Adele - 25

Here's a monster of an unenviable task: following up an album that sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, spawned multiple ubiquitous singles, won a truckload of Grammys, spent 24 nonconsecutive weeks at number one, and was labeled by Billboard as "the Greatest Album of All Time"—whatever that means. Adele's 21 was the kind of phenomenon that doesn't happen in the music world anymore. Albums are obsolete for the average listener, right? Digital track sales are plummeting? Monoculture is dead? Adele defied every expectation and turned her sophomore album into a cultural sensation that was probably as close as our generation will ever get to having a Thriller. No wonder the British songstress took the better part of five years to drop the follow-up.

Unsurprisingly, 25 has arrived to endless comparisons to its predecessor—many of them unflattering. The reviews are mixed, and while the album will undoubtedly be a juggernaut that breaks sales records and single-handedly keeps the record business on life support for another few years, it's already pretty clear that 25 is not going to have the legacy of adoration that its world-beating predecessor did.

Here's the thing: 21 was such a one-in-a-billion miracle that to expect it to be replicated (or better yet, topped) would have simply been unreasonable. You could compare 25 endlessly to the album it follows; you could say there's nothing as flawless as "Someone Like You," or that there isn't a single with the potential to reach "Rolling in the Deep" levels of ubiquity. You could also say that Adele plays it safe and just stays pretty much in her wheelhouse throughout 25, which, while not entirely true, is arguably the album's biggest weakness. What keeps this album from being great isn't that it can't recreate 21; it's that it sometimes tries too hard to recapture the elements that defined that modern classic.

21 was a break-up record. Adele wrote in the wake of a fractured romance and every song on the disc—from the soulful kiss-off "Rumour Has It" to the late-night torch song "Set Fire to the Rain"—had to do with heartache and recovery. When Saturday Night Live did a skit about how Emma Stone, Coldplay, and various cast members liked to listen to "Someone Like You" in private and weep, it essentially defined how a lot of people saw 21 and Adele's music in general: it was music to cry to.

25 is—and should be—a different beast. If 21 found Adele at her lowest, 25 finds her at the peak of her powers. She found someone new; she fell in love; she became a mother; she became an icon; she became incredibly wealthy; she won an Oscar. With all of that considered, one might think that 25 should sound downright celebratory. Then again, Adele initially suffered from writer's block while trying to get started on this album, and actually feared that she might not have anything to say anymore.

That insecurity is reflected in these songs, often manifesting itself in the form of mid-20s malaise. On "Hello," Adele contacts an old flame, trying to reconnect after years spent becoming strangers. "Hello from the outside/I must have called a thousand times," she belts on the massive chorus, which heralded her triumphant return to the music world last month. While the song plays as a number about lost love, it perfectly captures the awkwardness and ache of trying to get back in touch with someone—be they a friend or an ex—years after you stopped speaking regularly. Being the one to break that silence, no matter how much you miss the person on the other end of the line, is a vulnerable position to be in. When Adele sings "At least I can say that I've tried," it hits like a gut-punch, like all of her best lyrics do. Some relationships just can't be rekindled, but the idea of trying anyway, just so you can live your life without regrets about the people who fell out of it, makes for one hell of a compelling pop song. The fact that Adele is probably the best singer in pop these days doesn't hurt, either.

25's best songs explore that vulnerability from a number of different angles—a perfect match for the quarter-life crossroads that the album title represents. "When We Were Young" is the album's beating heart, a yearning power ballad that again finds the narrator trying to reconnect with somebody who they used to know. "You feel like home," Adele professes on the verse, before launching into the cathartic chorus: "Let me photograph you in this light/In case it is the last time/That we might be exactly how we were." If there's a "Someone Like You" on 25, this is it.

Elsewhere, "I Miss You" and "Water Under the Bridge" are big, bombastic pop songs about mature adult relationships—supposedly written about Adele's boyfriend and the father of her child. "I Miss You" is a song about never going to sleep with a fight unresolved, while "Water Under the Bridge" finds someone who is famous for singing breakup songs coming to the realization that, this time, things might just be different. The fantastic "River Lea"—produced by Danger Mouse and carrying echoes of U2's underrated Songs of Innocence—provides the flip side to "Water Under the Bridge," with Adele suggesting that the failed relationships of her past will only poison her current one. "Consider this my apology, I know it's years in advance/But I'd rather say it now, in case I never get the chance." Juxtaposed next to one another in the tracklist, these two songs crackle with even more tension than they do alone.

