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It’s that time of year again - it’s time to nominate your favorite musicians, bands and artists for the Houston Press Music Awards. The Press has been giving out awards for a long time and it has made numerous modifications to its awards categories over the years - not a good sign for a long-standing music award (I can’t recall the Grammy’s adding Emo recently, but they’re a bunch of old coots anyway) - but it is the mainstay in a city where local music sits about 20th on the importance scale right after getting your ear hair trimmed and right before eating a cheese sandwich, so a look is warranted.

After going through the ballot, I have some serious questions. This is the exact order as you go through the ballot online:

Best Local Song & Songwriter
Best Local Album & Artist
Best Alt-Rock Band
Best Male Vocalist
Best Songwriter
Local Musician of the Year
Best New Act
Best Punk
Best Metal
Best Indie Rock
Best Jazz Band
Best Blues
Best R&B/Funk/Soul
Best Zydeco
Best Guitarist
Best Mainstream Hip-Hop
Best Experimental
Best Country
Best Roots Rock
Best Trad Folk Act
Best Neo-Folk Act
Best Latin Traditional
Best Latin Contemporary
Best Rock en Espanol
Best World Music Band
Best Cover Band
Best Tribute Band
Best Unclassifiable Band
Best Female Vocalist
Best Bassist
Best Drummer
Best Keyboard Player
Best Miscellaneous Instrumentalist
Best Underground Hip-Hop

After looking through the list, here are some glaring issues.

Am I Missing Something?

Over the years, the Press has modified its categories to keep up with changing times. Some categories that have been retired include Emo, Screamo (um, ok), Tejano and Traditional Rock. I can sympathize with the people writing the ballot as the basic names of styles of music do change and what happens to be cool in Houston at the moment changes with that.

But, the first thing I’m wondering right off the bat is where the hell are the Best Rock and Best Pop categories? Have we gotten so categorized that we can’t even bother to go with broad genres anymore and, if so, shouldn’t there be more than 35 or so categories?

Some of Houston’s best artists probably can’t be represented by some of the narrow category choices we have here, but you could solve a LOT of that by having a couple of broader award categories like rock and pop. That seems really obvious.

List Order

How is it that an individual performance award like Best Male Vocalist ended up in the top 5 on the ballot with Local Song and Songwriter and Local Artist and Album while Best Female Vocalist is at the bottom of the list with Best Bassist, Drummer, etc? For that matter, why is Underground Hip-Hop all the way at the bottom of the list and not paired with Mainstream Hip-Hop like Traditional and Contemporary Latin? Is there some concern that putting the two Hip-Hop categories next to one another might result in a gang war?

For people to be interested, things need to make sense and the order on this list makes no sense. Maybe the online ballot is more confusing than the hard copy version, but I haven’t seen it yet.

Naming Conventions

I’m kind of a stickler for uniformity with things like this. Sure, it’s anal, but when everyone at your company uses the firstinitallastname@ for their email address and one joker whose name is John Smith wants johnnycool@ instead of jsmith@, it gets annoying, not to mention confusing. So, what is with the naming of categories?

The Folk and “New” categories are listed as “acts” while others have no designation. Why do those need ANY designation when Best Neo-Folk is fine? For “New,” it seems like artist is most appropriate if you have to say anything at all. “Artist” encompasses both groups and individuals, plus it gives the impression the Press actually believes this is art when I’m pretty sure they don’t.

Lastly, why do jazz, world music and alt-rock have to be bands? I’m guessing there are some pretty damn good individual jazz artists in town. That makes ZERO sense and goes back to the, if you need to use something, artist just works better. It’s not that tough to copy the Grammy’s or the American Music Awards.

Category Confusion

I’m not sure you could make categories more confusing. Some are incredibly narrow while others jam multiple categories into one mixed up group. There are even duplicates and other weird issues.

First, why is there a best Local Song and Songwriter and ALSO a Best Local Songwriter category? And what is the deal with combining songwriter/song and album/artist in the first place? There’s a very good chance the best songwriter didn’t write the best song this year and equally as good a chance the best artist didn’t release an album. All this confusion would be so easy to avoid by just having four categories:

Artist of the Year
Songwriter of the Year
Album of the Year
Song of the Year

I know they have done this in the past and it is just so much clearer.

While I’m on the topic of clarity, what is with all the categories for urban or traditional music? There is Traditional Folk, Neo-Folk (what in God’s name is that?), Traditional and Contemporary Latin, Mainstream and Undeground Hip-Hop, Experimental and Unclassifiable. It is almost as if the people doing the ballot were uncertain of how to classify some of these and didn’t want to offend anyone, so they just added in options, which is fine but doesn’t explain how Zydeco got its own category while R&B, Funk and Soul were crammed into one poorly-crafted genre.

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I know that I’m nitpicking to some degree, but this is Houston’s ONLY major award for music and that deserves some attention. This ballot typifies the lack of cohesion and tradition found in Houston music. The scattered and disappearing live music venues and the fragmented musical sub-genres are indicative of how a “major” city with no historic preservation or zoning is unable to deliver consistent support for any kind of artistic tradition be it architecture, art, theater or music.

Like a major league baseball team that ravages its minor league system and, as a result, has to spend more and more money every year on expensive free agents just to stay competitive (I’m looking at you Uncle Drayton), the city has sold off its history to greedy developers to the detriment of all the qualities of life we are now so desperately trying to rebuild with parks like Discovery Green and amenities like the light rail system.

The Houston Press 2008 Music Awards ballot typifies the lack of planning and haphazard nature of life in Houston. In that way, I guess it is appropriate, but that doesn’t make it any less confusing. Admittedly, I’ve never been a fan of music awards - I don’t know many musicians who are - but if you are going to lay out a list for the only really “legitimate” awards for Houston music, be consistent. I’m just sayin’.

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