MUSINGS: The Line of Talent Between Entertainer and Musician

sometimes it feels like we're just going in circles/photo via Nevver

I missed the majority of last night's broadcast of the Grammys, but I very briefly live tweeted the last hour or so that I managed to catch. Apparently, I didn't miss too much and, once again, the Grammys came off as a popular awards show biased towards a select group of artists and bands. It can claim to be a ceremony celebrating the best in the business, but really it has a narrow scope -- even if it does include top-notch performers/artists like Jay-Z and Beyonce.

Are the Grammys really a ceremony honoring the most talented musicians or the most talented entertainers? It certainly helps if you sell a lot of albums. I'm starting to realize that the majority of people in this country are more in tune with praising those that entertain us rather than those that intrigue or excite us. Of course what is entertaining can excite us, but does it stimulate us the way art does? Has our country gradually drifted towards celebrating the talent to entertain rather than the actual artistic talent of the artist?

Case in point: If you stuck The Black Eyed Peas in a room full of instruments (that they'd have to play...oh, and there was no autotune around) and, say Midlake, in the very same room, who do you think would impress you more? Is that unfair to the Black Eyed Peas? It's not fair to pit two groups from opposite genres against one another and it's also not fair to pose such questions with a bias towards one genre. Then again, are the Grammys really fair when you think about all that's overlooked and what is actually celebrated (though they did honor some guitar greats last night and gave an entire frame of the "In Memoriam" slideshow to Vic Chesnutt). Maybe I'm being too stringent on what defines talent. But according to the official Grammy website, the Grammys are unique because they "are the only peer-presented award to honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position." Uh huh.