December 16th, 2004
Swedish Rock Band Bashes Own Grammy Nomination
By Mattias Alkberg BD
It was only to be expected that the Grammy jurors wouldn’t be able to see beyond their own noses. The fact that Mattias Alkberg BD was nominated in the category of male pop is either dim-witted or chauvinistic. Mattias Alkberg BD is a group. How this happened is therefore a mystery; especially if someone really was determined, in all seriousness, on giving a prize to us. Alternatively, we could’ve been called a male group. But we’re not that either. Our songs aren’t particularly masculine and we don’t intend our music for a specifically masculine audience. Furthermore, we think that music written within such parameters is entirely uninteresting and can go to hell.
What irritates us, Mattias Alkberg BD, most, is that someone seriously believed we would accept this nomination without reacting. There is absolutely nothing in our music to indicate that we want to be a part of the imperialist industry that the Grammy fête represents. If anything, we’re a reaction against the cultural view that treats music as a commodity, and artists and music lovers as lolling idiots.
We know that we were nominated in order to grant some kind of credibility to this whole gala. Forget it. We’re not interested. If we’ve given any indication to anyone in this rotten industry that we want to get paid loads of money so that we can patronizingly be patted on the head, we apologize. It wasn’t our intention. We didn’t make Tunaskolan for you. We made it despite you. We made it made it more or less against you.
Perhaps it’s possible to compete in music, but that’s another discussion; it’s probably not. Of course it’s nice to be appreciated, and if other artists think that it feels good to be nominated then that’s great for them. We don’t begrudge anyone for being happy about whatever they want to be happy about. But don’t mix us in that crowd. When all is said and done, what it comes down to is that we feel disgusted by all of this. We don’t want anything to do with this world.
We decline this nomination. You can keep your shit for yourselves.
Mattias Alkberg BD
Translated for Commercial Alert by Cristelle Blackford, December 2005