The Hostless Oscars
A paradigm shift happened in award shows last night, the hostless Oscars. Normally, I’m not fully interested in watching the Oscars. I find them stodgy and usually boring. Often it’s a lot easier to watch the highlights of the interesting things that happen. As per Anne Hathaway, the worst Oscars ever happened last year – and I didn’t watch.
Last night I watched the Oscars as I wanted to experience the idea of an awards show that didn’t have a host. What I got was an efficient show that felt like it had a decent flow. What a refreshing change of pace. Not having to watch a carnival barker doing a song and dance in-between each award was fantastic.
The awesome side effect is that each award became about the award itself and not about the lame ass stuff the host does trying to keep people interested in the show. I was more riveted, I was more interested to know about the people nominated and the winner of the award itself. Isn’t that what it’s supposed to be about?
The other great side effect of the Oscars last night was an earlier finish that didn’t feel forced or exhausting. There were a few moments where I was disappointed in producers cutting people short in their acceptance speech. Though, let’s be honest here, when people start thanking tons of people who very few people are privy to know – it’s boring and rambling at it’s very worst.
After the show I sent out a tweet stating that was a perfect showing as to how to run an awards show and that the Grammys should take note and do the same thing next year.
Hostless Grammys
The Grammys would do well to note that the Oscars going sans host was a win. I know that lots of media outlets thought Alicia Keys did a spectacular job hosting the Grammys. Personally, I didn’t agree. I felt that lots of her comments and constant statements were forced and not genuine. That’s coming from a musician that is a fan of Alicia.
It was as if the Grammys were trying way to hard to oversteer the boat. I had female friends texting me during the Grammys mentioning the same thing – that the Grammys were trying too hard to push some agenda that felt forced and fake.
The bigger news of this years Grammys were the artists that turned down performing on the Grammys. The biggest of them all, Ariana Grande, even called the Grammys out after the producer sent out a fake statement as to why she wouldn’t be performing. Mashups of various artists who probably wouldn’t otherwise work together were on the chopping block. As they should be. That’s part of the whole feeling forced vibe.
Personally, the Grammys would be well served to limit performances to the 5 songs nominated for Record of the Year. Get rid of Album of the Year – the new industry isn’t about selling Albums, it’s about streaming, time to fuckin embrace that shit. This way, we, the consumers (and yes, I consider myself an ardent music consumer despite also making music on a professional level), won’t get terribly bored by lackluster performances by artists that are too weak to deny the Grammys making them look like grind organ monkeys.
Sprinkle those performances throughout the awards show, like the Oscars did. That way there isn’t a constant barrage of some pointless host trying to make points that fall of deaf ears. Nor would there be performances that make no sense.
Going Forward
Cracks in the wall of the old method of awards presentation at the Grammys blew wide open. The Oscars cemented the foundation of how to move forward. As a member of the academy, I’m hopeful that we can make a change that show the Grammys could become more relevant going forward. Where people can see more of the actual awards, as a vast majority of the Grammys are done prior to telecast – in an effort to have more “song and dance” that many find more boring than the awards we don’t get to see.
Will the Grammys make the change? We can only hope they’ll take note of how well the hostess Oscars came across.
Adding Liner Notes
Moving forward with the digital age a vital part of the recording process got lost along the way. The part was the whole thing with who did what. Sadly it’s likely the easiest thing to add and it got left behind. There is now a strong push by NARAS a.k.a. Grammys to bring this into the future. Yes, adding liner notes is getting a nice lift to go digital.
I took some time yesterday to go through all my music and lyric pages to update them with some simple liner note information. Thus now you can learn who wrote what, who played what, who mixed what, and who mastered what on all my released recordings.
Beyond the simple liner notes I added a couple of extra bits of information for fun. The extra bits are also to answer some of the questions I’ve been asked about particular songs.
As the actual standard for liner note information gets finalized, I’ll likely add additional bits of information to keep it current. Right now there is no standard, thus it’s what I currently imagine it to be.
Why?
For future recordings my liner notes will get much more detailed. Detailed to the point of geekdom. Which means I will include things like what guitar I used. What kind of strings, pickups, etc. Same with vocal mics, DAW, drums, bass, synths, etc. Essentially I may include the whole darn shebang into the liner notes. Plus I’ll add thank you’s and other acknowledgements. Much like you would see on printed materials that used to accompany Vinyl and CDs. Of course they’ll likely get split between liner notes that are specific to a song, and those that are general to the release. Details, details, details. All to satisfy the ubër fan and of course myself. I love to read about the who, the what, the where and the when of recordings.
Head on over to the music pages and delve a little further if you dare!
– Jody