On Tuesday, January 5, 1999, journalists of all shapes, sizes and nationalities gathered to hear the announcements of the Grammy Award nominees at the China Club in New York City. While they were read, the hisses of disapproval were louder than those of the snakes attacking Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. There are 9,000 voting members of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and you wonder just who they are and how they got that way. This "Order" as they'll be referred to from this point forward, is a faceless, nameless beast that turns the Grammys into a consistent annual comedy show. Even the presenters (from Duncan Sheik to producer Tony Visconti) laughed along while reading the nominees that could have come out of a stream of consciousness session during a Jesse Camp smokeout. With everyone snickering, it makes you wonder why there's such a stir made over the awards since everyone seems in on the joke. Why do so many don the tuxes, hook up the satellite connections and praise the golden phonograph player when a good majority of the Order could very well be made up of ancients flipping through MTV for a few minutes of crash-studying before writing down their votes? Try to follow some of the Order's logic, or rather, lack thereof, as some key categories are dissected.

For Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Sarah McLachlan is nominated for her Party of Five-shopping-at-Pottery Barn anthem, "Adia." The song comes off of McLachlan's 1997 Surfacing, which was nominated for and won several awards at last year's Grammys. So how "Adia" is considered a brand new song worthy of a nomination is anybody's guess. Did the academy members spend the night before ballot casting frantically catching up on their top 40? Maybe the Order's rationale is that mystery McLachlan was trying desperately to build.

For Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, the inclusion of Eagle Eye Cherry's "Save Tonight" shows that the Order watches Dawson's Creek to catch up on hip singles. But then they pull a major snafu by also picking Sting singing "You Were Meant For Me," the stale theme to the stale Jennifer Aniston movie The Object of My Affection. Now you know. The Order goes to the movies and they like chickpics.

Best Dance Recording is another category that shows many Order members can't even get up on their feet. Madonna's "Ray of Light" and especially Daft Punk's stellar "Around the World" are solid nods. "World" may be more than a year-and-a-half old but when a good song gets a break, why complain? After these announcements, the press room anxiously awaited a nod to the breakbeat gymnastics of Fatboy Slim or Propellerheads. But they never came. Instead, it was Cyndi Lauper's cover of the Trammps' "Disco Inferno" from the inane A Night at the Roxbury that got called, a song that represents a huge step back in this bold era of dance music. Who are these voters and why are they buying so many soundtracks? Considering that the press is sitting in the China Club, a place where Lauper's faux funk stylings would never be heard is all the more ironic. Does anyone have a painkiller?

There's no category where the Order seems more hearing-impaired than with the Best New Artist. This year is no different. Here's the rundown:

Backstreet Boys
Andrea Bocelli
Dixie Chicks
Lauryn Hill
Natalie Imbruglia

Looking at the list, one pictures a schoolteacher grading papers with a fat red marker, furious that her students aren't getting the message as she slashes through their answers. First off, how can you lump opera, country, boy pop, girl pop and groundbreaking hip hop into one category? It seems voters have GDD (genre deficit disorder). Then, who determines that Bocelli or the Chicks are new artists? They both released albums in the first half of the decade. Consider that Right Said Fred comes from that time and you'll realize how old "new" is in this case. This reminds me of the seizures that occurred when the Order nominated No Doubt for Best New Artist a few years back after I had already been given their debut album in 1991. To this day, I still can't hear "Don't Speak" without shaking uncontrollably fearing I've lost all concept of how time works. Now I know how Marty McFly felt in Back to the Future. But there's no hallucinating that critics' darling Lauryn Hill should be praying that she doesn't win the award, since it can be the kiss of death. Natalie Imbruglia is more well suited for it, since she's most likely to join her fellow Aussies and former winners Men at Work in a has-been grave down under.

Most of these categories can still camouflage the fact that the Order is out of it, but with the Best Alternative Category, there's nowhere for them to hide. For the most part this year, they do well. Beasties make the cut, as does PJ Harvey, the Smashing Pumpkins and Tori Amos (that Lilith presence will make everyone feel a bit safer). But again, the ball is dropped. Radiohead's Airbag/How Am I Driving? is included - a single along with some b-sides. Obviously, Radiohead is respectable. Their masterful OK Computer was included last year as a Best Album nominee. But that doesn't mean that every time they release something, it's worthy of the highest praise. Driving is more of an afterthought and the votes could have been used more wisely. Surely, many voters in the Order see that their kids love Radiohead and decide to throw them a bone, not knowing that what they are voting for isn't even a complete album. They're probably honoring their New Year's resolution to get more in touch with their children.

The same carries over to Best Album of the Year. The rundown is as follows:

The Globe Sessions - Sheryl Crow
Version 2.0 - Garbage
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill - Lauryn Hill
Ray of Light - Madonna
Come On Over - Shania Twain

Okay, one must give props that they all center around women, a very positive sign. But after that moment of celebration, one starts scratching their noggin like an extra in a Head and Shoulders commercial. The Globe Sessions was surely a strong album for Crow, but does it represent a step forward for music; something that the album of the year should? Actually, it represented a better chance for Crow to work her mole in sexy videos shot by Matthew Rolston or Herb Ritts.

Garbage's inclusion is equally perplexing. Again, Version 2.0 is a good album that has many exciting, poppy moments, but it's hardly one that deserves to stand alone, unlike past nominees Beck's Odelay or Radiohead's OK Computer or Dylan's Time Out of Mind. It's just that members of the Order always hear their kids talking about this band. After screaming over and over "who is this trash group you keep talkin' about" they make amends with a vote for them. No one probably finds this funnier than Shirley Manson herself who is probably having quite the giggle while she applies her fuck-me-red lipstick. Out of the rest, Hill should win and the nod to her shows that occasionally voters really do pay attention to important music.

But until there comes a day when the press room stops snickering, the Grammys won't mean as much as they should. And with the ceremony defecting from New York to Los Angeles this year, any chance the show has to be outrageous will be lost as well. There will be no Soy Bomb doing his Dance of the Seven Veils. There will be no Ol' Dirty Bastard trying to rain on Shawn Colvin's parade. The most one can hope for is that Madonna figures out one group on this Earth that she hasn't offended and go for them full speed. That or a Battle Royale between her, Celine and Shania will do.

January 1999