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U2 have a beautiful day on the Best Music Poll national ballot

BY MATT ASHARE

Watching U2 humbly accept their first award of the night at the Grammys this year was, at first, almost amusing. Bono always used to make a show of out-humbling all but the very humblest of God's creatures, and by the early '90s even he knew the shtick was running out of steam. So he created a narcissistic bug-eyed alter-ego for his humble persona to parade around in, and we all reveled in the postmodern irony of Father Teresa partying like it was 1999. Before long, though, it actually was 1999 and U2 were stuck in a momentary lapse of musical judgment that they couldn't seem to find their way out of. The party was over; the Popmart was out of business ... or so it seemed.

So watching U2 at the Grammys really was kind of funny at first in a " Here he goes with that shtick again " sort of way. I even caught a whiff of that the first time I heard the new All That You Can't Leave Behind (Interscope). I mean, " It's a beautiful day " ? For whom? I, for one, was having a pretty crappy day. And I'd been under the impression that sometime around '91, even Bono had accepted Lewis Black's notion that despite (or perhaps as a result of) our best intentions, the world is indeed a cruel, ugly, and ultimately absurd place. Maybe I was just projecting.

But then there was a moment, about halfway through Bono's brief words of acceptance at the Grammys, when he really seemed to be every bit as surprised as Steely Dan apparently were to have won. The humility wasn't an act. It was genuine. And why shouldn't it be? Here he was, the briefly fallen king of stadium rock, being welcomed back, two-decades-plus into his career. Acceptance feels twice as good the second time around, when you've been introduced to the bittersweet taste of rejection.

Again, I may be projecting, but on some level that's what being a music fan is all about. I mean, we all want to be able to feel the singer's pain, joy, embarrassment, anger, shame, whatever, right? And Bono's got the Clinton magic when it comes to that. Even Eddie Vedder can't compete. And who even knows what Thom Yorke is singing about anymore? I don't. After sitting through the Radiohead movie Meeting People Is Easy, I'm not sure I even want to know. That, I think, accounts in large part for U2's domination of this year's Best Music Poll. Yes, Radiohead came in a close (very close, actually) second in the Best National Act category, and Kid A (Capitol) gave All That You Can't Leave Behind a decent run for its money in Best National Album. But when I looked at the vote tallies for Best National Male Vocalist, Bono was a slam-dunk all the way: he got almost twice as many votes as third-placer Yorke; and runner-up Maynard James Keenan (of Tool and A Perfect Circle) didn't do much better than that.

What does that say about the state of rock in 2001? That probably depends on whose rock you're talking about. The last time U2 were on top of the world in Best Music Poll terms was almost 10 years ago, in 1992, when Bono got Best National Male Vocalist, U2 got Best National Act, and Achtung Baby! (Island) got Best National Album. Technically speaking, that was pre-grunge, because - even though Nevermind (DGC) had already been released, " Smells like Teen Spirit " was already a hit, and Seattle was already every major-label A&R scout's favorite vacation spot - Nirvana were Best New Artist material that year and the alternative nation was only beginning to assert its commercial clout. By the time U2 were delving into pomo electronica on the not-so-pop Pop, no one was even sure what " alternative " meant anymore: one person's rock was another person's roll, and everybody seemed to have a little hip-hop in their 'hood.

2001 isn't 1992 for a lot of reasons, but there are some interesting parallels to be drawn between the two years. The one I have in mind has to do with the vacuum that Nirvana clearly filled with Nevermind. Looking back, there was certainly plenty of good music out there in the late '80s and early '90s, but Nirvana's breakout success - and that of an entire genre of underground music (grunge, punk, alternative, whatever) - would seem to suggest that lack of supply had created an overwhelming demand for something " new " and " exciting " in '91-'92. And those are near-perfect conditions for a band like U2, especially when you consider that without sacrificing much in the way of anthemic power, Achtung Baby!, with its industrial accents, was rather cutting-edge at the time. That's not to say that music fans today are as starved for drama as they might have been in 1992, or that All That You Can't Leave Behind is as adventurous as Achtung Baby! (it's not), but it certainly feels as though U2 have filled a certain void in 2001.

Looking over some of the other winners on the mainstream rock/pop side of the tracks - specifically, A Perfect Circle in Best National Breakthrough Act and Eminem in Best National Rap/Hip-Hop Act (which I include here because rap is mainstream pop, and nobody proves that better than Eminem) - makes me wonder whether perhaps there aren't a lot of people out there suffering from aggro fatigue right now. The post-alternative trend in modern-rock radio has been toward meaner, nastier, heavier acts like A Perfect Circle. And Eminem may be cartoonish enough to make people laugh, but anyone who feels all warm and fuzzy after sitting through " Stan " should probably seek professional help. Even the girls in Destiny's Child, who won Best National R&B/Soul, are as comfortable slinging nasty disses as they are whispering sweet nothings. Everybody in heavy rotation except Bono seems to be having a bad day. And maybe U2 have regained their feel-good footing just in time to capitalize on our subconscious desire for a rock titan who not only feels our pain but can transcend it and, with none of the vicious irony that colors Lou Reed's " Perfect Day, " earnestly proclaim something as simple as " It's a beautiful day. "

Unless you're surprised by U2's dominance (and I really wasn't), there aren't any major surprises in this year's poll. I could bring up the tired PC complaint that somebody with white skin always seems to win the Rap/Hip-Hop category in reader polls like these, but that would mean ignoring the fact that track for track The Marshall Mathers LP (Interscope) is simply catchier and more, well, convincing than OutKast's Stankonia (La Face), even if OutKast are pushing a more appealing envelope than Eminem. Besides, as Em himself said at the Grammys, he owes it all to a Dr. named Dre. It's also worth noting that while the Beastie Boys have had their share of wins in this category, past winners have included Public Enemy, the Wu-Tang Clan, Arrested Development, and, last year, Dre himself. And at this point I'd rather see anyone other than perennial Best National Blues winner B.B. King take that category, regardless of race, if only for the sake of variety.

Not sure what to say about Dido's win in the Best National Female Vocalist category, except that if waiting around for Eminem and Dr. Dre to sample your song is what it takes, I definitely wouldn't want to be a woman in rock trying to move units right now. Hard to believe that only a few years ago Sarah McLachlan was scoring a marketing coup with the Lilith Fair, and Rolling Stone was devoting an entire issue to " women in rock. " Where have all the women gone? Well, R&B radio, of course, where it's all about Destiny's Child. But even that didn't help Beyoncé Knowles get anything resembling props in the Best National Female Vocalist category. She finished sixth, behind Gwen Stefani, Björk, Madonna, and Polly Jean Harvey. And that's something even Bono wouldn't feel too good about.

Issue Date: May 17 - 24, 2001





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