Why I Don't Watch Politicized Award Shows (Besides My Complete Distaste for Celebrity-Infatuated Pop Culture)

EWTN's Raymond Arroyo writes for National Review Online:

I Hear Music, Partisan Music
Watching the Grammys.

By Raymond Arroyo

The whole point of music is to transcend politics, grievances, and the differences that divide to help us reconnect to those essential human emotions we all share: love, loss, anger, regret. Unless, that is, you work for the music industry.

Like its wicked stepsister, Hollywood, the music business has become increasingly divorced from its purpose, estranged from its audience, and maliciously partisan. Not that they seem to care. Case in point: the 49th Annual Grammy Awards held at the Los Angeles Staples Center on Sunday night. Watching the proceedings, who could be blamed for wanting to staple some mouths shut?

For the Dixie Chicks, who won a total of five Grammys, the evening was a triumph. No big surprise. Natalie Maines, the lead singer for the group, all but insured this outcome in 2003, when, during a concert in London she announced, “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.” Back on the mainland, a huge chunk of their fan base in red-state America stop whistling Dixie Chicks; the comments would eventually lead to dwindling record sales and a banishment from many country-radio stations. The Chicks were unrepentant, and decided to court a more urbane crowd, shaking off the “rednecks” that had made them stars.

On Sunday, they communed with their new fan base: Grammy voters. For the tune “Not Ready to Make Nice,” the Chicks snagged Best Song and Best Record of the Year Grammys, despite the fact that it never broke the top 20 on any chart. And to prove the power of an offhanded comment against a beleaguered president, the trio took home an Album of the Year Grammy as well.

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For an institution approaching its 50th year, and an industry hemorrhaging financially, one would have imagined that the Grammy telecast would have at least tried to reach as wide an audience as possible. No such luck. Save for the American Idol champion, Carrie Underwood, who picked up a pair of Grammys for her Jesus Take the Wheel, there was little for Middle America to revel in.

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Finally, near the end of the of the torturous ceremony, as if the nerves could take any more, that musical giant Al Gore took the stage to announce the winner of the Best Rock Album. Why? I have no idea. But as evidence that global warming is wreaking some havoc, perhaps on what is left of good taste, Jimmy Carter won a spoken-word Grammy for his audio book, Our Endangered Values...

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(emphasis added)