Justice Is Often Deaf in Vote for Top Album

Why don’t we just flip a coin and get this whole Grammy thing over with?

Heads, Kanye West wins for album of the year.

Tails, he loses.

The record industry’s most prestigious awards competition seems at times just as arbitrary as that, often bypassing great, cutting-edge artists, such as West, in favor of tame, mainstream bestsellers or sentimental favorites.

West, who picked up eight nominations Thursday in the 48th annual Grammy Awards race, is the most compelling arrival in hip-hop since Eminem -- he is a thoughtful, crusading rapper and producer who has liberated hip-hop from its “gangsta rap” shackles. His music about life and community reflects values that are reminiscent of the idealistic, socially aware work of Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder.

In just two years, the 28-year-old Atlanta native has become a dominant presence in pop. He also helped shepherd CDs by two other artists, John Legend and Common, who received 12 nominations between them Thursday.

West deserved to win the most prestigious Grammy award, album of the year, last year for his trailblazing debut CD, “The College Dropout,” but Ray Charles had never received the top honor during his most creative years, so the 12,000 Recording Academy voters decided to take the occasion to salute the late singer for his posthumous album “Genius Loves Company,” even though the work was horribly uneven.

This year, West returned with an even more commanding collection, “Late Registration,” which added inventive sonic textures to songs that ranged from marvelously entertaining (“Gold Digger”) to inspirational (“Touch the Sky”).

West also took on a leadership role in hip-hop away from the studio. He made a passionate plea on MTV for an end to the widespread gay-bashing in rap lyrics, and during a Hurricane Katrina telethon he criticized the Bush administration for responding so slowly to the needs of New Orleans flood victims.

West should be a shoo-in for top album when the awards are announced Feb. 8 at Staples Center.

But the Recording Academy voters constantly surprise us. For every smart vote in recent years, there has been one (or more) inexplicable verdict.

It’s nice to think of the academy as a deliberative body. It’s actually running a crapshoot, history shows.

That’s why West may face better odds in a coin flip than he would leaving it up to the voters to select from among five nominees.

Two Grammy seasons ago, academy members chose wisely by naming OutKast’s “Speakerboxx/The Love Below” album of the year. Likewise in 1998, when Bob Dylan won for “Time Out of Mind.”

But the trail of disappointments is long, including the “O Brother Where Art Thou?” soundtrack victory in 2002 over far superior efforts by OutKast, Dylan and U2, and the choice of Steely Dan’s “Two Against Nature” in 2001 over Eminem, Beck and Radiohead.

Further back, of course, Grammy voters were an even bigger joke for giving top honors to such relatively minor artists as the Captain & Tennille, Christopher Cross and the nonsinging duo of Milli Vanilli but turning a deaf ear to such landmark figures as Elvis Presley, Dylan, the Rolling Stones and Prince in the top categories during their most revolutionary periods.

The problem is that the academy members have such varied tastes and degrees of conscientiousness when it comes to marking their ballots. Some older voters may still feel alienated by hip-hop, which long was ignored by Grammy voters as a novelty nuisance -- the way rock was in earlier decades.

Some voters appear to look at commercial success, rather than musical daring, as a measure of excellence.

Even the Recording Academy has shown a distrust of its members, taking the final nomination process out of their hands in the top categories. A blue-ribbon committee was set up 10 years ago to select the nominees from the field of 20 top vote-getters. The full membership then determines the winners.

Despite the unevenness of the academy’s choices, the nominees have tended to be more respectable since the committee took over. Not so this time. Thursday’s results could make us all reach for the aspirin.

If the voters overlook West, the only reasonable choice is U2’s “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb,” an album that will have much support among the academy members.

U2 has won 16 Grammys, including two for album of the year (“The Joshua Tree” in 1987 and “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” in 2001). “Dismantle” explores such classic themes as faith and family with indelible grace.

After that, forget it in the album-of-the-year race.

The remaining nominees -- collections by Mariah Carey, Paul McCartney and Gwen Stefani -- don’t belong in remotely the same company as the West and U2 works.

Still, McCartney could emerge as a sentimental favorite, especially with the award being bestowed in the year Sir Paul lives out the title of the Beatles song “When I’m 64.”

McCartney has won Grammys with the Beatles and his band Wings, but never on his own.

Although his latest album, “Chaos and Creation in the Backyard,” was cheered in some quarters as his most personal and affecting album in years, you have to measure that enthusiasm against the fact that he hadn’t made an interesting record in more than a decade. It was a rebound, not a return to top form.

The Carey CD could also prove a threat to West in the finals because everyone loves a Cinderella story, and Carey’s is a dandy. After being perceived as so “over” as a major seller that Virgin Records paid her millions to leave the label less than four years ago, Island Records subsequently signed her and was rewarded this year with an album that has sold more than 4 million copies.

Imagine the tears of joy at the microphone.

Can voters resist the scene?

But comebacks and Grammys are different matters. Carey’s “The Emancipation of Mimi” is creditable, but one reason it sounds so much better than her older albums is that she has gotten rid of most of the old diva touches that made her sound so hollow emotionally.

Otherwise, it is hardly a major creative accomplishment.

Stefani also makes serviceable records, including occasional infectious hits. But she’s way, way out of her league in this company.

There are worthy candidates in dozens of other Grammy categories, and let’s hope they make it through the academy maze to the stage at Staples Center.

It would be nice if the awards recognized excellence in a way that not only saluted today’s best artists but also inspired future ones. Ultimately, though, it’s not the awards that matter but the music.

West’s place in pop culture is already unassailable. Twenty years from now, young pop fans probably won’t have a clue who won the Grammys in 2005 -- but you can bet they’ll be grooving to “Gold Digger.”

That’s why Grammy credibility has more at stake in this year’s coin flip than Kanye West does.

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Hilburn, pop music critic for The Times, can be reached at robert.hilburn@latimes.com.