For the last couple of decades, an invitation for Sturr has been de rigueur, since he was not only a perennial nominee in the best polka album category, but also a sure-fire winner. In the 24 years the category has been around, Sturr won it 18 times. A Grammy win for Sturr was so predictable, it was a jaw-dropping shocker when he didn't win one. That happened in 1999 and 2004, when the Brave Combo upset him.
Sturr was the New York Yankees in the best polka album category and then some.
Well, the days of Grammy domination by Sturr are now kaput, since the National Academy of Recording Arts and Science announced last week that it was eliminating the category. It was undertaken in order for the awards to "remain pertinent within the current musical landscape," the Associated Press reported. Apparently, there were relatively few albums being considered for nomination in the category, which meant you had a pretty decent shot at getting to the Grammys if you shoved your band's polka album under the noses of the judges.
In The New York Times, the president of the International Polka Association also complained that all-Sturr-all-the-time helped cashier the category.
"It's basically the same person winning it all the time," according to Dave Ulczycki.
OK, here's my problem with this: why eliminate the best polka album category while maintaining the best Hawaiian music album category? Or Native American album? Or tejano album, norteno album, regional Mexican album, banda album or spoken comedy album?
You get the picture. The Grammy Awards are overflowing with categories, sub-categories and sub-sub-categories. If they actually presented all of the awards live on television, you'd be able to fit five Super Bowls into it, and that would include all the pre-pre-pre-pre-game coverage that starts at noon.
On his blog Hitsville (you can find it at www.hitsville.org), Bill Wyman hit it on the head: "The academy keeps all the unnecessary categories because it allows the 109 winners to run around saying 'I won a Grammy Award,' the 500-some nominees to bruit about their nominations, and, most importantly, the labels to run around and market that fact."
He goes on to call a Grammy nomination "the equivalent of a lollipop at the doctor's office."
Amid this smorgasbord of categories, it seems perverse to single out the polka category for elimination. Maybe my perspective is skewed from having lived in this region, which is more polka-friendly than most, but I doubt the audience for Native American music is that much bigger than polka. The same goes for all those other teeny-weeny genres and categories.
You have to wonder if this is the recording academy succumbing to the idea that polka is just hopelessly unhip, the favorite music of sausage-eaters in pockets of flyover country. Carl Finch, a member of the Brave Combo, told AP that it was part of the disrespect polka fans have become accustomed to.
"The polka world expects it. It's like, 'Yeah, the man did it to us again.'"