“Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics,” said Wallace Sayre, “because the stakes are so low.” If he were still around today—Sayre died in 1972—he’d probably see in the latest Grammys kerfuffle even more evidence for what came to be known as Sayre’s law.
Don’t get me wrong: Jon Batiste’s “Movement 11′” is absolutely not a classical composition. Check it out for yourself:
But how could anyone say—with a straight face, anyway—that “this jeopardises the credibility of the Grammy awards”? They’ve a been a joke for years. Led Zeppelin, who produced arguably the greatest four-album run in rock history, was nominated only once (for Best New Artist, which they lost to Crosby, Stills & Nash). Meanwhile Skrillex—Skrillex!—has won eight freaking Grammys. I mean, everyone knows how bad they are at this, right?
So, yeah. Awarding Best Classical Composition to Batiste would be dumb. But it wouldn’t be the dumbest thing the Recording Academy has done. Not by a long shot.
