As any critic worth his Pitchfork byline can tell you, the Grammys have a really dubious history of picking winners and nominees. One of the most uneven categories is Best New Artist, where winners range from legends like the Beatles, the Carpenters, and Crosby, Stills, & Nash, to -- well -- un-legends like Marc Cohn, the Starland Vocal Band, and Milli Vanilli. This year the category earned double the scrutiny by shunning shoo-in Lady Gaga, with Grammy president Neil Portnow noting that her single "Just Dance" was nominated for a dance award last year. Now that Portnow's coterie has released the 2010 nominees, we can call him on his bluff and point out five examples of Grammy's mistaken "rookie" commemoration.
1. Silversun Pickups
Let's start with this year's nominees and work our way backwards. Silversun Pickups garnered a nod thanks to the favorable reviews of their recent album Swoon, but the L.A. band released its first album in 2006. Portnow might argue that the Grammys haven't honored them before, but that's bunk ideology. If a Grammy statue doesn't fall on your debut album, that means no one's heard it? That doesn't say much for the preciousness of the award or the committee's modesty.
2. Shelby Lynne
The 2001 winner, who beat out Brad Paisley, Jill Scott, Papa Roach (!), and Sisqo (!!), couldn't contain her confusion when brandishing the award. Before thanking her peers, Lynne noted that it took "13 years and six albums" to be deemed Best New Artist. Yikes. Her first album did indeed come out in 1989, and she even charted two Top 40 country hits in 1990, but as with all award shows, sometimes statues are handed out in apology. Lynne's win was, no doubt, Grammy's attempt to vindicate her overlooked oeuvre.
3. The Dixie Chicks
The Dixie Chicks were the crowned sorceresses of country radio in 1999 as their album Wide Open Spaces was diamond-certified (10 million copies) -- before that, you had to be Garth Brooks or Shania Twain to rack up those numbers in country sales. But while their Soundscan figures ruled, the Chicks' nomination for Best New Artist did not. The ladies released their first album Thank Heavens for Dale Evans in 1991, though at the time, lead vocalist Natalie Maines was not part of the group. Still: Would it have made sense to nominate the Gary Cherone-fronted Van Halen with a New Artist nod in 1997?
4. Alanis Morissette
The story is legend at this point, but Alanis Morissette moved from her native Ottawa, forged a songwriting partnership with industry great Glen Ballard, and turned out the alternative-pop album Jagged Little Pill, which unexpectedly became one of the highest-grossing albums of all time. She was justly awarded Album of the Year and three rock awards, but her Best New Artist nomination (an award that ended up going to fellow weird-juggernaut Hootie and the Blowfish) was a stretch. The debate hinges on whether you think Canadian discography should be discounted during Best New Artist consideration, but it's not even like Morissette was an obscure coffeehouse find in Ontario. Her first album, 1991's Alanis, was certified "Canadian" platinum, and her follow-up Now is the Time was a modest success. Somehow, this is like rain on your wedding day.
5. The Blues Brothers
The first problem is that the Blues Brothers suck, and so did their overrated-to-high-holy-heaven movie. Second, they were scarcely a real act, even if the group gave the world Briefcase Full of Blues in 1978. But most importantly, they had three years to win a Grammy vote for 1980's Best New Artist with countless Saturday Night Live sketches and performances in the interim. Luckily, they lost to actual-wunderkind Rickie Lee Jones, and we were spared a mugging, cliched monologue by Jake Blues about all his harmonica teachers in Joliet Penitentiary.