[FM] The Value of Awards

[Tom Neff]

The complete list of Boston Music Awards nominees is at

	http://www.bostonherald.com/bostonherald/entr/bma02191999.htm

and I think I count 41 awards overall.  It's roughly the same framework as
WAMA, but WAMA chops every genre into more bits.  One difference I notice is
that there's far less repetition in Boston's nominees, so you're less likely
to get one act winning in a bunch of categories.

The Bay Area Music Awards (Bammies) are now, I think, calling themselves the
California Music Awards.  A 1998 nom list at

	http://www.bammies.com/nom.html

shows about 18 categories, but the picture is complicated because they have
added northern and southern regional nominees.  I think effectively it's
three contests sharing one ceremony, but I'm not sure.  Almost nobody seems
to be nominated in more than one category.

I think that as a community, it would be helpful to work out some ways in
which local, regional and national awards really DO convey credibility to
would-be bookers and listeners, without unnecessarily freezing out newcomers
AND without inflating prize counts beyond all meaning.  What would be great
is if the best bluegrass players in your county each had a couple of county
awards on their shelf, the best in your state had some state awards, and so
forth.

If I read the results right, bands like Metallica and Green Day each have
two or three Bammies after years of performing.  That sounds good.  If
Metallica had 42 Bammies, I would suspect awards inflation.  This, and
nothing else, is what I am getting at with the Wammies.