"The...Suburbs."

Last night I watched the Grammys for the first time in years. The Grammys are the lest important out of all of the major awards, maybe because they're light on awards and heavy on performance by people I don't care much about. Seriously, they gave out maybe 10 awards last night. It's like a big, three hour concert. However, for some reason we found ourselves watching.

And you know? It wasn't terrible. Justin Bieber was good, and I'm not saying that just because I'm biased because we're best friends or anything; Rihanna was good, and so was Bruno Mars and Janelle Monae. Other than that, the show was kind of dull. I was anticipating Arcade Fire's performance, but then they did "Month of May," which is a great, fun song but I was looking forward to "Ready to Start," or maybe "The Sprawl II."

But then? Right after they performed, it was time for Album of the Year. The awards, in my opinion, don't really matter much. It's all a big popularity contest. "Need You Now" is NOT better than ANY of those other songs (or "records" depending on the category) nominated, but it still won. It's politics. But Album of the Year doesn't usually go with the popular choice, so it's always a nice surprise. This year was no different, as you can see in that video.

Yep, Arcade Fire's The Suburbs WON, and I was just as shocked as you and everyone else watching. I was also ecstatic, because for once it's 1. a band that I like and 2. something that's actually good! (that I've heard, anyway, haha). The fact that these guys even got nominated surprised me, but that they won as well was a really amazing way to end the show. Of course, not everyone felt the same way; I heard people at school today whining about not knowing who the band is, and people took to their Twitters to complain about some "unknown" band winning over Eminem and Lady Gaga. (They also complained about actually unknown singer Esperanza Spalding winning Best New Artist over the Biebs. Whatever, I ain't even mad.)

Arcade Fire might not have been the popular choice, but in my opinion, they were the right choice. Music is a very subjective thing but they just made a very classic-sounding rock and roll album. It's not really heavy stuff, although the lyrics definitely have substance (MAN, I love the opening lines to "Ready to Start": "Businessmen drinking my blood/like the kids in art school said they would." I also love the lyrics to "We Used to Wait"), not that Eminem's raps don't or anything, but this album, in my opinion, was very accessibly, just objectively good music. It's very Americana, and the Grammys eat that crud up, I think.

So congrats to Arcade Fire. Let's hail this as a win for the good and not just the popular.