2017 Grammys: (some) Rock Nominations

Best Rock Performance:

• "Joe (Live From Austin City Limits)" — Alabama Shakes
• "Don't Hurt Yourself" — Beyoncé Featuring Jack White
• "Blackstar" — David Bowie
• "The Sound Of Silence" — Disturbed
• "Heathens" — Twenty One Pilots

I'm a big sucker for Alabama Shakes anyway, and that track (which you can hear as a single on Spotify) is some sultry blues burning the damn house down.  But it is too short.  Gimme more.  And so then I re-listened to Sound and Color again and I love it all over again.  So good.  OF COURSE, I can't hear the dang Bey track on Spotify, only through YouTube, and the only YouTube versions are live and garbage and don't involve Jack White.  I don't know if this one is good or not.  The worst thing about the Bowie song is that its freaking 10 minutes long.  And it's just fine, so 10 minutes makes it brutal.  Had no clue Disturbed even still existed.  I kind of thought they made "Down with the Sickness" and then hung it up.  And yes, this tune is a shitty gothy remake of the Simon & Garfunkel song that sounds like it should probably be on the Transformers 19: Age of Steel Buttholes soundtrack.  I had to hear 10 seconds of "Heathens" the other day while waiting to watch Suicide Squad and it made me want to claw my ears out.  So, I guess I'm hoping for the Shakes, but expect it will be Bowie.

Best Rock Album:

• California — Blink-182
• Tell Me I'm Pretty — Cage The Elephant
• Magma — Gojira
• Death Of A Bachelor — Panic! At The Disco
• Weezer — Weezer

Holy crap, dude.  I guess the same guy who got the Academy to nominate Slipknot last year is still in on the nomination process, because the Gojira album is some triple-time bass drummer with vocal chord and guitar shreddage. Weird, because it would seem to me that you would put these dudes into the Metal category, but maybe I missed that lesson in genre definition class.  You be the judge, here is "Stranded," their most popular and probably most regular rock-ish.

Beyond that, I liked the Blink, Cage, and Weezer albums when I previously reviewed them, and thought the Panic! album was pretty good.  Of the five, I'd prefer to keep listening to the Cage the Elephant album, so I'll say that they win.  I don't see any of these looking like a lock.

Best Alternative Music Album:

• 22, A Million — Bon Iver
• Blackstar — David Bowie
• The Hope Six Demolition Project — PJ Harvey
• Post Pop Depression — Iggy Pop
• A Moon Shaped Pool — Radiohead

I've never much liked PJ Harvey, but I actually found myself bopping along to this album and listening to the lyrics with pleasure.  It still has some annoyingly grating moments, but it also has some clever and enjoyable bits.  The Bon Iver album is weird and twitchy and other than the lead single, I won't say I care for it.  Bowie is fine, and I always feel like an asshole when I fail to properly felate him about this album since the guy died, but its just true.  The Radiohead album was mediocre, and after seeing them play some of the songs live, I'm even more bored by it.  But, I liked the Iggy album.  So I guess I'd like to see that one win, but I suspect this one will go to the dead guy.