Grammy Nomination for Beck's Neil Young Cover of "Old Man" + "A Band a Brotherhood a Barn" Film Nominated
Beck has a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Performance for a Neil Young cover song of "Old Man.
Also, on a brighter note, a Grammy nomination for Neil Young & Crazy Horse – A Band a Brotherhood a Barn in Best Music Film category. But still no major Grammy nomination for Neil after 7 decades in the music business. (see The Story Behind Why Neil Young Has Never Won a Major GRAMMY Award.)
Back to the irony here which is unbelievably rich.
To rewind just a bit, back in September, Beck covered Neil Young’s song ‘Old Man’ for a NFL TV commercial.
Why this song was specifically chosen to promote football was never well understood and made little sense from a marketing perspective. Because old men are target market and watch lots of tee-vee, perhaps?
This sparked a bit of a flare up on the long running controversies involving artists selling out for commercial purposes.
Neil Young's 1988 "This Note's for You"
On Instagram, Young posted a photo showing him holding a beer bottle with a label that reads, "SPONSORED BY NOBODY" without a caption. hmmmm...
The photo posted on IG is from the video for the 1988 Bluenotes song "This Note's for You" in which the musician parodied fellow artists (like Michael Jackson, Eric Clapton, etc.) who used themselves and their songs for product and company advertising.
As we reported in January 2021, Neil Young sold his copyrights for 1,180 songs to Hipgnosis Songs Fund for $150,000,000.
Merck Mercuriadis, founder of Hipgnosis Songs Fund Limited, stated at the time:
"Hipgnosis and Young have a common integrity, ethos and passion born out of a belief in music and these important songs. There will never be a ‘Burger of Gold’ but we will work together to make sure everyone gets to hear them on Neil's terms.”
"There will never be a ‘Burger of Gold’". Seems clear enough. No worries, right?
So does the promise made above hold for Young’s classic song ‘Old Man’? Is this very poor taste usage not akin to ‘Burger of Gold’"? Apparently it did not.
The question is why?
How could those statements above reconcile with the travesty of what became known as a "spectacularly bad idea and in poor taste"?
Our earlier cautions about "risking the "family jewels" was actually addressed directly by Neil Young himself on NYA. (Also, please note some of our clarifications on this subject after the giant hullabaloo/kerfuffle in 2021.)
The Greedy Hand | Neil Young Store | WBR
Also, see this 2007 piece The Price of Neil: When Art and Commerce Collide. More on "Cough Up the Buck$": Neil Young's Song of the Day | NYA.
"Best Art Direction on a Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package"
Jenice Heo, Neil Young, and Gary Burden
Grammy Award Pre-telecast Ceremony, Los Angeles, Jan 31, 2010
Photo by Matt Sayles/Associated Press
Labels: cover, grammy, neil young, old man, songs
by thrasher@PermaLink: 11/15/2022 01:51:00 PM
7 comments
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7 Comments:
The Grammys have always been an expensive and pointless event created specifically for the music industry to pat itself on the back. A meaningless game that has nothing to do with reality, and tends to celebrate mediocrity at its finest. The amount of money spent just for this one night could feed thousands of people for weeks…..or help support the starving artists who can’t afford to pursue their craft because they can’t get enough streams on YouTube.
My rant has now concluded….. thanks for listening.
Peace 🙏
Right Dan.
Agree that Grammys have always been a sham.
From the linked article above:
• The Grammy voting process is allegedly “ripe with corruption” and allows nomination committee members to “push forward artists with whom they have relationships.” The complaint states, “It is not unusual for artists who have relationships with Board members and who ranked at the bottom of the initial 20-artist list to end up receiving nominations.”
• The Recording Academy also allegedly “manipulates the nominations process to ensure that certain songs or albums are nominated when the producer of the Grammys wants a particular song performed during the show.”
Dan and Thrasher- thanks for the inside information and the basic truths.
Finally, however, one gets tired of the corruption especially as it works to further alienate artists, thinkers, writers, truth-tellers, etc..
Also, what precisely was Beck thinking? I mean, he had to know Neil's basic stance about music used for the promotion of crap (Piece of Crap is ringing in my ears). I don't know the truth here, won't pretend to, but Beck comes off as opportunistic and this is a leading causal element in corruption. Take a great and timeless song, produce a nice performance, and sell it to NFL promotion?
oh well, why not pile on?
I have not paid any attention to the Grammy Awards for 20-25 years. Yawn...
I think I can answer why Old Man was chosen to promote the NFL. I believe that ad was specifically for one game, Tampa Bay vs. Kansas City. Tampa has the 'old' quarterback, Tom Brady; KC has the young QB, Patrick Mahomes.
"Old Man, look at my life, I'm a lot like you were..." which I'm guessing was the point of the ad.
@ Abner - as for what was Beck thinking?
OTOH, maybe it was stringly suggested that it would be a good?
And who might that be?
Somehow, we think this ties into the Hipnognsis song catalog.
How much you wanna bet that Beck's catalog is controlled by Hipnognsis?
Between the Grammys, Merck amd the Greedy Hand, we see a dotted line.
@ Be The Rain - good move
bob g - ok, thanks for that. not saying that's wrong, but, man, that is some weak marketing.
Neil stated in his interview with Rick Rubin it was a mistake by his management team, an honest mistake. Nothing to do with hipnognis
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