let’s say, a Beethoven sonata, I just skip it. With the vast quantity of worthy music out there that is hardly known by the general listening public, why, oh why, do that? What are the chances that the artist, no matter how good they are, bring something new to that recording?
I yearn for music that stands out from the crowd and brings a very personal voice to the recording. Or that brings sounds from the past to the world that are deserving of a fresh look because, for whatever reasons, a composer has faded into undeserved obscurity.
Every year, and I suspect this year will not be any different, the pickings are slim. Most entries strike me as “same old, same old”. Yet the great pleasure of this exercise for me is that every year I find gems – composers or performers whose work I never heard before that is wonderful – and most deserving of recognition.
