I joined this thing called the pho list. I’ts a mailing list that serves a discussion group that talk about art/tech issues and eat pho soup. Anyway, the level of discussion is often quite high, almost academic, and I expect that if I can continue to work up the energy to read all the emails I’ll occasionally post some of the more interesting material here.

For starters, here’s a copy of a NARAS member’s response to the question: who decides who wins a grammy? Excerpt below:

Bottom line: The way you win a Grammy award is by being commercially successful, because there are so many voters. You promote yourself to them the same way you promote yourself to the general public: mass-media and industry buzz. This is not about sheer musical quality, it is about success, post-facto — success is a pre-requisite for winning an award. Even debut acts are those that have garnered the power of a major label to push them into stardom in the preceding year, thus that represents the success of enlisting a major label’s resources.

Well, I guess it’s not like we couldn’t have all guessed it. Still, the details are interestingish.