Today we’re looking at the nominees for Best Dance/ Electronic Recording.
Hero, Afrojack and David Guetta:
Loom, Ólafur Arnalds featuring Bonobo:
Before, James Blake:
Heartbreak, Bonobo and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs (This video has a strobe warning, so if you’re prone to seizures, you might want to watch the music-only version on YouTube):
You Can Do It, Caribou:
Alive, Rüfüs Du Sol:
The Business, Tiësto:
This category made me realize how much I’m influenced by visuals. For example, You Can Do It should get the award for Most Annoying Vocals (sorry, Caribou, that’s not a real category, or you’d win it for sure), but the dogs in the video are so engaging I didn’t really notice at first what a horrible song it is. Also, I didn’t like Before and Heartbreak when I looked at the music-only videos; but I liked them a lot with the videos shown here. Also, I like the dancing in Before much better than the dancing in Loom, so I want to judge Before more favorably, which isn’t exactly fair. And then, the video for The Business is a little creepy, which made me not want to like it at all.
So, to be fair, over the course of a couple of days I listened to the songs while playing solitaire so I wouldn’t see the videos and be influenced by them. The repetitive nature of You Can Do It and Loom disqualified them for me. The rhythms of Hero, Before, Heartbreak, Alive, and The Business all make me want to dance. But each of the songs has elements of repetition, and with repeated listenings, I found them annoying. The one that annoyed me least was Hero, and its upbeat mood and great message make it the best candidate for the award, in my opinion.
Now it’s your turn. Did you also find yourself judging the songs on the basis of the videos? Which one do you think should get the award for Best Dance/ Electronic Recording on the basis of the music? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
Have you seen the other parts of this series? Part I: Best Music Video, Part II: Song of the Year, Part III: Best Global Music Performance, and Part IV: Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/ Song.
ARHtistic License 
I much prefer to just listen to the music, not a fan of the accompanying videos.
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The only videos that I really dislike are the ones for “Loom” and “The Business.” (Eh, maybe “Heartbreak.”) However, the visuals do distract my attention (sometimes in a good way) away from the music.
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I have to be honest, Andrea, but I haven’t really paid attention to the Grammys in many, many years. For the most part, my musical tastes and the Grammy nominations don’t really intersect all that much (although I sometimes get thrown a bone). I have read all of your parts to this theme, and really, the only artists I feel strongly about are Brandi Carlile, who I think is a good songwriter and a powerful, emotional vocalist, and John Batiste, who I also really only know from Stephen Colbert’s show, and is a talented, gifted musician. I’d like to see them get some Grammy recognition, but they’re really the only ones I give a durn about. So far, anyway. Let’s see who turns up in your next part(s) to this topic.
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Brandi has five nominations this year, and Jon has eleven, so maybe you’ll get your wish!
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I would “like” your reply, but as always, WordPress prompts me to create an account, which I don’t really want to do.
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