Madman Across The Water<\/a> and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Perhaps they were trying to rectify it with Caribou. John and producer Gus Dudgeon haven\u2019t always been kind in their assessment of the record. They regretted that it was dashed off so hurriedly. Granted, some of the album tracks are pedestrian (although \u201cGrimsby\u201d is fun). But you can\u2019t knock an album containing the stellar twin poles of \u201cThe Bitch Is Back\u201d and \u201cDon\u2019t Let The Sun Go Down On Me\u201d too much.<\/p>\n\u2018Court And Spark\u2019 by Joni Mitchell<\/p>\n
This album represents the sweet spot in Mitchell\u2019s transition from acoustic-based folk singer to adventurous jazz chanteuse. She even started to bend pop audiences to her will. \u201cHelp Me\u201d and \u201cFree Man In Paris\u201d don\u2019t skimp on the off-kilter chord changes. And yet they became universally beloved tracks. Mitchell mesmerizes on a low boil on the title track. Later, with help from Robbie Roberton on guitar, she rocks with abandon on \u201cRaised On Robbery\u201d. Meanwhile, \u201cPeople\u2019s Parties\u201d offers both a trenchant character sketch and a pointed commentary on the LA social scene all at once.<\/p>\n
\u2018Band On The Run\u2019 by Paul McCartney and Wings<\/p>\n
McCartney had taken his share of criticism, much of it unwarranted, for the first few releases of his post-Beatles career. But nobody, not even the Grammys, could deny the singular achievement of Band On The Run. And it had to be an especially sweet triumph for McCartney, since he had made it in such difficult circumstances (diminished band lineup, makeshift recording conditions, armed robbery of working tapes). The title track starts things off on a seemingly unmatchable note. And then he goes out and matches it again and again.<\/p>\n
\u2018Fulfillingness\u2019 First Finale\u2019 by Stevie Wonder<\/p>\n
At the time, Wonder joined only Frank Sinatra as a consecutive winner of this award, doubling up after Innervisions had done it the year before. For our money, Talking Book, which preceded those two, was a little better, although Songs In The Key Of Life, batting cleanup in that incredible stretch, raised the ante even higher. This particular LP is alluring but somewhat slippery, as Wonder gets a bit lost in abstraction. But what high points, including the mournful \u201cThey Won\u2019t Go When I Go\u201d and the fierce \u201cYou Haven\u2019t Done Nothin\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Verdict<\/p>\n
It comes down to McCartney vs. Mitchell. Band On The Run, Macca\u2019s finest post-Fab Four LP, gets the call by a nose. And we pity those Grammy voters, because it was a brutally tough call after all.<\/p>\n
Photo by Gijsbert Hanekroot\/Redferns<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nobody ever said that a Grammy voter\u2019s job was going to be easy. To be fair to them,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":243992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,20151,975,4006,4185,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-243991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-grammy-awards","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-pop-music","12":"tag-rock-music","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115242581610702199","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}