No flair, no hardware

Elton John worshipers, rejoice — it’s that time of year again.

After last year’s Grammys, I wrote a column subtitled “Why the Grammys fell flat.” At the time, my disappointment had more to do with the ceremony’s poor organization, category ambiguity and general obliviousness to the state of music today than excessive snubbing.

Not to say the Grammys don’t snub — rather, they snub too many artists to count, and therefore too many to waste time arguing about.

So once again, I won’t be getting too worked up when Katy Perry steals Album of the Year thunder from every other artist who recorded two or more consecutive notes of music in 2010.

This is simply the name of the awards show game. If publicity had nothing to do with it, each nomination would probably seem even more arbitrary. There will never be room for underground art in an awards show — that’s the point. The Grammys just happen to suffer from this the worst.

I’m certainly not saying that underground music is inherently better than, say, underground film. But there is a very good chance that the best album you heard from last year got snubbed for a nomination.

It’s not as likely that your favorite movie was snubbed. After all, if your favorite wasn’t “The Social Network,” “Toy Story 3,” “Inception” or any of the other seven nominees for the Best Picture Oscar, you really get out to the theaters. Or you were just a big fan of “MacGruber.”

Considering this, one might argue that the Grammys are in worse need of a 10-nominee category than the Oscars. (This is only their second year since doubling the nominees for the coveted Best Picture award from five.) But I wouldn’t.

For the Oscars, tacking on an extra five movies means that deserving contenders like “The Kids Are All Right,” “127 Hours” and “Winter’s Bone” will be thrown into the mix. It means they have five less movies to worry about snubbing, and it means less backlash from critics for snubbing them.

But for the Grammys, nominating another five albums wouldn’t exactly fix this problem. Neither would another 50. This is an award that goes out to winners of 109 categories including “Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album” — and who am I to say Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band didn’t make the greatest record ever with “Zydeco Junkie”?

If you’re like me and have no idea whether Perry or Arcade Fire has the better shot at winning Album of the Year, then you can understand how throwing in a John Legend or a Black Keys wouldn’t suddenly make it a better fight.

More likely, it would just mean five more albums that are not the one you or I think was the year’s best.

Simply put, the Oscars are easier to sell to us viewers than the Grammys because the expensive tends to intersect with the critically acclaimed far more naturally and more often in film than in music.

That’s not necessarily good or bad; that’s just how it’s always been.

Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder said it best in 1996 after winning Best Hard Rock Performance: “I don’t know what this means. I don’t think it means anything.”

That was true then, and it’s even truer 15 years later. But in its defense, I don’t think that the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences is trying to fool you otherwise — though it would be if it increased the number of nominees.

They would rather we tune in for what the Oscars can’t offer: some delightfully nonsensical collaborations and grandiose performances. That’s what the Grammys are all about, after all — performing.