Well, that didn’t take long! Days after Booker T’s remix of Soul II Soul’s “Back To Life” gets a Grammy nomination, the very fact starts appearing on flyers – so could he soon capitalise by pushing up his prices?

Before we start with today’s business, I must offer my most profuse apologies for yesterday’s unexpected absence. I found myself much busier than on a normal Saturday and simply ended up running out of time to post anything. Normal service resumes here and now…

Anyway, the dance music world got something of a surprise on Thursday when the nominations people at the Grammy Awards suffered an unexpected bout of good taste by putting some decent records in their list of topics, which ran to something like 4000 in number.

One of those who was mentioned was Booker T, real name Gary Booker. He’s been in dance music for nearly 30 years and his remix credits are extensive – Quincy Jones, Gabrielle, Camille Douglas, All Saints, The Brand New Heavies, Angie Stone and Sounds Of Blackness are just some of the names in it.

He’s now been nominated for a Grammy for his remix of “Back To Life” – although this isn’t the first time he’s reworked the group’s music. Booker previously produced remixes of “Pressure Dome” and “I Don’t Care” back in the 1990s. But sure enough, it hasn’t taken long for the promoters and managers booking him to notice.

Take a look at this flyer for an event taking place in a few days time…

Notice the words “Grammy nominated remixer producer”? It’s hard not to. Expect to see a lot of this over the next few weeks. Whether it helps sell any more tickets is difficult to establish.

But an industry source tells me that Booker could now capitalise on his good fortune – and this applies whether he goes on to win or not. According to my source, “Booker T can now command more money for remixes. This kind of thing can open a lot of doors, winner or otherwise. And yeah, he could probably raise his DJ fees – if the phone starts ringing more than it used to, it might be the only way he can make it more manageable”.

Complaints about only being given 30 minute sets look set to become a thing of the past…

Is this REALLY the best dance music can do? David Guetta and Marshmello nominated for Grammy Awards… but at least there’s some hope with Ten City and Booker T also listed

So the Grammy Awards have released the full list of nominations for their show, currently due to take place on January 31st next year. Their official website claims to have 86 different categories – reading through them gives the impression the actual number is 4000 and the show will be around three weeks long.

Thankfully, I’ve waded through the list so you don’t have to. And some of the names in it aren’t exactly encouraging. David Guetta, who likes remixing patriotic songs for human rights abusing regimes, is nominated for Best Dance / Electronic Recording with Afrojack. Tïesto is also nominated despite everything he’s produced in the last few years being crap.

All, however, is not entirely lost. Because digging deeper into the nominations list provides some hope. Ten City – who currently consist of Marshall Jefferson and Byron Stingily – have had their album “Judgement” nominated in the Best Dance / Electronic Album category. And in a genre as notoriously rubbish at creating albums as house, this is no mean feat.

Praise also goes to Booker T – real name Gary Booker – who has been nominated in the Best Remixed Recording category. His dub of Soul II Soul’s “Back To Life” came out during the spring. I wasn’t particularly a fan at first, but it turned out to be one of those remixes which grew on me. Black Coffee also gets his first ever nomination – a fact that I found quite surprising.

All in all, I can’t help but wonder if this bizarre variety of artists is reflective of an increasing chasm in dance music between the more intelligent, sophisticated sound from the likes of Ten City – and the gorgonzola being churned out by the David Guetta factory…

Grammy Awards? More like the Granny Awards!

The audience for the Grammy Awards last weekend was down markedly on regular years. The ratings were terrible, and amidst the bad central figure, even worse ones lie around. Only 2% of the audience were aged between 18 and 49 years old.

I’m actually in this age group, being a relatively sprightly 36 years old. So I thought I’d offer my thoughts. And here they are.

The prospect of actually watching the Grammy Awards simply doesn’t register on my radar. The names whom I see being nominated, in at least 90% of cases, are not names that I recognise. This immediately reduces how much interest I have in the awards themselves.

There is one category that I should have been able to get behind a nominee this year, of course. Louie Vega was nominated for a remix he did for Jasper Street Company. He didn’t win. The last time he won was in 2005, according to the Grammy website

Call me cynical, but something was just telling me that he wasn’t going to win it. And if I felt like that about something I was close to, how on earth was I going to get interested in anything else?

Is the Grammy Awards something that people become comfortable with when they get older, or are they trying to pull in their future audiences earlier in life? I think someone needs to make their mind up on that one…