Grammy nominations are out...

...actually they've been out for a while, but I'm just now getting around to really looking at them. Since I'm typing this up for the digestion of you Planet peoples, there will be minimal mention of Coldplay (except to point out that Joe Satriani deserves three Grammy nominations*), but here, kids, are the people I and you actually give a rat's ass about, in the order that I find them on the Grammy website:

ROBERT PLANT: will probably not be on our airwaves for anything involving Alison Krause, but I think it bears mentioning that those two are up for several Grammys, including Album of the Year, Pop Collaboration with Vocals, Country Collaboration with Vocals, and Contemporary Folk Album--four nominations in three musical styles FOR THE SAME ALBUM. For this I hope they sweep theirs. That, and, ya know, it's ROBERT PLANT.

KID ROCK: "All Summer Long" is up for Male Pop Vocal, Rock and Roll Jesus is up for Best Rock Album (more on that later)

EAGLES: four nominations, for Pop Performance by a Group, Pop Vocal Album, Pop Instrumental Performance, and Rock Performance by a Group.

With that mention, we get to the ROCK GRAMMYS:

SOLO ROCK VOCAL:
John Mayer - Gravity
Paul McCartney - I Saw Her Standing There (live at Amoeba Records)
Bruce Springsteen - Girls In Their Summer Clothes
Eddie Vedder - Rise
Neil Young - No Hidden Path

I'm giving my (nonbinding) vote to Paul McCartney--over the objections of Mrs. Lenny, who would leave me for Eddie Vedder in a heartbeat--on the basis of his performance being done live at a secret show at a small record shop in LA.

GROUP ROCK VOCAL:
AC/DC - Rock and Roll Train
Coldplay - Vio--actually, ya know what? The rest of the nominees are Coldplay, the Eagles, Kings of Leon, and Radiohead, and the four of them combined almost have as much badassness as AC/DC. Score one for the Aussies.

HARD ROCK VOCAL:
Disturbed - Inside the Fire
Judas Priest - Visions
The Mars Volta - Wax Simulacra
Motley Crue - Saints of Los Angeles
Rob Zombie - Lords of Salem

Tough call, but I've always had a tilt toward Zombie, and Lords of Salem is such a bloody awesome track.

METAL PERFORMANCE:
Dragonforce - Heroes of Our Time
Judas Priest - Nostradamus
Metallica - My Apocalypse
Ministry - Under My Thumb (yes, this is a Rolling Stones cover)
Slipknot - Psychosocial

The leak of "My Apocalypse" was proof for me that Death Magnetic was going to be nothing short of EPIC.

ROCK INSTRUMENTAL (my favorite category, because I'm a weirdo):
David Gilmour - Castellorizon
Metallica - Suicide and Redemption
Nine Inch Nails - 34 Ghosts I-IV
Rush - Hope (live for The Art of Peace)
Zappa Plays Zappa (w/ Steve Vai and Napoleon Murphy Brock) - Peaches en Regalia

Good lord, I have to pick one of these? Fine, fine, as much as I rave over Metallica's new stuff, and as awesome as every other one of these guys are, Castellorizon made my college radio days quite awesome (for those of you who missed my Marshall DJing days--say, '06 or so--I would play that cut straight into "On An Island", a 9 minute or so chill-out before I played something else loud and obnoxious).

BEST ROCK SONG:
Bruce Springsteen - Girls in Their Summer Clothes
Radiohead - House of Cards
Death Cab for Cutie - I Will Possess Your Heart
Kings of Leon - Sex On Fire
Coldplay - Violet Hill

We've never played any of these on the Planet, to my knowledge, so I'll sum them up for you in single-word descriptions:
1--Boss
2--weird
3--creepy
4--sex
5--meh
I take Kings of Leon.

BEST ROCK ALBUM:
Coldplay - Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends
Kid Rock - Rock and Roll Jesus
Kings of Leon - Only By the Night
Metallica - Death Magnetic
the Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely

METALLICA.

Now we're out of the rock categories, and there's a few notables farther down the page...

--Stephen Colbert is up for Best Spoken Word Album
--George Carlin is up for Best Comedy Album
--Dewey Cox is up for Best Song Written For Screen ("I told them, no, you're gonna give me that giraffe")
--Metallica is also up for Best Album Packaging (yes, this gets its own category), and Rick Rubin is up for Producer of the Year not only for this, but also albums by Weezer, Neil Diamond, Ours, and Jakob Dylan (remember the Wallflowers? Yeah, it took me a moment to dig back that far too).
--Tom Petty and the Who are up for their only Grammys in Long-Form Video, for recent documentaries done on each of them: Runnin' Down a Dream and Amazing Journey, respectively

And that pretty well sums up the notables. A lot of space taken up for not that much; if not for the impending arrival of Lenny the IInd (proper name coming when we actually know what we're popping out), myself and Mrs. Lenny would find ourselves watching this and drinking until the awards got interesting (I may do this regardless).

*--to be honest I think this might be coincidence, because I don't think Chris Martin is cool enough to have Joe Satriani anywhere near his music collection.

TOP 5 OF 2008--and 5 to look out for...

LENNY'S TOP 5 ALBUMS OF 2008

5--Airbourne - Runnin' Wild

Just barely squeaks in, only because this was released in January (stateside--in Australia it was released over a year and a half ago!). Rock-solid debut from the latest in a long string of bad-ass rock bands from Australia. Got to catch them in Huntington back in May--and catch a half-crushed, half-full beer can from Joel O'Keefe. One of the more awesome concert experiences I've been privy to. More on them later (hint-hint!)...

4--Nickelback - Dark Horse

Nickelback, rock-hitmakers-of-the-moment, hook up with Mutt Lange, rock-hitmaker-of-a-few-moments ago. Result: polished rocks, and their most complete album yet. I've stopped bitching about these guys now--yeah, it's that good.

3--AC/DC - Black Ice

A reverse of Dark Horse, in that AC/DC have Brendan O'Brien working on this album, meaning a more weathered, hookier-sounding AC/DC than their last few albums. That this disc is only #3 is of no fault to anyone involved--it's a damn awesome piece of music.

2--Guns N Roses - Chinese Democracy

If you spend a decade and a half on an album, you're either a mad genius or a madman for spending that much time on a piece of total crap; either way, you're crazy. God bless Axl Rose, though, because few others in the universe could keep us hanging on this bloody long for a single CD. Now if I can just get my free Dr. Pepper, all will be right in the universe.

1--Metallica - Death Magnetic

THIS is the album us faithful have been waiting for, the album we all knew Metallica have been capable of making. All it took was rehab, group therapy, a new bass player, and--perhaps most importantly--Rick Rubin, Buddha of the Music Universe (and, if there is ever a Metal Hall of Fame, will be the first bust in the "builders" wing).

FIVE ALBUMS I WANT TO COME OUT RIGHT NOW, BUT I JUST HAVE TO WAIT A WHILE I GUESS

--Rick Rubin's next project: a new album from ZZ Top. I can feel the badassness from my seat here.

--The Black Crowes--who get an Honorable Mention for their first album in seven years, Warpaint--will be working on ANOTHER album for 2009.

--Alice in Chains are back. Yes, I typed that correctly. They have William DuVall from the band Comes With The Fall on vocals now, and are working on a new album.

--Airbourne will have a new album out this year as well. YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (my impersonation of Joel O'Keefe goes there)

--Lastly, we've been playing a bit of this new band called Crooked X. How new? The band members are FOURTEEN. Selftitled album comes out next month; so far they sound like they've ALREADY mastered the fine art of rocking the hell out.