After 24 years, the Recording Academy announcedWednesday that the polka music category will be eliminated.
In other news, the Best Contemporary Folk/Americana award will be split into two categories, best contemporary folk album and best Americana album), and best Latin urban album has been combined with best Latin rock or alternative album into best Latin rock, alternative or urban album.
Frankie Yankovic weeps.
I am outraged.
Carl Finch is not surprised.
Do you detect a bit of sarcasm there? Quite possibly. Brave Combo is an amazing band that has played a wide variety of music in their 30 year history–but polka remains their specialty. I saw their recent show in downtown Houston & will see them at Fitzgerald’s next month. The Houston club is slightly older than the band; the building was originally the Old Polish Hall.
Polka will never die!
I have the hardest time going into a music store and looking for a CD as I am constantly guessing the wrong genre. And while most of the music I listen to is in or around the folk/contemp-folk/americana/alt-country genres, I wouldn’t know how to discern what genre to fill each artist, much less their individual albums, as.
Polka is very popular in the upper midwest, as many of you no doubt know.
Right after college I was the assistant manager of a Sam Goody record store (yes, record store, but it was that magic period where we had vinyl AND cassettes AND CDs). This was in Nashville. It was a small store but in a strip mall in a well-to-do neighborhood, and we did a good business in all genres. Despite what some might think, folk in Nashville have broad musical tastes, but obviously country is an important genre. Esp. in this neighborhood, where you’d get music industry execs, songwriters, etc.
Now, what was funny was that the headquarters for Sam Goody is in Minneapolis. They didn’t do a very good job of matching product shipments to what we actually sold. So, almost every week, like clockwork, we’d get several polka cassettes. Plus ONE copy of various current, popular country albums. We’d almost always sell the country albums that day, or at least within a few days, then have to wait a week or several weeks to get another one in. Meanwhile, the polka albums just piled up.
So, every time I hear anything about polka, I think of that experience and the thick-headedness of Sam Goody product management.
I’ve always found it a big amusing, as I grew up in a Polish neighborhood on the Southwest Side of Chicago. My childhood was full of Stas Bulanda and Eddie Blazonczyk and the Versatones, and other Chicago Polish polka. Now, back in my old neighborhood, the music blasting from garages as my neighbors do their yardwork is pretty much the same–just in Spanish.
Apparently, the folk music category is supposed to absorb the polka records, as polka is indeed folk music. But will it have a chance against the purists?
I’m sorry I missed that!!
I like that the Press story mentioned cumbia and conjunto. Those are basically polka music with spanish lyrics in some ways.
I had a friend that had grown up in Germany and when a latina friend of hers played some of that kind of music, she said “Oh my god! Why are you listening to oompahpah music?”
It’s fun music.
Word. Whether German or Mexican in origin.