MIDI Awards 2010 Announced… Ramblings, Predictability and Surprises
The MIDI awards nominations came out yesterday on Douban and The Beijinger was kind enough to translate the list. I would have given my two cents earlier but a freaking chest infection is getting in my way.
SO.. what’s the deal yo?
It’s an interesting list and it’s really tough to find any faults with it because those are all deserving artists. That said, I question Miserable Faith‘s hold on these awards starting from last year. This year, they just put out an EP (4 songs) and that baby is nominated for album of the year plus has 2 songs nominated for song of the year. That’s not a very good statement to make because what you’re essentially saying is that the market lacks quality. I mean gee, 2 songs out of four? I have listened to both and they’re ok but definitely not Head and Shoulders above the rest.
Sure the band has excelled with every live show I’ve seen, especially that memorable MIDI unplugged performance so all the kudos are deserved… but not for a 4 song EP that is really weak sounding.
It’s still funny to see Suffocate put at the same level as Miserable Faith ( Best Hard Rock) and then appear in the Best Metal category. Same think with one of the original Oi bands, misandao, who is as punk as they get. That needs a category of its own.
On the bright side of things, Shijiazhuang’s own “Omnipotent Youth Society” have made a huge splash with their debut record. Nominations all around for them despite not being a MIDI band. I like seeing Nanwu recognized on there as well.
Most interesting category to me is the instrumental one and I’m quite happy with the names they picked. I’ve long insisted that Diao Lei was the best drummer I’ve encountered in Beijing, just a monster!!
The Female vocalist category is a tough one because there are so many of them out there that rock. Heck, song for song, the female musicians can hold their own nicely with any of the male bands. I would have liked to see Pupi included in there even though I’m not her biggest fan. Wen Jun of Guaili should get a nod too and let’s not forget Zhang Chen of 24 Hours.
I’ll be curious to hear other people’s opinions on this. I do think MIDI has taken a few steps forward compared to last year but it’s still suffers from narrow vision.
What once started as my personal ramblings has morphed into the number one collective resource about underground live music in Beijing and China. All bands, all music, all Rock n Roll, all the time with a little side of eclectic topics.. best of all, it's still as BIASED as ever
it’s kind of about guanxi (relationships)… that’s how chinese do things… the rock & roll scene has a few groups, Midi and Modern sky basicly bounded this time and to me it’s very clear that maybe mars is not on their side… nevertheless, the list actually speaks for the majority of chinese people, in consider of the band’s popularities on douban.com
2 things:
1. Why is this award always foreigner-exclusive? Are they afraid that foreign guitar players & vocalists are too good that they will get all the awards?
2. Who the hell put Xie Si on the bill?!
@Kopde:
Maybe Mars should hold their own awards called “The Best Generation”
If you guys notice, they have included Nanwu as a nominee for best new artist and that is a Maybe Mars band… Still, there definitely seems to be some bias towards a certain generation of bands.
I wrote last year about how it sucks that they exclude foreigners and that stands to this day…
@ DAZE:
Nanwu is with another company now…