[Commentary] David Takes Down Goliath At 53rd Annual Grammys

As the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards reached its apex Sunday, Kris Kristofferson and Barbra Streisand prepared to announce the Album of the Year as voted on by members of the Recording Academy.

At this point, I was ready to turn off the broadcast; in fact, I was content with changing the channel half-way through the program. My wife can attest that as the evening carried on, I became more irritated and disenchanted.

Thankfully, Esperanza Spalding’s seeming upset of Justin Bieber in the category Best New Artist and Lady GaGa’s triumph over Bieber in the category Best Pop Vocal Album kept me interested until the very end.

The biggest news of the festivities seemed to be that the night belonged to Lady Antebellum; Best Country Album, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and Best Country Song were all captured by the Nashville-based trio. Clearly, Album of the Year was there for their taking.

It should be noted that I have a very specific idea of what country music should be. As I listened to clips from each of the nominees in the category Best Country Album, I announced from my couch, “There’s only one damn country artist in that entire lineup: Jamey Johnson.”

So to hear Lady Antebellum capture the gold for Best Country Album, frustration set in. That’s not country music. Pop? Sure. But not country.

As my long-time colleague and dear friend Ben McNeely noted after my Twitter rant, “There is no country anymore. It died with Johnny Cash.”

Like in years past, I was bitter, ready to throw in the towel and rip the FM radio out of my car.

But redemption came in those last few moments of the Grammys Sunday night. Montreal-based indie rockers Arcade Fire were the ones taking home the gilded gramophone for their album The Suburbs.

While I felt Lady Antebellum only deserved two of their five awards due to misidentification on the part of the Academy, I knew Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs wholeheartedly deserved every bit of the title Album of the Year.

A clearly shocked Arcade Fire walked on-stage, accepted the award. Frontman Win Butler bowed to Kristofferson and Streisand, and told the crowd, “We are going to play another song because we like music. Thank you to the Grammys. Thank you to everyone. We’re so happy!”

With that, the band unexpectedly walked over to their instruments, set their awards down onto their amps and launched into “Ready to Start,” announcing to the crowd, “You can all leave to this song.”

The band’s manager later said “There was no obligation and no plan” for Arcade Fire to perform after their acceptance speech, however “The Grammy producers were happy to run with it until they had to cut.”

Shortly after the announcement, Rosie O’Donnell Tweeted, “album of the year? ummm never heard of them ever.”

This shouldn’t be a strike against Rosie. Looking at the Soundscan numbers, most of the U.S. had no idea who Arcade Fire was before last night.

Arcade Fire has moved about 485,000 copies of The Suburbs in the United States. And as of July, more than 439,000 copies of 2007′s Neon Bible had been sold while 504,000 copies of 2004′s Funeral had moved. Combined, that’s only 1.4 million albums sold since their 2004 debut.

Comparatively, in 2010, Eminem moved 3.54 million copies of Recovery in the U.S., Lady Antebellum has sold 3.17 million copies of Need You Now as of Feb. 19, as of November 2010 Lady GaGa sold 1.349 million copies of The Fame Monster, and Katy Perry has sold just under one million copies of Teenage Dream as of January 2011.

To say David took down Goliath would be an understatement. These were the four monsters Arcade Fire would have to top in order to claim the top prize.

While 485,000 copies of a single album is certainly not a number to scoff at – it was enough the score Arcade Fire its first number one record in the U.S. – the numbers are fairly paltry in a major label’s grand scheme. But Arcade Fire isn’t signed to an Interscope Records or a Capitol Records, they have long fell under the umbrella of one of the industry’s hardest-working indie labels, Durham’s own Merge Records.

Since the label’s inception just over 20 years ago, Merge has long distributed some of the finest indie rock albums to be recorded.

Releases from Neutral Milk Hotel, Superchunk, Spoon, The Magnetic Fields, She & Him, Conor Oberst, Caribou and M. Ward helped fixate the label on the map.

And as of last night, thanks in large part to hard work of Arcade Fire, Merge is now cemented into music history. A testament to the do-it-yourself attitude of indie rock.

Congratulations Mac, Laura and the entire Merge family!

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