Monday, February 9, 2015

My Disdain for Entertainment Articles.

It would be quite easy to look at the plethora of online sources and pick at them, but let's look at USA Today.  Brian (darn, such a nice first name) Mansfield wrote a listicle about the pockmarked record of the "Best New Artist" category in the Grammys.

http://entertainthis.usatoday.com/2015/02/06/the-grammys-6-biggest-new-artist-fails/

There is the usual level of snark sans information (" But did anybody seriously think the daughter of Pat Boone had a career ahead of her as a major pop star?"), but let's look at the hard facts.  Remember that this category is supposed to be for artists just starting out.  At one time, Whitney Houston was considered not eligible for this category, because of some background vocal work she did on other albums.  So, what about Mansfield's optional choices:

Choice 4 (1978): Cheap Trick had released two album by 1978.
Choice 3 (1977): Hall & Oates had released FIVE albums by this point.
Choice 1 (1967): The Mamas and the Papas and Percy Sledge had both recorded two albums in 1966. Jeannie Seely recorded in 1964 for Challenge.  The oddest choice may be Simon and Garfunkel. They already had an album out in 1964, but they already had a hit as "Tom and Jerry" a full TEN YEARS before this.

USA Today would be better served by an article that didn't make it's choices so arbitrarily.



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