Thanks to the SNL skit, 21 had a reputation for being an album meant for wallowing, but 25 is often hopeful. "Hello" and "When We Were Young" are heart-wrenching songs, but are filled with images of past grandeur and glimmers of hope for reconnecting and rebuilding old friendships. "I Miss You" and "Water Under the Bridge" (as well as album closer "Sweetest Devotion") are about a relationship that is durable enough to weather the storm, and even "River Lea"—which isn't exactly optimistic—sparks with an almost otherworldly sense of anticipation, thanks largely to Danger Mouse's booming production. The Ryan Tedder co-written "Remedy" also falls into the "hopeful" category. Written about Adele's son, "Remedy" is touching, but also a bit by-the-numbers. Subjects like this one deserve a more lyrical nuance than Adele and Tedder deliver here, and the song ends up in the "generic piano ballad" pile, despite its personal resonance.

It's when Adele slips back into writing straightforward breakup songs, however, that she really loses the plot. She knows that heartbreaking emotive ballads are her wheelhouse. Fans want another "Someone Like You" or another "Turning Tables," even if she's not in a place right now where it makes sense to write songs like that. She still tries, though, an attempt which results in three dull dirges in a row. "Love in the Dark," "Million Years Ago," and "All I Ask" aren't great songs to begin with, but the fact that they are all jumbled together, one after the other in the album's back half, results in some serious momentum problems for the disc.

"Love in the Dark" is probably the most successful of the bunch, a string-drenched piano ballad supposedly written about Adele's post-21 rebound relationship. A big torch song in the vein of her James Bond contribution, "Love in the Dark" actually does play like an attempt at rewriting "Turning Tables," but is significantly less soul-shredding. "Million Years Ago" is promising, an acoustic ballad that recalls some of the material on Adele's more intimate debut album, 19. Sped up into a sultrier tango, "Million Years Ago" could have been something really special. As is, the song feels overwrought and sleepy, not helped by the ridiculously on-the-nose nature of a line like "I feel like my life is flashing by/And all I can do is watch and cry." The histrionics continue on "All I Ask," an overwrought Bruno Mars co-written piano ballad where the punchline is "What if I never love again?" 21's lyrics hurt because they felt so genuine and lived in. These songs, on the other hand, reek so badly of affectation that they're almost eye-roll worthy. When someone's music is as autobiographical as Adele's, you can tell when they're really connecting with the songs and when they're not. This bunch of ballads falls into the latter category.

Worse, in the midst of an album that often explores relationships and getting older with considerable nuance and maturity, "Million Years Ago" and "All I Ask" just feel out of place. Overblown and old-fashioned to a point of theatricality, both songs would sound more at home on a Broadway stage than they do here. Maybe that was the intention, but it forces 25 into a weird place where cohesion and theme go out the window in the final 20 minutes. It's all remarkably well sung and beautifully produced—particularly "All I Ask," which really does play like a second-act musical theater showstopper. The impact, though, is that 25 ends up feeling more like a "greatest hits" compilation of a very long writing and recording process than it does like a singular artistic statement.

Look, Adele worked with a lot of different people for this project. Mars, Tedder, Danger Mouse, Paul Epworth, Tobias Jesso Jr., Ariel Rechtshaid, and Greg Kurstin are all among the credited songwriters or producers. Sia, Damon Albarn, and others reportedly collaborated with Adele on songs that didn't make the album. Even Max Martin and Shellback show up, assisting on the out-of-place and awkward "Send My Love (To Your New Lover)." You can't really blame the co-writers and producers for the lack of cohesion here, though. 21 featured key contributions from Epworth, Tedder, Dan Wilson, Francis T. Smith, Rick Rubin, and plenty of others—not to mention a cover of a Cure song. But that album also had a narrower scope: it was a breakup album, through and through, and thrived on that description. By broadening the themes, growing up a bit, and going deeper, 25 hits upon some truly transcendent moments—moments that deserve the millions of lives they'll soundtrack. It's just hard to fully praise an album that stops feeling like an album three-quarters of the way through.

