Let's talk about the 2018 Grammy's. Just because it's topical and I want to. But before we go into the Grammy's, let's back it up a little.
At the end of October in 2016, Lady Gaga released her latest album, Joanne. What I didn't know at the time was that this would be Marie's Grief Album: Part 1. A few weeks after Joanne's release, my Dad died. I remembered listening to her album earlier that week, and loving, but not needing the lyrics "every part of my aching heart needs you more than the angels do" (from Joanne, the song). The whole album, which I had loved before, suddenly became the album I needed. I think it's a cliche to say that songs say what we can't, and I'm not sure I quite feel that way, and I know, logically, that Lady Gaga did not release this album for me in preparation for my father's untimely death, but here we are a year later, and it is still what I refer to as the album of my early grief. Fast forward not quite a year. In early August of 2017, Kesha released her newest album, Rainbow. For her, it was an album of redemption, a comeback album to say the least about her music career. Kesha had been to hell and back and here she was standing, and while our versions of hell were entirely different, I felt her reborn strength through her album strongly. Rainbow, was, and is, Marie's Grief Album: Part 2. In October, I was lucky enough to see her perform live at the Filmore in Detroit, in front of a sold out audience. We had nose bleed seats. I cried. I felt close to Kesha, and close to my father and I know how that sounds but there it is. Okay, so that's my connection with the two albums. Now, come Grammy nomination season, I realized that my Grief albums, and songs, were about to be pitted against one another and I struggled for which album/which song I would be pulling for but resolved that I would be happy regardless because how could one of them not win in their categories? (Let me start this next chunk of thoughts by saying that I love Ed Sheeran. I saw him live approximately a week before I saw Kesha's concert and I cried there too.) So then, I come to find out that last night Ed Sheeran won Grammy's for Pop Solo Performance and Pop Vocal Album BOTH of which he was up against Kesha and Lady Gaga for. Now, I love Shape of You, I move and groove just as much as the next person every time it comes on, but I am beyond disappointed here (which is to say nothing of the fact that it also snubbed Kelly Clarkson and P!nk both artists I not only love but who's music has been amazing this year). I just find it absolutely ridiculous that Given the options of such powerful collections of work, we wound up with winners like Shape of You and Divide.
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I'm not a person who is particularly good at making and keeping New Year's Resolutions. And, if we're being honest, I think if you really need to make a change you should make it ASAP rather than waiting arbitrarily for January 1st. Run your life on your watch my dear, not the Sun's. That said, I wanted to give myself something to keep in mind throughout 2018 (I've never typed that before...super weird). So, I've been thinking a lot about one particular line from a favorite poem of mine, and I'm going to try and keep it in mind as I go about my year, and really, my life in general. So here we go. "And then, it's 10 years later and they are still dead and you are happy" -Jared Singer, Just Take a Shower Now, if you know, you know it has not been 10 years. It has barely been one. But I find myself having more and more days when I laugh more than I cry. More and more days where I think "Damn, I am happy again." And for a while I felt kinda guilty about it. Going back to what people think of you and others' expectations of grief, I'm constantly waiting for someone to tell me I'm doing it wrong. But it's okay to be happy! It's great to be happy! Dad would be so thrilled that I'm happy. There are moments I drive home from work and a favorite song of his comes on the radio and I cry and smile and I swear he's in the passenger seat. So I didn't really resolve to do anything new in 2018 I suppose, but rather I will just continue to be, and hopefully in that I will continue to be happy. |
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May 2018
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