Since 1970, twenty songs have swept the two most prestigious Grammy awards, Song of the Year and Record of the Year. Review the list below and identify which of these songs just doesn't belong there:

{red neon pulsate}2007 - "Not Ready to Make Nice", Dixie Chicks{/red neon pulsate}
2003 - "Don't Know Why", Norah Jones
2001 - "Beautiful Day", U2
2000 - "Smooth", Santana & Rob Thomas
1999 - "My Heart Will Go On", Celine Dion
1998 - "Sunny Came Home", Shawn Colvin
1997 - "Change the World", Eric Clapton
1996 - "Kiss From a Rose", Seal
1993 - "Tears in Heaven", Eric Clapton
1992 - "Unforgettable", Natalie Cole
1990 - "Wind Beneath My Wings", Bette Midler
1989 - "Don't Worry, Be Happy", Bobby McFerrin
1986 - "We Are the World", USA for Africa
1985 - "What's Love Got to Do With It", Tina Turner
1982 - "Bette Davis Eyes", Kim Carnes
1981 - "Sailing", Christopher Cross
1980 - "What a Fool Believes", Doobie Brothers
1979 - "Just the Way You Are" - Billy Joel
1974 - "Killing Me Softly With His Song" - Roberta Flack
1973 - "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" - Roberta Flack
1971 - "Bridge Over Troubled Water" - Simon & Garfunkel

With the exception of this year's winner, I can instantly hum a few bars of each and with the proper preparation (hic) do a serviceable karaoke presentation. (And on anything by Celine Dion or Roberta Flack, I WILL bring tears to your eyes.) Just about everybody can.

Why? Because these songs were actually popular. Smash hits, most of them, crossing genre lines, played on a multitude of media outlets. People bought them in droves and wanted to hear them played on the radio. Agree with them or not, they have messages about the human condition that resonated with the masses (yes, including Bette Davis Eyes, which I'm told resonated heavily with lonely ophthalmologists). They are the standards for the generation past. And the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences had a tradition of recognizing that.

And then we have the Dixie Chicks and "Not Ready to Make Nice". Like most Americans, I've never actually heard the song. (Slog through it here if you care.) It doesn't get a lot of airplay on the stations I listen to (AM1280 the Patriot and AM1570, the Patriot 2) or anywhere else in the media. And the message -- recording artists lashing out at their fans for not sufficiently supporting their injecting politics into their music -- doesn't exactly strike me as universal. Or as something with a good beat that I can dance to. The single's flat performance on the billboard charts shows most people came to this same conclusion.

Yet it goes down in history as The Best of 2007. I think history will laugh at this conclusion, if it bothers to note it at all. But in the present, it is one more depressing instance of a supposedly respected, unbiased arbiter of truth revealing itself as nothing more than a platform for superficial partisan politics . Victor Davis Hanson briefly turned his attention away from the implications of the Boiotians advance under Epaminondas to liberate the Messenian helots to comment about the Chicks:

Reading the self-righteous remarks of the Dixie Chicks reminded me of the Nobel Prize announcements, to the effect from one judge that Jimmy Carter had been likewise rewarded for his vocal opposition to the war in Iraq.

The result is that we can no longer be sure whether merit and truth are the primary criteria in bestowing awards or reporting news.This is not partisan criticism, but rather evident from remarks of a judge on the Nobel Prize committee, Jimmy Carter himself, the Dixie Chicks, etc., all apparently unafraid to make explicit the connection between politics and recognition.In the short-term, all this posturing brings advantage, but in the long-term, Samson-like it is bringing down the temple of our basic institutions

The squandering of the responsibility and trust placed in the current keepers of our elite institutions is a hallmark of this generation. These excerpts from the reporting by another formerly respected institution tells you all you need to know about what makes the best song in 2007.

The awards amounted to vindication for the Dixie Chicks, who found their career sidetracked in 2003 after the singer Ms. Maines told a London concert audience shortly before the invasion of Iraq that the band was "ashamed" that the president hailed from their home state, Texas.

As far as Grammy voters were concerned, the Dixie Chicks "made a great album this year, and their music and their commentary resonated with our membership, as it did with the entire nation," said Neil Portnow, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the Recording Academy's formal title.

Reviewing that list of winners from past years, I cannot testify as to their artistic merit. But time has not been kind to many of them, especially those that are now remembered exclusively as pop culture punch lines. But what cannot be taken away from them is the fact that they once held the imagination of the entire country. The people loved them. And that's the one thing that can't be given to "Not Ready To Make Nice," no matter how many awards they throw at it.
Posted by Saint Paul--Link