Luke Leighfield - New Season

Luke Leighfield - New Season
Got Got Need Records, 2012
Three stars

Piano rock has become a bit of a tired genre over the years, so often plagued by repetition and cliché that many listeners have gotten to the point where they write off anything with that label on association alone. I personally have always had a soft-spot for records where the piano takes the lead role, and I have loved or marginally enjoyed almost every band or artist you could name in the genre, from the classics (Billy Joel, Elton John), to the modern mainstream players (The Fray, Augustana), all the way to the relative obscurities (Wakey!Wakey!, Embrace). From the first moments of Luke Leighfield's fourth full length solo record (entitled New Season), the English-born troubadour recalls a slew of the songwriters that have gone before him in the genre. Leighfield is a Do-It-Yourself artist, but you could hardly tell from his latest record, which plays out as a fully orchestrated, exquisitely produced set of songs that ring, echo, swell, and fall at all the right points. And that makes sense, since Leighfield runs his own record label (Got Got Need Records), has a long list of notable friends in the music industry, and is a fantastically accomplished pianist and violinist, having worked as a sessions musician on both instruments.

The piano serves as the backbone for each of the ten cuts on this record, and while the combination between that instrument and the British-accented lilt of Leighfield's voice will instantly earn him endless comparisons to acts like Coldplay and Keane, his overall sound generally lands closer to that of some of today's most prominent American piano rockers. For example, the presence of Ben Folds floats through many of Leighfield's most dynamic vocal snippets, while the influence of Andrew McMahon (Jack's Mannequin, Something Corporate) can be felt in many of the album's soundscapes and arrangements, especially at the album's best moments.

And there are a lot of great moments here, from the slow burn opening of the aptly-titled "Slow Down" (with a piano riff that could have come straight off of a Something Corporate album), to the summerish pop rock of the title track, all the way to the ringing guitar intro of "Patience," which drew me in immediately. Gang vocals burst in the background of "The One Thing," eventually subsiding into a gentle piano tag, while Leighfield's rock 'n' roll aesthetic is evident in the power chords and the incessant build-up of "Live For More," which also collapses into a luminous, echoing piano outro. A series of arpeggiated piano notes open album highlight "Garde Ta Foy," recalling Adele's massively successful flagship single "Someone Like You", and much like that song was, "Garde" is probably the album's most subdued and emotionally striking number. The delicate accompaniment allows Leighfield's voice to really shine here, gliding over the arrangement in a simplistic but moving fashion that results in one of the most gorgeous songs I've heard all year. As the song moves forward, an ambiance of strings and back-up vocals swell around Leighfield, building as drums enter and crescendo, and ultimately exploding into a wall of guitars. It really feels like a closer, but that honor belongs to "Do Not Settle," a commencement speech of a song that proves itself to be both entrancing and inspirational. Next to the massive scope inherent in the climax of "Garde Ta Foy," the build here feels a bit truncated and restrained, like the song (and the album, which loses steam after its opening but regains it in the final quarter) ends just as it is starting to reach greatness.

Leighfield doesn't entirely escape the usual trappings of the piano pop/rock genre on New Season, but he does tend to transcend them. To be sure, there are lyrical clichés here and there, and Leighfield isn't the most original melodist, causing his songs do run together on occasion, but his vocals have a warm and welcoming familiarity about them, and his songs very often build and grow as they move forward (and with subsequent listens). I don't suppose that the record will win many new fans for the piano rock scene, and the naysayers will very likely find that they have the same problems with Leighfield that they do with genre's biggest stars, but for me and for many who find a certain degree of pleasure in this type of music, guilty or otherwise, this record represents a treasure trove of earnest lyrics, well executed arrangements, and light, beautiful melodies. He doesn't have the hooks that McMahon has, or the lyrical brilliance that Folds manifests every so often, and no one will ever be calling him Billy Joel, but Leighfield is a solid songwriter and an even better musician, and New Season deserves to be heard.

Taylor Swift - Red

 Taylor Swift - Red
Big Machine Records, 2012
Four stars

Of the biggest players in today’s pop music world, you can probably count the ones bigger than Taylor Swift on one hand. Amidst an ailing music industry and the ever-threatening death of the album format, Swift still moved over a million copies of her third record, 2010’s Speak Now, in a single week. Only one album has replicated that feat since (Lady Gaga’s Born This Way), and even then, the achievement was rendered suspect due to the $0.99 Amazon promotional deal that accounted for 430,000 of its sales. Indeed, in the six years since her first album, Swift has transformed herself into one of the most recognizable and polarizing presences on the radio waves, fueling her diarist confessionals with pristine melodies and full-bodied arrangements. For many (myself included), Swift has become the go-to example of pop music at its best, her honest songwriting and her penchant for towering choruses qualities that almost every other artist would kill to have. For others, her constant use of the “love-gone-wrong” trope is an immediate turn-off, the sign of a spoiled, “woe-is-me” rich girl who exploits her tabloid relationships, turns them into songwriting fodder and makes a truckload of cash in the process.

