10.12.08

One question: What is the Grammy's truley about? From the looks of today's music in comparison with the past it seems as if the Grammy's is based solely upon promotions, T.V ratings, and Publicity. Seems so often nowadays that popular artists are up for grammy's based solely upon how many albums they sold, how many music videos they have, and generally how much the people like them. Not on real talent. It seems to be that certain artists are up for grammy's to gain more viewers and up the ratings of the event.
Take new artist Jazmine Sullivan for example. Jazmine is a new artist signed with Missy Elliot with the single "Need U Bad" and "Bust your windows" from the album "Fearless". Now, I've always been the type to not fully give in to my first impressions until I "get to know" the artist (a.k.a listening to their full albums with no interruptions). Both of her singles were a disappointment. I found myself waiting for the Chorus and beat change of "Need U Bad" and changing the radio station or track on my Zune software after hearing the violins of "Bust your windows" for a couple of seconds. Still in support of a new artist, I got ahold of her album, still with the hope that her voice and style was as promising as I believed. Big no no.
Beautiful new vocal sounds mixed with annoying songs and lyrics just do not mix. Most of her tracks left me with the strange urging feeling like "oh lord if this song doesn't end soon!". Don't get me wrong, the girl is talented and yes there are a couple tracks off of her album such as "Call me Guilty" and "Need you Bad" (chorus only) that I'd play, otherwise the whole album hasn't earned a GIG on my Zune.
Yet and still, miss Sullivan has earned 5 grammy nods!! And it basically killed my life when she was compared to Lauryn Hill of all people. Beautiful, multi-talented, original Lauryn Hill who is basically a hip hop legend in my book. I then listened to both "Fearless" and "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" back to back and heard zero similarities. Jazmine does have a few things under her belt though: a nice raspy voice, Missy Elliot, publicity, and two singles that, in today's society, is very "catchy" and leaves them requesting them over and over at radio stations.
I must admit, I love Sullivans voice and the couple tracks I mentioned from Fearless still exemplify lots of promise she still may have, but for now I want to understand the criteria for the Grammy awards, and understand why most artists these days don't need to put in as much work as they did in the past to recieve this type of recognition. What ever happened to being the "full package"? Hell, with a good publicist, and a single with a catchy chorus or opener, I can be up for a Grammy the next time it rolls around. And... ahem.. maybe give me a T-pain synthesizer also because my singing voice is the number one synonym for death.

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