"Who is Arcade Fire?"

Kottke noted the furor over Arcade Fire winning the Grammy for album of the year.

I guess a lot of "music fans" expect the Grammys to validate the sales charts. From whoisarcadefire on Tumblr:

How can this group get album of the year when they didn't even have as many top 20 as Gaga. Did this group even have a number 1 hit?

If that's your mindset, why bother having Grammys? Just use the Billboard chart or some other sales metric, and save us all from yet another awards show.

I'm starting to feel a little sorry for the music industry, crazy as that sounds. All this time I thought its problems were self-inflicted and stemmed largely from greed. Now I have to wonder if it's the victim of a profoundly clueless, tasteless mass market that doesn't know jack about music and doesn't want to know.

I don't expect that everyone will have heard of Arcade Fire. That's fine. What takes me aback is the viciousness of some people's response to what they do not know.

When a dark horse takes the best-picture Oscar, it's a net boon for the movie: people are curious what the buzz is about. Is that not true for music today?

Congratulations, Arcade Fire. Let's hope that I'm wrong about the stupidity of the mass market, and that you go on to greater success.