Shaun de Waal CD of the week
As far as I’m concerned, they should all be given to Bob Dylan, but the Grammy awards are interesting because of what they say about the American music establishment, and BMG’s 1998 Grammy Nominees shows off the pop category.
The women get more than their affirmative- action half, with Paula Cole cutely wondering Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?, Shawn Colvin telling us about when Sunny Came Home, and Sheryl Crow asserting toughly but winningly that Every Day Is a Winding Road. And Fiona Apple confesses that she’s been “a bad, bad girl” for being “careless with a delicate man”.
Fleetwood Mac (Stevie Nicks on vocals) and No Doubt (Gwen Stefani singing) provide smoothly streamlined pop, in contrast to Erykah Badu’s sassy take on jazzier free- form styles, led by her sublime voice.
As for the men, MMMBop by Hanson is instantly hummable and delightfully disposable, though its successor, R Kelly’s R&B warble I Believe I Can Fly, sounds lugubrious despite its supposedly uplifting sentiments. Puff Daddy apparently declined to include his nominated Missing You (The Police’s Every Breath You Take remodelled) on this compilation.
If the boys from Hanson have barely glimpsed puberty on the horizon, The Rolling Stones may still have some dim recollections of youth, but their Anybody Seen My Baby? is loose-limbed enough. The strange detail that kd lang and her co-writer Ben Mink get credits along with Jagger/Richards for this song is explained by the fact that its chorus was found to be similar to that of lang’s Constant Craving. Ironically, the Stones’ ex-management had just sued The Verve for borrowing a bit of Sympathy for the Devil.
But then pop has been eating itself since Elvis.