A Latin Grammy Backlash

There were plenty of surprises at the Grammy Awards this year: Jenny’s “dress.” Sting’s win over Ricky. Whitney’s middle finger.

But the seven Latin categories seemed uniquely plagued with shockers. To paraphrase several Latin music writers nationwide, this year’s winners in the field were questionable at best. Particularly curious were Ruben Blades’ win in Latin pop with a neoclassical work, and Tito Puente’s victory over popular favorite Ibrahim Ferrer in traditional tropical.

Most mysterious of all, many say, was the win by the Chris Perez Band, newcomers in the Latin rock/alternative category--a decision few critics or specialists interviewed appear to support.

Having weathered--and assuaged, somewhat--criticism in recent years about the relevance and integrity of its mainstream pop category choices, Grammy organizers now face similar questions about the industry’s fastest-growing genre. And they come just months before the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences launches its first-ever LatinGrammys--a new event created to address the depth and diversity of Latin music.

Leila Cobo, the pop music critic for the Miami Herald, said this of last month’s Latin field winners: “The Latin categories were all way off base, but the one that was beyond repair was Chris Perez.” David Cazares, Latin music columnist for the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, was even more blunt: “I thought the whole Latin rock thing was disgusting.”

Evaluating the results in The Times, Ernesto Lechner wrote that the Perez win “spat in the face of rock en espan~ol, Latin music’s most vital genre.”

An executive of NARAS said the voting in the Latin field was fair and no different than in any other field, but admitted that the Perez win has unleashed a fury not seen since Jon Secada’s win for Latin pop in 1995.

Perez is a Texas rock guitarist who became known as the husband of murdered tejano singer Selena. His band’s debut album is a bilingual mix of meat-and-potatoes rock that made a minor splash on English-language pop radio. The band opened for Santana and Mana on their tour last summer, but was essentially spurned by a purist rock en espanol public that favors edgier bands from Latin America over U.S. groups. Among those embraced are three of the groups nominated with Perez this year: Cafe Tacuba, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs and Jaguares.

John Lannert, Latin music writer for Billboard magazine, says Perez may have won because hard-core rock votes were divided evenly among the three bands listed above. The subsequent Perez win led to the anti-Perez backlash and fears of a Texan conspiracy against Latin American rockers. (The fifth nominee, Spain’s pop-oriented Enanitos Verdes, hardly gets mentioned.)

Cameron Randle, senior vice president for A&R;/Latin at Perez’s label, Hollywood Records, suggests there is a reverse discrimination at play in the Latin rock world, one that reflexively discredits U.S.-based artists, especially if they sing in English.

Benjamin Erick Acosta, editor of PUB, a Spanish-language magazine that specializes in rock, agrees with Randall. Furthermore, Acosta says, Perez has been wrongfully punished by the Latin rock community for his former career as a tejano musician--backing a woman, no less (a big faux pas in this macho universe). Acosta also says many musicians and critics have jumped on the anti-Perez bandwagon to fit in, rather than objectively listening to the disc. Lannert agrees, saying the rock en espanol world is very cozy and cliquish, “especially in L.A.”

“There’s a lot of polemic,” Acosta says. “But the quality of the [Perez] album is indisputable. . . . They’re not breaking any new ground, you know, it sounds like Bon Jovi or Van Halen or some classic American rock, but it’s very good. And to me, it’s much closer to rock in the pure sense than Cafe Tacuba or Fabulosos Cadillacs, who are very experimental and draw on many influences.”

In Los Angeles, the U.S. capital of rock en espanol, Perez is often viewed as something of a lightweight among hard-core Latin rockers, in part because about half of the band’s lyrics are English rather than Spanish. For a record to qualify as “Latin” in the U.S. industry, its lyrics must be at least 51% in Spanish. The Perez album has 20 minutes more in Spanish than English, according to NARAS.

Whether the critical assessments of Perez are fair or not, they’ve led to a deafening war cry over his victory in those places where Latin rock’s elite congregate to bond and vent: nightclubs, radio shows, cafes, Web sites and chat rooms.

“It’s seen as a joke by all of us,” said Gustavo Santaolalla, a respected Mexican producer and musician who has worked with most of the top acts in Latin rock, including Maldita Vecindad, Cafe Tacuba and Molotov. “Nothing personal against Chris, I don’t know him, he could be the sweetest guy in the world, but he didn’t belong in our category.”

The Perez win has spawned no shortage of conspiracy theories among the purist Latin rockers. The most common relates to Hollywood Records executive Randle’s former position as president of the board of directors of the Texas chapter of NARAS.

Several conspiracy theorists posit that Randle could have easily lobbied a large bloc of Grammy voters in Texas--particularly those who would choose to vote in the Latin field--because he knows who they are. Texas is home to the largest single contingent of Latin academy voters.

It is against NARAS rules to lobby voters, and lists of voters are theoretically kept under lock and key.

Randle denies that his former post had anything to do with Perez’s win, and says he complies with NARAS rules. Furthermore, he says, “Latin NARAS members in New York, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Texas and the West Coast saw the [Perez] band in concert on the Latin Watcha tour and as openers for Mana.”

Nonetheless, lobbying is not unheard of in the Grammy voting process, according to several voters.

“They say it’s against the rules to lobby,” says producer and songwriter K.C. Porter, a voting member of LARAS and NARAS. “But stuff gets through all the time. You get CDs and notes and you wonder how in the world they got your name.”

Another theory about the Perez win relates to the tiny number of Grammy voters involved in the Latin wing of the organization.

The Latin academy has only about 1,300 voting members, as opposed to the mainstream academy’s 11,000. (The Latin academy number was supplied by sources familiar with the organization because neither NARAS nor LARAS would provide official numbers for its Latin division.)

The academy has three different tiers of membership, ranging from musicians with varying amounts of recording experience to attorneys and label managers and educators. All members pay annual dues.

While all voting members are technically able to vote in the Latin field, many do not, because voters are asked to choose only eight of 27 fields in the final ballot. Several of the nearly 100 award categories may fall under the umbrella of one field.

All voters are encouraged to choose fields based upon their expertise. It is likely that far fewer votes are cast in the Latin field than in mainstream English-language fields. Critics fear the small number of voters coming from the Latin side of the industry has led to winners who do not represent the sentiments of most of their peers in the industry.

Santaolalla has complained to Grammy officials about the lack of Latin voters, especially with the Latin Grammys coming soon, and says top executives agreed with him that it is a problem. A NARAS spokesman said LARAS is involved with recruiting efforts on the Latin front. But even that would be no guarantee of pleasing everyone in every category, Randle says. The whole Perez debate stems from “a fundamental misunderstanding about the criteria involved in determining Grammy winners,” Randle says. “This award recognizes the best performance in the category of Latin rock/alternative. That means evaluating everything from the melodies and lyrics to the vocals and musicianship to the sonic aspects of production and engineering. It is not about which act has been in the business longer or which artists are the most fluent Spanish speakers in their daily personal lives. Those factors are simply irrelevant.

“Chris’ main concern is to create music that matters and to contribute to the growth of Latin music, which is obviously his heritage. He shouldn’t apologize for being as inclusive as possible in the process.”