Not the most critical of current events, but music is the one thing that has been there throughout my life. No matter how badly things were going — my parents getting divorced, me getting divorced, loneliness, utter and total despair — I had music to listen to. Music has healed me time and again. etc etc. I cannot overstate how much the music I love means to me.

Which is why the Grammy Awards piss me off, year and year. Touted as the music industry's greatest achievement, they are voted on by people who seem to have one criterion for their choice: The winner is the most famous person in the category. BB King put out a blues album? Ding ding. Winner. Jose Feliciano? Ding ding. Robert Plant? Well, hell, not only has Led Zep been around forever, this is a Bold and Daring Album. He recorded it with Alison Krauss. You know: the cute little girl with the pretty voice who has won about a zillion bluegrass Grammys. Wow. Daring and famous.

Ding ding ding ding ding.

What pisses me off though, isn't the multitude of awards they won. I have heard almost nothing of the albums and songs they beat in most of the categories. It's not even that they won Album of the Year; it's that they also won Contemporary Folk Album of the Year. Why is this so infuriating? Because one of the artists they beat, Emmylou Harris (All I Intended to Be, a good album but not one of her best) has never been nominated for Album of the Year. Not even the amazing and groundbreaking "Mirror Ball," which she made with legendary rock producer Daniel Lanois. Hardly a folk album at album, yet one of the most brilliant pieces of work of her career and head-and-shoulders above 99% of the crap produced year after year. Yes, it won best Contemporary Folk Album the year it came out (1995?), but was not even nominated for Best Record.

Fame continues to be its own reward. Mariah Carey and Britney win multiple Grammys, not because they are the best in those years but because they are Names. Gag. Meanwhile, hundreds of albums made by superior artist are not recognized by more than a handful of fans; great music is left out of the running because the awards, led by the Grammys, refuse to do their jobs and nominate quality. But that's not what the music industry, or any industry is about: quality. It's about making shitloads of money. Robert Plant sells records and makes money; Emmylou sells, but not nearly at the same rate.

Guess who wins?