Wolfmother Grammy

Congrats to local Sydney lads Wolfmother for being the first Aussie band to win a Grammy in 25 years. They won Best Hard Rock Performance for Woman.

The band was up against Nine Inch Nails, System of a Down, Tool and Buckberry, so I guess it was a bit of a surprise considering the more established competition at such a big occasion. I seem to remember that U2 won for best alternative album (or something similar) a few years back, which seemed ridiculous.

I must admit that I'm in two minds about it. On the one hand I'm keen to support locals getting up to win big gongs. On the other hand, the cynical side of me has a suspicion that the recent wave of very popular rock acts (including Jet, The White Stripes, The Hives, The Darkness, The Strokes...the list goes on and on) are being encouraged and promoted in a disproportionate way by baby boomer record company execs who grew up with bands like Led Zep, The Who, Deep Purple and ACDC and want to continue the tradition they started. I can't help but think there might be other (and newer) forms of worthy music that could be just as popular if they were promoted with the same gusto by the heavy hitters. What do you reckon?

From an advertising perspective, it's also interesting to note the frequent use of Wolfmother's work in advertising during their rapid rise (see Wikipedia entry for details), including for Apple iPod, Optus, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2 game Guitar Hero II, Jackass: Number Two and more. This phenomenon is nothing new these days though, just part of the whole deal.

I'll choose to leave those thoughts to one side however. Don't get me wrong, I like quite a few of these bands, especially The Strokes and The White Stripes and I've been listening to Wolfmother a lot. The Joker and the Thief with headphones on at work can really get me into action first thing in the morning. I also dug Wolfmother's performance at the ARIA Awards. They are a brilliant rock band.