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I happened into the list of this years Grammy nominees. Frankly, I’m woefully unqualified to comment on any of these (I haven’t heard all the nominees for a single one of the 80+ categories), but I’m going to anyway.

Best New Artist: Imogen Heap was a member of Frou Frou, who released an album in 2003. Yeah, she’s “gone solo,” but her being on this list seems kind of silly to me.

Best Male Pop Vocal Performance: Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day” and James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” both hurt my soul a little – partly due to being overplayed. Usually, I feel the same way about John Mayer (though it has nothing to do with being overplayed – his vocal style just makes me cringe), but I really like the way he’s singing “Waiting on the World to Change.” I want him to win this, hopefully encouraging him to make this change in vocal style permenant.

Best Pop Performance by Duo/Group With Vocal: I really love some Death Cab songs, but they don’t seem to be the one’s that are popular. I’d vote for “Brothers on a Hotel Bed” any day of the week.

Best Dance Recording: I love Depeche Mode, but I don’t see how “Suffer Well” is a “Dance Recording.” Compared to a Timberlake song, though, SOLD!

Best Rock Performance by Duo/Group: I absoluetely love Coldplay’s “Talk.” I don’t yet have any of their album’s (Christmas should change that), but I really think Coldplay puts out some good tunes.

Best Banda album: What’s Banda?

Best Polka album: Really? I didn’t know there was still a big enough fanbase…

Best Soundtrack for a Motion Picture, etc.: I’ve actually seen four out of five nominees, and the only one that I clearly remember being moved by is that of Narnia.

Best Instrumental Arrangement: The first two songs on this list are “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” and “Three Ghouls.” This is a great category.

Best Album notes: I can’t believe this is a category. If it was established back in 1997, I hope Loreena McKennitt has won – she has crazy-fun liner notes.

Producer of the Year, Non-Classical: I like that someone goes by “Danger Mouse,” and I’m impressed with the wide appeal of “Crazy.”

Best Choral Performance: Austin’s Conspirare choir was created by Craig Hella Johnson. I went to choir camp led by this guy!

Well, I don’t suppose this is really going to be a “rant,” per se. Rather, I was thinking about a couple of reviews I’m going to be writing soon, and started wondering how well-defined and well-known the meaning of “Accessible” is in the context of music. It came up a lot in my college music classes, particular when discussing 20th Century Classical music, and I find that I tend to place almost everything that I listen to along a sort of Accessibility Scale in my mind. So, I’m going to attempt to explain my interpretation of the “Accessibility” concept here. I was able to find one formal definition, in a music dictionary called Dolmetsch Online:

Accessible – approachable (personality), easy to understand (idea, concept), requiring little intellectual effort (music, work of art).

This is a great concise definition, and the last phrase perfectly reflects the elitist tone with which many “serious” musicians and reviewers use the term. I strongly disagree that music must be difficult to enjoy in order to have value, but there do seem to be people who hold such an opinion.

While the definiton of “Accessible” is straightforward enough, I think that its specific meaning differs from person to person, because musical taste is partially developed, rather than wholly inherent. While some people are more flexible than others, we can generally get used to different styles of music. In a broad sense, we’re all used to Western tonal music. Most of us are also used to verse-chorus song structure. Since Top 40 radio is based on these concepts, it’s generally pretty accessible to everyone. This demonstrates an important distinction – the fact that something is accessible to you doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll like it. I’m certainly not a fan of most Top 40, but I can recognize the verses and choruses, and I can quickly decide whether I like the vocal style, the arrangment, the bass line, etc. I have a solid frame of reference, and I think that goes hand in hand with defining how “Accessible” something is.

I have a theory that people like to listen to music that is fairly, but not completely, accessible to them. We like to push our limits, but not too hard. Since preteens and teenagers haven’t been around long enough to get bored with standard radio fare, they listen to Top 40 and other super-mainstream music. Indie rock, which could be described as more varied and challening than Top 40, finds a warm reception in most college towns and radio, where people have had their fill of the straight-ahead stuff. Classical music is frequently associated with the older generation, which is appropriate given the complexity that has developed in this umbreally genre over the past 500 years or so. The excessive familiarity that comes from constantly working with music helps to explain the elitist sneers of my self-proclaimed nemeses, the “serious” musicians and reviewers. Of course, there are many other factors that contribute to musical taste (nostalgia is another big one), but accessibility seems to be an important piece of the puzzle.

I think we now have enough distance between ourselves and the 1990’s to “look back” at the concept of “Alternative” music.  According to the Wikipedia, the term came into existence in the mid-1980’s to describe the first generation of post-punk genres.  By the time I became aware of the “Alternative” label, it basically applied to all non-rap popular music.  For a brief time, the uniquitous “Pop/Rock” signs in record stores were replaced “Alternative” signs.  I’m amused now, as I was then, that everything was alternative.  What was it an alternative to?  I don’t remember anyone having a very good answer for that.  Over time, the term fell out of of use, and we’re all back to calling anything mainstream “Pop/Rock.”  It may be an overgeneralization, but at least its not a paradox.

A couple of years ago, I heard of the “Duetche Alternative Charts.”  I love these things for a number of reasons.  First, they have nothing to do with “Alternative” as we Americans used to know it.  Furthermore, and again in contrast to our legacy, the bands on these charts are of a distinctly different style than mainstream music.  Finally, a lot of bands on these charts are Synthpop and/or Industrial.  In 2005, Green Day and Coldplay did make it onto the Top 100 singles chart (there are a few other well-known names, but these are the only representatives of “Mainstream” music by American standards).  But, they were beat out VNV Nation, Apoptygma Berzerk, Iris, and many others.  Depeche Mode’s “Precious” was number one.

It seems likely to me that the whole music chart system (admittedly invented as a marketing tool) homegenizes what people listen to.  If an album or single gets to the top of the charts, people listen to it more, and more people listen to it.  The charts ostensibly only reflect trends, but given the existence of Top 40 stations and radio countdowns, they clearly influence what continues to be played as well.  If Billboard, which currently summarizes the trends of the entire U.S. in its charts, were to divide the nation into many regions, I wonder if different and varied trends might emerge.  For now, I’ll have to be content with what Europe has to offer.