Tuesday 21 February 2012

Grammy Awards: Tinariwen


There are 78 categories of awards in the Grammies, and while the likes of Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist attract a huge amount of attention, others attract less attention.

With categories like best Choral Performance, Best Small Ensemble Performance, and Best Improvised Jazz Solo, never mind the Best Gospel Song and the Best Contemporary Christian Music Song, the awards cover a lot of ground in some pretty select genres.

This year the 54th Grammy Awards was dominated by Adele's wins, and Whitney Houston's death. I'll leave it to others to discuss the shameful inclusion of Chris Brown on the bill.

David Guetta was nominated in the Best Dance/Electronica Album catgory, losing out to Skrillex and in the Best Dance Recording category for the track Sunshine, again losing out to Skrillex.

Daft Punk were shortlisted for the Tron Legacy soundtrack in the Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media category, losing out to the soundtrack to The King's Speech.

Daniel Yvinec and the Orchestre National de Jazz were shorlisted in the Best Instrumental Composition category, losing out to Bela Fleck.

There was a win for Alexandre Desplat, for his soundtrack for The King's Speech. He was also nominated for the soundtrack to Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2.

Meanwhile, there was a welcome win from a Francophone act, with Mali band Tinariwen getting the award for Best World Music Album for their album Tassili.

It is their fifth album, recorded by the Tuareg-Berber band in Algeria, their first to be recorded outside Paris or Bamako in Mali.

While the Best World Music Album award will never get the attention of some of the celebrity acts get, it's no small achievement considering it's probably the widest possible category in the awards, and can encompass more or less anything outwith the regular commercial categories.

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