A funny thing, last night's Grammys: On the one hand most of the bands I listen to likely don't need the validation of a Grammy and so the awards were and are pretty irrelevant to me, and yet I admit to really eating up the fact that what could very well be the best album of last year actually won a Grammy for being the best album of last year: Arcade Fire's superb The Suburbs. It's rare that the cool-kid, music critic crowd and the views of the recording academy -- an organization which has proven itself over the years to be slavishly devoted to mediocrity -- intertwine, but I suppose miracles never cease.
If there's one thing, though, that we as a nation can come together and revel in following the Grammys, it's that the adults of the recording industry, whether intentionally or not, managed to rise up and strike at least a minor blow directly into the heart of Justin Bieber's rabid and hive-minded tween fan base. Let's be honest: Everyone expected that insufferable little shit to take the award for Best New Artist, and, predictably, when he didn't and the award went to obscure jazz singer Esperanza Spalding, Bieber's legion of wet-between-the-legs pre-teen girls completely lost their fucking minds.
See for yourself:
Yes, that's Esperanza Spalding's Wikipedia page, which was almost immediately descended upon by outraged servants to the One True Haircut. They made fun of her name; they wailed and gnashed their teeth; they wrote in all caps about how she should "GO DIE IN A HOLE" and how "JUSTIN BIEBER DESERVED IT," which of course is true because as you know, being a jazz musician, Spalding will be gone in two weeks while the Bieber juggernaut/choke-hold isn't at all the evanescent fad the cynical would have you believe. That Bieber kid is here to stay, I tell you. What I think this highlights, though, is the need for angry tweens to tone down their inflammatory and irresponsible rhetoric before some forlorn, emotionally unhinged 13-year-old takes this kind of hate speech to heart and really does try to shoot Esperanza Spalding in the head at point blank range during one of her public appearances. I mean, it's only a matter of time. And when it happens, Justin Bieber will be to blame.
In all seriousness, as anyone who's kept up with this site over the years knows, I hate the tween domination of pop culture with the heat of a thousand suns -- and the beaver-shit crazy, overly entitled reaction to seeing their current deity go down for even just a couple of seconds explains why.
Suck it, kids. It's about time you learned to get used to a little disappointment.
By the way, as I mentioned on Twitter last night, when 16-year-old Bieber stepped onstage dressed in black leather, that wasn't rain outside your window -- it was Michael Jackson jerking off in heaven.
Related:
That Stupid Year: The Ten Most Ridiculous, Shameful or Generally Unfortunate People and Events of 2008 (#9 The American Tween)/1.5.09
Kids Incorporated/4.24.08
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