Obviously, listeners will hear what they want, but for me, Taylor’s manner of heart-on-the-sleeve conviction is one of her greatest strengths. In an age of overly-computerized poppers like Katy Perry and Ke$ha, Taylor’s honesty and candor imbues her music with a girl-next-door sensibility that is nothing short of refreshing. Furthermore, her country music roots allow her to implement traditional textures more often than most of her contemporaries, and even as she has moved away from those roots, Taylor’s reliance on organic instrumentation and classic country, pop and rock ‘n’ roll influences clearly leave her at the top of the pack…or at very least, next to her similarly-minded British counterpart, Adele.

Swift’s fourth record, simply titled Red, continues all of this while effortlessly adding more nuance into the equation, taking the same kind of genre-hopping mentality that defined Speak Now, but refining and grounding it in her most mature and dynamic set of songs to date. At 16 tracks and 75 minutes in length, this album is behemoth that could have done with some liberal trimming, but even as is, there are no obvious miss-steps or throwaways here. Right from the U2-bound arena rock of “State of Grace,” which opens the album in bombastic and triumphant fashion, Red is very obviously the work of a more grown-up Taylor Swift. She still has her moments of childishness here and there, whether she’s throwing a cell phone at her boyfriend’s head on the infectious, should-have-been b-side “Stay Stay Stay,” or joyfully bidding farewell to yet another former flame on the number-one smash “We Are Never Ever Ever Getting Back Together” (complete with a Max Martin-approved hook and a charismatic spoken-word interlude). But most of the time, Taylor forsakes shameless name-dropping and self-victimization in favor of gleeful pop bliss or heartfelt introspection; in both cases, she’s thoroughly in her element.

The album’s most immediate standout track is also its longest. “All Too Well” is a gorgeous and wistful ballad, drenched in the kind of rootsy tradition that defined the best cuts on both Fearless and Speak Now, but taking it to another level with the best songwriting Swift has ever put on record. Rather than focusing solely on break-up fireworks like much of her earlier material, “All Too Well” charts the entire course of a relationship, from the euphoric early days of spending Thanksgiving with her new boyfriend’s family, to the nostalgic glances back after the whole thing has gone up in flames. The idea isn’t new, but the way Taylor approaches it here is undoubtedly effective, imbuing the lovely autumnal backdrop with relatable specificity that hits straight home. “Here we are again in the middle of the night/We’re dancing ‘round the kitchen in the refrigerator light/Up the stairs, I was there, I remember it all too well,” Taylor sings, transporting herself (and her audience) back to a relationship whose memories still feel fresh. That sense of thinly-veiled recollection, of fondly remembered love affairs that, for whatever reason, had to end, informs the majority of the songs on Red. Make no mistake, this could easily be labeled as a break-up album, a classification that essentially fits each album Swift has made thus far. The difference this time around is that Swift doesn’t solely bask in the swells of her own romantic disasters: this is a record of ups and downs, ebb and tide, triumph and tragedy, and for probably the first time, we’re not always sure if Swift is singing about herself.

The sobering “The Last Time” is another break-up ballad, this time playing out between intertwining male (Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody) and female voices. Throughout the song, it often feels like Swift is the supporting act, with everything from the melody to the wall of guitars to the vocal distribution tilting towards Lightbody’s wheelhouse. That disconnect hints at the ambiguous perspective of the piece, at the question of whether Taylor is actually the narrator or if she has adopted the situation of another. Likely, the song is the album’s most obvious rumination on the demise of the marriage between Swift’s mother and father, who separated this past spring. “Put my name at the top of your list,” Lightbody and Swift demand in turn, questioning just how much of themselves Swift’s parents poured into their daughter’s career and whether that skewed distribution of efforts and affection may have caused their relationship to implode. The feeling is similar on “I Almost Do” and “Sad Beautiful Tragic,” a pair of sparse acoustic ballads that assist the album’s central themes (those of regret and longing, heartbreak and hope) in moving to the forefront.

