What is the world coming to? Arcade Fire's The Suburbs emerged as the surprise winner.

I know that in the past, a big acclaimed album has won, but more often than not, no. Maybe there's some hope for the future of the Shammys/Grannys... er, Grammys.

After losing to Muse for best rock album!!! How does that happen? Pretty predictable for Lady Antebellum to win song of the year,record of the year. It's just the type of act they always buy into big time...

They didn't lose to Muse for Rock Album. They lost to the Black Keys for Best Alternative Album. But you're right...how does that happen? Kind of reminds me of when Alanis Morissette lost Best New Artist to Hootie & The Blowfish, but won Album of the Year.

When the nominees were announced, I was almost positive that Lady Antebellum would win Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year. I was shaking my head at awards pundits for declaring that Eminem was the artist to beat. Tsk tsk tsk. Have any of these people ever watched the Grammys? I'm not surprised at all that Lady Antebellum won Record and Song, but am pleasantly surprised to see Arcade Fire take it (I would have felt better if they would have won in the Alternative category so it wouldn't feel like a fluke).

I would like to think that me and my sister had a little thing to do with that (we fill out our mother's Grammy ballot and I made my sister vote for Suburbs.)

Of course, they played the worst song on the album on the biggest stage of their career.

This comes as no surprise - The Suburbs is painfully boring, just like most of the albums they anoint as the best of their given year.

This Changes Everything

Not really but I feel like Pitchfork will write something like that.

Can they retroactively give the award to Funeral, an album that deserves it?

I actually agree with this. But even if I didn't - let's say an album I love, like OK Computer or Kid A, had won AOY - it wouldn't change my opinion on the Grammys one bit. The Grammys are so absolutely terrible that nothing will ever redeem them.

I looked through all of the albums that have won Album of the Year, and it's a pretty sad list, indeed.

Pretty sad lot indeed. The best two in my view over the past fifteen years weren't even that great: Supernatural in 1999 and Jagged Little Pill in 1995.

Compare these against Falling Into you (1996), Time Out of Mind (1997), Miseducation of Lauryn Hill/1998, Two Against Nature (2000), Oh Brother Where Art Thou (2001 - hard to believe), Come Away With Me (2002), Speakerboxx (2003), Genius Loves Company (2004), How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb (2005), Taking the Long Way (2006), River: The Joni Letters (2007), Rising Sand/2008, Fearless (2009).

Given this past record, Suburbs could easily be in my top 3 of the album selections by the Grammy folks in the past 15 years.

So happy. Finally, good music is rewarded. Even if you don't like The Suburbs you have to be happy that a band on Merge Records won album of the year at the Grammys.

Best tweet I saw tonight:

arcade fire won a grammy by writing an album about being trapped in a place where they only listen to lady antebellum

This is good for music despite how you feel about the album.

Moonbeam. But, regardless of our personal viewpoints of an album, at least The Suburbs actually IS the most acclaimed album of 2010, per Acclaimed Music. Many of the winners (and nominees) for Album of the Year don't even register on the site!

Well I was expecting a REALLY bad list and you give me the most acclaimed album of 98, the 2nd most acclaimed of 97 (a pretty fine year) and 2003, the most acclaimed movie soundtrack of the decade and the 100th most acclaimed album of the 00s (Raising Sand)... I would take all of those (anr probably Come Away with Me) easily above Supernatural by the way

Thank you, I was thinking the exact same thing. Most of these certainly aren't the BEST album of their respective year, but as far as I can see the last truly terrible album to win was the Celine Dion back in '96. And yeah, Supernatural better than Speakerboxxx/The Love Below? Really? Really?

Already looking forward to next year's awards, when - thanks to the peculiar way they define a "year" - 2 of the 5 Album of the Year nominees are almost certainly going to be Kanye West and Taylor Swift...

Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is #1 for 1998. Other than that, you're exactly right (Though Time Out of Mind is #2 of 1997, and was at one point probably #1 based on american critics.)

Winning a grammy isn't exactly something to be proud of. But I'm still happy they won.

Radiohead dropping their new album this week, Arcade Fire winning the Grammy for best album, Helena Bonham Carter winning a BAFTA... far too much good news for me to cope with in one day.

I'm trying to not get ahead of myself, though. Undoubtedly, some artist who reached their peak years ago will release a sort-of decent album this year and the Grammy voters will get all nostalgic and give it 30 Grammys. But for now I'm way more pleased than I normally allow myself to be about these things.

I'd rather the Grammys (and critics) celebrate something that was truly unique and vibrant rather than a watered-down whimper extended over 64+ minutes. At least when the Grammys recognized the likes of Taylor Swift, etc., a lot of people could see through it. However, this is going to lend credibility (however, churlish that sounds) to both the Grammys and an undeserving album, in my book. Now, The Suburbs will be forever known as the album saw indie break down the mainstream barriers, and I honestly can't think of a worse album from 2010 to have done it.

