Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Jazz
I'm only going to interject one thing into this conversation - the Latin Grammys encompass more "American" than people are giving credit for. They include Mexican and other Latin American artists and have several catagories for Spanish-only music.
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Well, it's really semantics when looked at that way, since this entire hemisphere is 'America', but divided as South, Central and North. We could say someone from Brazil who has never left their country is 'Brazilian-American', but we don't. It's a given that the US is what is meant with the hyphenations.
To what Cyn says about the advertising dollar being the catalyst, I agree, but I think it's also an exclusionary/inclusionary train of thought; 'we feel under-represented and pushed aside, so we'll do our own'. (regarding Latin Grammys, etc., not those dumb VH1 'awards' shows).
The CMA's and AMA's were started by Dick Clark because he saw an opportunity to make some really huge bucks off those burgeoning markets and he didn't like the pompousness and exclusionary of music styles of the Grammys. (the first year metal was recognized by the Grammys, Jethro Tull got the award..there's a WTF moment).
Racial and cultural exclusions may start with the feeling of wanting to be recognized, but I think it's more wanting a piece of the action as time goes on.
In other words, altruism gives way to the greenbacks. When they stop rolling in, suddenly proclamations of 'it worked! we're included now!' come about.