But while Red spends a fair amount of its runtime situated in the lower end of the tempo spectrum, it often thrives best within moments of pure pop sensibility. The title track morphs heartbreak into a simile-loaded slice of pop perfection, while the dubstep-injected “I Knew You Were Trouble” is one of many prospective chart-toppers at play here. The beat-driven stomp of “Holy Ground” is a modern-pop take on Bruce Springsteen’s “Badlands,” a tear-down-the-walls anthem that ranks as one of the most powerful and resilient songs ever written (and not a bad standard to be compared to); Taylor’s version should be Red’s  penultimate cut. That position goes instead to the neon-drenched “Starlight,” whose luminescent opening is almost tailor-made (pun intended) for some fantastical beauty product commercial. Remarkably, that indulgence works, not only because Taylor resides in a genre where commercial connections don’t ring utterly false, but also because she’s still pretty damn good at playing the princess.

And pop princess she is, especially on “22,” which is destined to be her biggest hit to date. Fans of Swift’s country roots will likely shake their head at the redneck-Ke$ha opening, but once the song opens up into a wall of synthesizers and settles into its indelible hook, it’s almost impossible not to shout along. The song’s youthful energy and “throw-away-the-obligations” mentality will make it an essential cut for many a college party in the coming months and that association is absolutely justified. Almost equally addictive is the Butch Walker-produced “Everything Has Changed,” a simple folk-pop song taken to the next level by a hip-hop-ready beat and titanic production values. Swift and British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeren serenade each other, their voices blending in a sweet valentine of a song that welcomingly indicates light at the end of the tunnel for what is, on the whole, a pervasively sad record.

Pictures with Bruce AND Butch? Good deal.

Fittingly, the full daybreak comes on the album’s final track: “Begin Again” sounds like classic singer-songwriter fare, something that Carole King or Joni Mitchell (whose influence extends to every corner of Red) might have put on a record in the 1970s. A classy James Taylor reference only enhances the vintage feel, but at the end of the day, it’s Swift’s growth as an artist that allows her to sell the song (and in connection, the album) so effectively. When “Begin Again” hits its bridge and Taylor delivers the climactic lines (“And we walked down the block to my car and I almost brought him up/But you start to talk about the movies that your family watches/Every single Christmas, and I won’t talk about that/For the first time, what’s past is past”), it’s the mark of a songwriter who has finally grown up and learned to let the bad things go, and it’s because of this maturation that Red is ultimately an uplifting record. Despite the trials and tribulations she runs into along the way, Swift realizes that there’s always a lesson to be learned, that the pain is all a part of growing up and becoming the people we were meant to be, and that maturation is an exciting one. People don’t pour this much of themselves into strict pop records anymore, something that would make Red notable even if it were a relatively one-note affair. That the album covers half a dozen genres without ever sacrificing flow, thematic integrity or pure pop ecstasy makes it not only the best album of Swift’s budding career, but the best mainstream pop record we are likely to hear in 2012; here’s hoping that Swift just keeps getting better.

Keep on dreamin', even if it breaks your heart...

Next to Butch Walker scoring songwriting credit on major hits and earning the distinction of Producer of the Year from Rolling Stone magazine back in 2005, hearing Will Hoge's "Even if it Breaks Your Heart" on the radio waves is one of the most satisfying occurrences to take place within the mainstream in years - even if it's not Hoge singing on the record. I've gotta say, there have been a few moments this year that have almost given me hope for mainstream popular music. First, Adele's continued domination of the charts showed that the album format still had some gas left in it; next, fun. hit number one on the charts and even now continue to display a surprising amount of longevity with Some Nights; and now, Will Hoge's song, one of my favorite songs from 2009, is making waves on the radio waves, three years down the road from the first time it graced my ears. Of course, it's not his version: the "hit song" status that now lies on "Even if it Breaks Your Heart" is thanks to the Eli Young Band and their version of the tune. It's been bizarre hearing the song issuing from speakers that don't belong to either myself or my older brother, whether I was hearing it on the radio waves or in the midst of a slew country standards playing on my co-worker's iTunes, but I'd call it a good kind of bizarre. Even in decidedly less talented hands than Hoge's, "Even if it Breaks Your Heart" remains as great a song today as it has always been.