I think it's understood that if they went on to win AOY, then they won that category but were "disqualified" because they won the ultimate prize. But yeah, to win a Grammy really doesn't mean that much.

We may have differing opinions on AF and The Suburbs, but at least we know who they are - unlike, apparently, a very large number of people. Has everyone seen whoisarcadefire.tumblr.com? It's a Tumblr created within the last 24 hours dedicated to compiling all the variations on the title question (many of them decidedly NSFW) that have been popping up all over Twitterville and Facebookland since the Grammies.

I guess it's not too surprising that so many people have no idea who the band is (to the extent that a lot of them seem convinced that their name is actually The Suburbs), even though they've been around for six years, are hugely acclaimed, and actually debuted at #1 with this record. What's amazing (although, depressingly, not surprising either) is the OUTRAGE being expressed that "some band I've never heard of" won Album of the Year. It's one thing to say they shouldn't have won because you don't like them. It's something else altogether - something called, I don't know, "ignorance" - to say they shouldn't have won simply because you don't know who the fuck they are. Well, you know who they are now. Why don't you listen and then form an opinion?

This level of ignorance is hard to believe in our musically sheltered community. Basically every mainstream media article about the Grammys focuses more on Eminem losing than AF winning, as if it's some sort of travesty the number 1 selling album of the year wasn't also considered the best by an award ceremony unfortunately seen as credible by the masses. The strange thing is that The Suburbs is far more popular and notable than some of the Grammys' other choices in recent years (like the recent wins by Krauss/Plant, Herbie Hancock, and Ray Charles). This type of reaction is probably due to the fact that the Grammys are increasingly marketing the show as a pop music event, as shown by the entirely-mainstream nominations of the past couple years. When average music fans tune into a show to see Katy Perry and Justin Bieber perform and assume based on the nominations that these artists are the best modern music has to offer, they'll be shocked/disappointed when a Canadian alternative band they haven't heard of takes home the show's major prize.

That is the only reason that people like Bieber, Katy Perry, Gaga etc... are nominated and on the stage performing, it's all about the ratings and the 26 million people watching. I do love seeing all the mainstream only fans with complete blinders on and their "Who the fuck is Arcade Fire?" rants. I find it amusing, but perhaps a prelude to the day when indie goes mainstream...

Most people in the world are pretty unintelligent. They don't understand that popularity does not equal quality. Not to say the other nominees were crap, but they weren't as good. Eminem fans are typically pretty young, more specifically young men, and that about sums up the reaction of so many people. Arcade Fire might not have released the best album this year, but they were up there. Unfortunately winning a grammy might mark the end of their career, LOL!

And yes, the past winners of album of the year are pretty generally average. Not horrible music by any means, just boring, old, and white. Very, very white. There's great albums that have won, U2, Paul Simon stuff, Michael Jackson, and the Beatles. But they're all such "safe" choices. Even Speakerboxxx/Love Below was a "safe" choice. Almost like they're trying to appease the masses every couple years by recognizing something hugely popular, (like the Beatles or Outkast).

Oh here we go,so NOW you guys are coming out saying "Oh what a great win for an alternative band,so exciting" but where were you in 1967 when Sinatra won over Revolver,1981 when Christopher Cross won over The Wall,in 1985 when Can't Slow Down won over Purple Rain,in 1993 when Unplugged beat Achtung Baby,in 1994 when the Bodyguard won over Automatic For The People,in 1997 when Falling into You won over Odelay,in 2001 when Steely Dan beat Eminem,in 2002 when O Brother Where Art Thou beat any of the other nominees,in 2003 when Come Away With Me beat The Rising and The Eminem Show(the 2 albums anyone was talking about). Crap choices have been made before,and they will be again

That's the point Bob. That's why we're excited. We're excited that good albums are getting their due at the time they are made rather than later. Does it matter? Probably not. But it's nice to see.

the Grammys- I thoroughly enjoyed Janelle Monae's performance, and had not realized her album was as acclaimed as it was. I got her album today.

Saw this on Facebook today.

http://whoisarcadefire.tumblr.com/

First of all, I will defend O Brother Where Art Thou and Come Away With Me to the death. Those are great albums.

If you look at all the years, you see the voters getting it close to right around 2-3 times a decade. If the formula for winning is popular appeal + sales + critical appeal, their importance to that formula probably goes in that order. This formula applies to all award shows too.

I have to disagree strongly, but as you once famously said in defending your hatred of the Beatles, "you don't claim to have good taste in music."
P.S. We get it, you don't have to keep flogging a dead horse.

Fair enough.

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