Rock Features Controversy, but Year Has Little Pop to It

The fact that most of this year’s Grammy nominations in the Latin field are pedestrian and unimaginative is not due to poor choices by academy members, but rather to the state of the music itself.

The nominations corroborate what observers have been discussing for the last 12 months: 2000 was, overall, a lackluster year for the genre.

You can’t help but regard with suspicion a year in which two of the five nominees in the Latin pop category are live recordings. Shakira’s “MTV Unplugged” and Luis Miguel’s “Vivo” are satisfying packages, but they do little more than recycle their artists’ previous hits.

The remaining nominees, Christina Aguilera, Oscar De La Hoya and Alejandro Sanz, offered state-of-the-art collections that focused more on achieving a pristine sound than on the emotional content of the material--a disturbing tendency that has plagued Latin music for more than a decade.

As always, the rock en espanol category is the most controversial. Looking at the list of nominees, one suspects that the people in charge make random decisions based on the few names that sound familiar to them. Although both Fito Paez and Los Amigos Invisibles deserved their nominations, leaving aside Julieta Venegas’ excellent “Bueninvento” in favor of El Tri, La Ley or flamenco-pop outfit Cafe Quijano demonstrates how painfully out of touch these people are with the Latin rock movement.

On the tropical side, the traditional category is the most judicious one, with superb albums by Omara Portuondo, Eliades Ochoa and Cachao all garnering nominations. Salsa is a more chaotic affair, with the inclusion of two artists that simply don’t belong--Son by Four and Luis Enrique.

The merengue, Mexican and tejano categories showcase a more conservative approach. Like every year, the nominations are nothing but a roundup of the usual suspects.