Babyface’s Killer Showing

Amazing.

How could the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences’ new Grammy nomination committee be so insightful in the best album category, leaning to daring works by Beck and the Fugees, and then be so clueless in the best record competition, turning to journeyman hits from Celine Dion, Tracy Chapman and Eric Clapton?

It’s the latest mystery in the long, torturous attempt by the academy to honor excellence in music--a process that was overhauled last year to try to make at least the best album and best record awards more reflective of contemporary pop currents.

Responding to biting criticism of a nomination process that for years favored mainstream bestsellers over pop innovation, the academy took the final nomination choices out of the hands of its 9,000 voting members and gave it to a blue-ribbon committee.

Under the new system, the general membership votes for the nominees in both categories. But the committee now reviews the 20 albums and 20 records that get the most votes to determine which five in each category go on the ballot.

The new system got off to a promising start last year with nominations for such challenging figures as Alanis Morissette and Pearl Jam, and it continued impressively Tuesday--at least in the album competition.

Because the lists of 20 semi-finalists aren’t made public, it’s unclear where the breakdown in the best record voting occurred this year. Did the committee bypass some worthy choices on the list of 20? Or did it do the best it could from an ultraconservative group of selections given by the full membership?

The two main categories:

Best Album: Celine Dion’s “Falling Into You” is the kind of disheartening nomination that convinces you lots of academy members pay more attention to sales figures than to music. For those who feel sales are the measure of pop excellence, there were 6,135,019 reasons to vote for Dion. But the music itself was one big reason to vote against her.

Sure, she has a strong voice. But she brings no sense of individuality to her songs and generally settles for middle-brow material. If she wins, it’ll be Big Embarrassment time in terms of academy credibility.

One can build a case for any of the other nominees. The Smashing Pumpkins, whose songs (by Billy Corgan) combine youthful melancholy with often searing textures, have helped define American rock in the ‘90s. The band gave us some glorious moments in its two-disc “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” album. The Fugees’ “The Score” was a hugely influential work in the hip-hop community, merging R&B; tradition with uplifting rap commentary.

Still, “Waiting to Exhale,” the soundtrack collection put together by writer-producer Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, and Beck’s “Odelay” were the more stirring albums.

In “Exhale,” Babyface combined mainstream pop craft with individuality and vision as he designed affecting songs for such varied singers as Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Toni Braxton and TLC. It’s an achievement that ranks with albums by such prized Grammy winners as Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon.

But my vote would go to “Odelay,” which mixed rock’s folk, blues and country roots with ‘90s hip-hop energy and sensibilities in ways that seemed at times as revolutionary as when Bob Dylan went electric in the ‘60s.

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Best Record: Dion’s “Because You Loved Me,” featured on her album, underscores why her music generally is so hollow.

Moving to more serious contenders, it’s nice to see Tracy Chapman return to public favor after fading into obscurity after the breakthrough success of “Fast Car” in 1988, but “Give Me One Reason” hasn’t the insight or originality of “Fast Car.” It simply is a pleasant exercise in the blues lite style that helped Bonnie Raitt and Clapton win Grammys in recent years. Clapton’s “Change the World,” too, is quite conventional, even if Babyface produced it.

Morissette deserved the best album award last year, but there were better singles on “Jagged Little Pill” than “Ironic.” Which leaves the Smashing Pumpkins’ soaring “1979” as the shaky choice here--shaky because there were so many better recordings during 1996.

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Rest of the Pop-Rock Field: When you move into the mass of pop-rock entries, you encounter all the hapless judgments--starting with Sheryl Crow and No Doubt in the best rock album contest--that forced the academy to set up that special blue-ribbon committee to try to bring respectability to the two top awards.