LA Punks No Age Crash Death-Cab-Loving Grammy Nominee List

Last week the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States presented their list of nominees for the 51st Grammy Awards. So, who do you think cracked the pool for good old Field 5: Category 22: Best Alternative Music Album? TV on the Radio? Bon Iver? Fleet Foxes? Well, um...

The nominees are: hip-hop-sired pure pop duo Gnarls Barkley (huh?); one-time lo-fi bluesman turned long-time funkified Scientologist, Beck; genre-razing stadium-art-rock kings Radiohead; uncountrified Kentuckians My Morning Jacket; and the prohibitive favorites in the category, indie sentimentalists Death Cab for Cutie.

Death Cab also rustled up a slightly-less-expected Best Song gong for "I Will Possess Your Heart," the eight-and-a-half-minute ode-to-stalking single that stood as the centerpiece of their quietly-subversive sixth album, Narrow Stairs.

If the Best Alternative Albums seem a bit of a yawn, one of 2008's most buzzed-about breakout bands managed to gatecrash the unending reams of R&B-riddled nominees. Noisy Los Angelino duo No Age (pictured) scored a random Best Recording Package nod for the lavish art that accompanies their critically-beloved second LP, Nouns.

It's actually fitting: No Age were formed as an outlet for graphic design ("we made a shirt before we even played a show!" Dean Spunt has confessed), and wanted to make Nouns, their first disc for Sub Pop, an impressive visual artwork.

"We actually really did spend a lot of time on the packaging of the CD, to go out of our way to create this awesome, 72 page, full-color booklet," Randy Randall admitted, in conversation with me the day after the Grammy nominees were unveiled. "That was, I think, in my mind, an artistic triumph, to make this art catalogue for a CD that you can just download for free, anyway."

Read the rest of that No Age interview to learn more about Randall's thoughts on his band's crazy 2008. The Grammy Awards ceremony will be held on February 8, 2009.

Photo © [Bethany Regan]