The Grammy Awards are loyal, let’s say that.
They’ve rescued Jon Batiste’s non event album, “World Music Radio,” after no one bought it.
The album has a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year after selling 21,000 copies. That’s it. It was Dead on Arrival. Now it’s got a nomination.
The song, “Butterfly,” is also nominated for Record of the Year. It also made no noise upon release.
Batiste is the only male performer to score noms in those categories.
Bizarre, yes. But Batiste is one of the few men under a certain age to release a record this year. He’s also a past winner. Two years ago his “We Are” won Album of the Year quite unexpectedly.
But a lot of time and money goes into the Batiste machine. He’s the star of a Netflix documentary called “American Symphony,” which debuts November 29th. Batiste’s personal story is dramatic– his wife, formerly his girlfriend, Suleika, was battling leukemia as he was winning awards and writing a symphony. The movie is very well made, and a pleasure to watch knowing that Suleika’s winning her battle so far.
But Batiste really the only male nominee? It’s a head scratcher, that’s for sure. Aside from Ed Sheeran, there are few candidates with releases. I guess Noel Kahan could have been better represented in the awards. Otherwise the charts are dominated by women and hip hop. Men either don’t know what to sing about, or no one cares about what they have to say anymore. There are no new James Taylors or al Greens or Jackson Brownes. Sad.
