Now that the speculation as to why Arcade Fire managed to win the Album of the Year Grammy has died down a bit, and all the “indie is dead” jokes have been made, I would like to offer my own theory, which can be summed up in a very few words: U2 didn’t make a record last year. The academy, in it’s basic leanings, has not changed one bit. The Suburbs is the sort of album that has always appealed to them, at least over the last twenty or thirty years: a concept album packed with serious intent put together by an actual band that plays, for the most part, traditional acoustic and electric instruments instead of turntables and sequencers, has a solid footing in the good-old ideas of rock and roll, even if they often deny it, and puts on a great, let’s-make-the-audience-feel-like-they’re-really-a-part-of-the-action live show. Awarding Album of the Year to Arcade Fire was the conservative move, not a daring step into indie land. The fact that the band is on Merge instead of one of the major labels is meaningless. Merge, along with Matador and Sub-Pop, may technically not be a major label, but it’s a major player, in a position not unlike that of 60s labels such as Atlantic and Elektra. People in the industry pay attention to them, and give them far more respect than the indie community itself, if there is such a thing anymore, seems to realize.
At the same time, can we finally put aside the idea that the Grammy voters are all tasteless idiots who care about nothing but pristine studio craftmanship and commercial success? This canard was most obviously in evidence this year in the way so many people began predicting a Lady Antebellum sweep once “Need You Now” had picked up the Song and Record of the Year awards. “Need You Now” is a very good record, maybe even a great one (it certainly has at least one great moment), and it’s the sort of thing that’s catnip to Academy voters. But it’s also far superior to anything else on the album, and the members of the Academy knew it. Now that they can buy them separately, even they can remember the difference between a great single and a great album.