I always thought that "Even if it Breaks Your Heart" had crossover potential, from the first time I listened to The Wreckage and fell in love with Will's music, and I suppose I have been proven right there. Still, it makes me wonder: why isn't this guy a huge country music star? Eli Young is clearly a more talented individual than the majority of the stars in pop music today, and I think that, in general, country music, even in its most mainstream forms, is a much less egregious and offensive genre than the majority of what crops up on top-40 radio. For the most part, the singers can still sing, the players can still play, and the records still have a measure of emotional force and artistic integrity to them. That said, Young's take on "Even if it Breaks Your Heart" doesn't add anything new to it: he plays the song straight, which is fine, but the only notable difference is that it sounds more generic, more stereotypically "country," but only in a modern sense. Hoge is very much in the vein of classic country and rock music stars: he's Tom Petty, Hank Williams, and Springsteen rolled into one, with a twinge of Johnny Cash thrown in for good measure. His voice is distinctive and unique, his vocal performances sparked with an emotional honesty that is impossible to doubt, no matter what he's singing about. His songs are, across the board, stellar, flitting between rock, pop, country, folk, and even gospel, and breaking down the barriers between all of them. And more than anything else, he's a force of nature onstage, ranking amongst the greatest performers I've ever seen. If there were any justice, this man would be a living legend.

A cover song is a weird route into fame for any artist. Even if your performance of another artist's song takes it to a new level (basically, if you're Jeff Buckley), it still has an asterisk next to it. That's a bit odd to me because, inevitably, we all start out as little more than a collection of our influences. We take our first steps into music by learning how to sing and play other people's songs, and we channel that experience into our own music, if and when we begin to write it. The Eli Young Band doesn't exactly fit into any of this, since they had one big hit prior to "Even if it Breaks Your Heart," but the idea still remains: cover songs as hits are a tricky beast - especially if much of your audience will probably never even know there's another version of the song in question. And I guess, ultimately, it doesn't really matter, because Will's song is speaking for itself: a lot of people obviously love it, and it could mean big things for him. Maybe he'll take a leaf out of Butch Walker's book and start doing some songwriting for other artists; maybe it will filter out into bigger tour opportunities, more fans, bigger album sales, and a better life for Hoge; maybe he won't always have to drive his band from town to town in a beat up old van, foregoing sleep in order to get to the next venue and play a kick ass rock 'n' roll show. I don't begrudge Eli Young his success with the song, I just wish that the success were Will's to call his own, and I just hope that he's getting the recognition and compensation he deserves for it.

The Grammy Post

There aren't a lot of hardcore music fans that take the Grammy Awards seriously these days, and it's not terribly difficult to figure out why: the Grammy Awards have always been a chance for the music industry to pat themselves on the back, often awarding the albums that spawned the most pop hits, or handing out sentimental trophies to old veterans or recently departed legends to pay tribute to them. There is nothing wrong with this practice as, it's worth noting, the Grammy Awards have rarely handed the Album of the Year prize to a legitimately bad album. Indeed, a handful of my all time favorite albums have won the prize, from The Joshua Tree to Rumours to Sgt. Pepper. That said, the Album of the Year award's history, for the most part, is a study in curious decisions. Like the fact that the Beatles only won the award that one time, or that Bruce Springsteen lost to Lionel Richie in the year that he took over the world with Born in the U.S.A. (or the more depressing fact that Born to Run didn't even score a nomination). And recent years have seen the award go to either country-pop crossover stars (Taylor Swift, the Dixie Chicks) or to legendary figures in music (Ray Charles, U2, Allison Krauss, Herbie Hancock): none were poor choices, but it would be hard to argue any of them as the best album released in their individual years.

I really thought that last year, Grammy had turned a corner. Rather than handing the Album of the Year award to a huge seller (Eminem's Recovery) or a newly minted pop music icon (Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster), the Academy opted for Arcade Fire, a critically acclaimed indie-rock act from Canada, and their concept album The Suburbs. In my eyes, that victory was truly magnificent: rather than going for something that was just a collection of singles, the Academy went for a true album, with recurring themes, sounds, ideas and characters. In an age where many have proclaimed that "the album is dead," that album defended the format, and it proved why it not only works, but why it will always be more artistically relevant than the single. Those people who were championing the rise of the digital single as the predominant musical format do have a point, though, since iTunes has indeed rendered the album obsolete to casual listeners. But it's still Album of the Year that is announced at the very end of the Grammy ceremony, and Arcade Fire's victory last year, backlash and all, was a poetic defense of the format that has defined the music industry since the 60s.

