Who give a fuck about a god damn Grammy?

That's what Chuck D said 20 years ago, and it's still true today. But drive down any street in L.A. and you'll see banners for the Grammy Museum, which opens tonight. How could it be anything but lame? I can only imagine vacationing parents trying to appease their iPod-wearing kids by taking them there, only to be force-fed a menu of overly produced, saturation marketed, and mostly shitty music.

Okay, there is probably a shred of decent stuff in there. Bob Dylan gets a showcase, but didn't he get his first Grammy in 1979 for one of his Christian albums? No offense, isn't that kind of late? (No free pass for "Hall-of-Fame" awards.)

The "Songs of Conscience, Songs of Freedom" exhibit could be good. The juxtaposition of Woody Guthrie's guitar, Grandmaster Flash's turntables, and J. Edgar Hoover's FBI summary on the MC5 is actually interesting, but when did they get Grammy awards? Despite the second half of the exhibit's title, Bob Marley wasn't even mentioned in the press release. Neither was The Clash.

Jethro Tull beating Metallica, who were playing out of their minds in 1988, for "Best Metal Performance" says it all.

In the end, I realize my tastes are merely my own and admit that I'd probably enjoy some of the artifacts and moments caught on tape at the Grammy Museum. A lot of people will really dig it. But it's understood that the actual Grammy awards and shows are more of like industry acknowledgments than measures of artistic accomplishment. To have a museum dedicated to that is like having a big trade show exhibit. How can you even charge for something like that?