After that, I must confess that this year's nominees disappointed me a bit, even though two of them landed on my best of the year list. Still, the Academy is likely to avoid adding to their list of "curious decisions" this year (unless you count the nominees, which no one seems to remember after the fact anyway). Below, I list my thoughts on the nominees for the evening's biggest categories, as well as my reasons for tuning in again this year (however distractedly) and my predictions. (Spoiler: Adele).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Record of the Year

Adele - "Rolling in the Deep"

Bon Iver - "Holocene"

Bruno Mars - "Grenade"

Mumford & Sons - "The Cave"

Katy Perry - "Firework"

Will win: "Rolling in the Deep"

Should win: "Holocene"

A lot of people don't understand the difference between the Record of the Year and Song of the Year categories, but really, they're miles apart. One is simply about the songwriting at hand, while the other is awarded not only to the performing artist, but also to the producers, sound engineers, and other important team members who turned it into a stellar recording. As a result, Record of the Year is far more in recognition of the studio work done on a song than it is of a particular performance, unless the artist someone like Butch Walker who writes, performs and produces the track, which doesn't usually happen in mainstream pop music, and as a result, doesn't usually happen in this category. This year, though, there is one artist in this field who did all of those things, and the resulting recording is one of the most outstanding achievements in production of last year. That artist is Justin Vernon, the mastermind behind Bon Iver, and his song, "Holocene," which builds from a simple acoustic arrangement into full band ambiance. It's not the most sonically spectacular song on the album (that title would belong to one of the album's bookends, but it is, fairly easily, my favorite work here. That said, "Rolling in the Deep" is the biggest hit and will walk away with this category fairly easily. I'm fine with that, since producer Paul Epworth (who also worked on Florence + The Machine's Ceremonials), did some of the best production work of the last year.

2. Album of the Year

Adele -21

Foo Fighters - Wasting Light

Lady Gaga - Born This Way

Bruno Mars - Doo Wops & Hooligans

Rihanna - Loud

Will & Should Win: 21

Now here's an embarrassment of a category. I had high hopes for this year's album of the year slate after the Academy defied the pop music world and gave the award to a record that not only had no hits, but a record by a band that many Grammy viewers had never even heard of. The ensuing backlash was one of the funniest things I've ever seen take place on the internet, and caused me to lose any faith I had left in the music consumerist population. This year's category could have been a really killer one too, with all of the records from last year that gained a ton of critical acclaim and a fair amount of success (Bon Iver and M83 come to mind), not to mention a handful of leftovers from the previous year, like Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which earned perfect scores from nearly every publication known to man and will likely go down as the most well received album of this decade. And it must be good, because I even like that record, and I've never enjoyed another rap album in my life. Or there was Taylor Swift's Speak Now, which actually does appeal to the pop music listener to me, and is a superior album to the one she won the prize for just two years ago. Kanye will get a consolation prize in the rap album category, but Swift isn't up for anything big tonight.

The biggest waste of a nomination here is for the Bruno Mars record, which I can say from personal experience is terrible. The singles are the only tracks worth hearing at all, and even those display pretty much every pop music cliche in the book. I've never liked Rihanna either, and I'd be willing to wager that her albums are just vehicles for a handful of chart topping singles, and are loaded with filler, but I've never listened to an entire Rihanna album, so I guess I will never know. And even my girlfriend, who loves Lady Gaga, couldn't find much to enjoy with Born This Way, though I personally find it to be a better than average pop music album with a couple of killer songs ("You & I" and "Edge of Glory") closing it out. The latter, which features a self-referencing saxophone solo from Clarence Clemons, was the last song the virtuoso ever recorded or played live, and is the kind of sonic feast that should absolutely be up for Record of the Year.

That said, the other two albums on this list both made my top 25 of last year, and both are terrific. Foo Fighters made their best album in at least a decade with Wasting Light, where the band sounds loud, rejuvenated and nostalgic, all while delivering some of the best tunes of their career. It's all water under the bridge, though, since Adele will win this category by a landslide, and it really is a deserved victory. Not only is 21 the best selling album of the last year (and it just recently had its strongest week of sales, almost a year after its release), it has also unleashed three terrific singles ("Rolling in the Deep," "Someone Like You" and "Set Fire to the Rain") and has truly moved a lot of people. The album's pop drenched break-up songs recall one of the best Album of the Year winners in the award's history: Fleetwood Mac's near perfect masterpiece Rumours, and I can easily see 21 becoming that album for this generation. I've heard way better break up records, but to hear pop music this great captivate the entire world in the way it has is a real triumph, and its hard to remember a winner of this category that defined its year more than 21 has. 

3. Song of the Year

Kanye West - "All of the Lights"

Mumford & Sons - "The Cave"

Bruno Mars - "Grenade"

Bon Iver - "Holocene"

Adele - "Rolling in the Deep"

Will Win: "Rolling in the Deep"

Should Win: "Holocene"

A long list of songwriters marks this album's one miss-step, proving that sometimes, too many cooks really do spoil the broth. That song is "Grenade," one of the most cliched and grating pop songs, not only of this year, but in the history of pop music. Rebecca Black's "Friday" is a better song.

The rest of the category is actually pretty stellar (or as stellar as a Grammy category can get), though "All of the Lights" is a better record than it is a song, I think: there are far better songs on that album. I'm glad to see Mumford & Sons up for these awards, although the album "The Cave" comes from released in 2009 and really shouldn't be in contention for an awards show taking place in 2012. "Holocene" and "Rolling in the Deep" round out the nominations, with the former being the better song (Pitchfork agrees), but with the latter taking the prize. I'd argue "Someone Like You" will prove to be Adele's trademark (and her most iconic hit), but "Rolling in the Deep" was a hell of a breakthrough.

Best New Artist

The Band Perry

Bon Iver

J. Cole

Nicki Minaj

Skrillex

Will & Should Win: Bon Iver

This category is one of the biggest jokes in any awards show, as they routinely nominate artists for their sophomore album, or in some cases, much later. One of the funniest occurrences of this took place in 2004, when they nominated Fountains of Wayne for the award, following their one hit wonder success with "Stacy's Mom;" the band had been together since 1996.

Anyway, the obvious outlier here is Bon Iver, who released his first album under that moniker in 2007, a year before Adele released her debut, even though she won this same award three years ago. Regardless of the questionable way in which these voters define the word "new," it's better late than Bon Iver, who completely steamrolls over everyone else in this category. The Band Perry had a pop gem this year with "If I Die Young," but even attempting that holds a candle to Bon Iver's near perfect record is laughable.

Best Rock Song/Best Rock Performance

Coldplay - "Every Teardrop is a Waterfall"

The Decemberists - "Down By the Water"

Foo Fighters - "Walk"

Mumford & Sons - "The Cave"

Radiohead - "Lotus Flower"

Will & Should Win: "Walk"

People have trouble differentiating Record and Song of the Year, but these two categories are, right down to their nominees, exactly the same. Certainly one of the stronger categories of the night, with the Decemberists sneaking in with a solid track from their great record The King is Dead. Foo Fighters should be sitting pretty here, though, with both the best song and the only Album of the Year nomination backing it up.

Best Rock Album

Jeff Beck - Rock 'n' Roll Party Honoring Les Paul

Foo Fighters - Wasting Light

Kings of Leon - Come Around Sundown

Red Hot Chili Peppers - I'm With You

Wilco - The Whole Love

Will Win: Foo Fighters - Wasting Light

Could Win: Jeff Beck

This category often turns either into a consolation prize for a could be/should be album of the year winner (Quentin Tarantino presenting it to Green Day in 2005, when they had the best record but it didn't matter in the midst of the Ray Charles tributes) or part of a sweep on the way to the big prize (U2 taking it for the terrific How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb the year later). This year, I'm going with the consolation prize theory, as Foo Fighters have no chance at Album of the Year, but could do pretty well here. The questionable spoiler is Jeff Beck, a virtuoso veteran paying tribute to a recently departed figure of rock 'n' roll evolution. I'm split either way, but it's actually a really solid category this year, so I'm less inclined to care.

Best Alternative Music Album

Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver

Death Cab For Cutie - Codes & Keys

Foster the People - Torches

My Morning Jacket - Circuital

Radiohead - The King of Limbs

Will & Should Win: Bon Iver

This is often one of the better categories of the night, and while I think this slate is less inspired this year, the fact that it's one of the bigger categories the Bon Iver will likely pick up keeps it on my list of ones to watch. 

But all of these categories and predictions aside, the real reason I'll be tuning in is quite simple: Springsteen and the E-Street Band will be performing. And really, I'm hoping for a Clarence Clemons tribute, though it seems likely he might get a bit upstaged by the recent passing of Whitney Houston. As predictable as that is, and as great as Whitney's voice once was (I'm pretty sure it wasn't anymore...), she didn't create the most perfect two minutes in the history of rock and pop music...

But Clarence Clemons? Yes, yes he did.