After waking to discover that Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’s “Raising Sand” had won the Grammy for Best Album of the Year at last night’s award ceremony, my eleven-year-old son said, “You know, I really like Led Zeppelin and I’m sure that Robert Plant made a good record, but I think that there are other records that both kids and adults liked, like maybe Coldplay or Lil Wayne.” At which point, I handed him the keys to my office and hustled myself down to the unemployment office.

I mean, that’s what we want from a Grammy, right? An award that acknowledges whatever dominated the year’s conversation and converted people who don’t care much about pop. By that measure, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’s modest, intelligent album “Raising Sand” almost qualifies. The idiosyncratic collection of covers, produced by T-Bone Burnett and perversely filed by Billboard as “Country,” has sold over a million copies and been warmly reviewed. But I doubt very many people under thirty bought the record, and I would be surprised to find anyone under twenty with the album on their hard drive. This is the same fight the Grammys fight every year—an aging voting bloc tries to grapple with an industry driven largely by music of, and by, the young. The results are almost always schizophrenic, and the fifty-first edition was no different, though it found new strangeness to replace the old awkwardness.

The old awkwardness is often summed up by pointing to the 1989 award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental. Nineteen-eighty-nine was the first time the Grammys had recognized heavy metal, an embarrassing enough delay. Much worse was the fact that the first metal award went to Jethro Tull’s “Crest of a Knave,” a non-metal album by a non-metal band. (Metallica won last night, for the sixth time. They were kind of upset about losing in 1989. Hopefully they’re O.K. now.) The Grammys have eliminated most of those categorical confusions but is still stranded, like a junior senator, between constituencies. Why else would Alison Krauss have twenty-six awards, more than any other female artist in history? Krauss is certainly capable of being an affecting singer, but she hasn’t inspired any sea changes. If Grammys reflected sales, then Mariah Carey would have ninety, and if the Grammys reflected influence, Alanis Morissette and Lauryn Hill would each have thirty. The Grammy goes to the middleman (who records a lot, let it be noted in Krauss’s defense), who doesn’t scare off a voting population that skews old. There’s your twenty-six, a little like your five hundred and thirty-eight.

Several things came to mind after reading this week’s Make post about the Voder speech emulator and its debut at the 1939 World’s Fair. When I heard the Voder creating different syllabic stresses to put “expression into a sentence,” I thought “Maria” was being rewritten for “Wall-E.” (“She saw me, she saw me, she SAW me.”) I was also reminded, for the eight hundredth time, that the Antares Auto-Tune software is still mis-identified as the Vocoder, sometimes by the people most famous for using it. And then all of this made me think of my friend Dave Tompkins, who has been writing about the Vocoder and its descendant, the Voder, for years.

Below is “Pack Jam,” by the Jonzun Crew, the song I believe the Vocoder was invented for. (The clip is lip-synched to the original recording and is not live, contrary to highly authoritative titling.) Everything after the jump was written by Dave Tompkins.

Do you have anything you’d like to ask me? About Beyoncé? About anything at all? Please do.

The Internet provides many excellent opportunities for embarrassment. People are so enthusiastic about embracing these opportunities that it may be categorically inaccurate to think of them as embarrassments. In parallel, reality television has grown around the increasingly plausible idea that the pleasure brought on by fame can blot out any negative side effects of public exposure (shame, self-loathing, etc.). The Internet is proving the same principle, but for less pay. Do you and your coworkers like dancing to Soulja Boy? Show us! But back in the Victorian age of the Web, some people were sharing private moments with the world without knowing it.

A post on Joshua Bearman’s blog led me to a post by audio archivist David Dixon, who collected some of the private recordings that leaked into the world at large because of a peculiar synergy between the Napster file-sharing service and a software package:

Back around 2001 there arose a “perfect storm” of technological innovations which made possible audio files I call “mic in tracks”. This was right around the time that Napster was just beginning to penetrate into the average computer user’s lives. At the same time, an audio utility program called MusicMatch Jukebox was also being widely used, since it was often pre-installed on off-the-shelf PC’s. MMJ allowed you, among other things, to make recordings using the cheap microphone included with the PC, and save the file in mp3 format. If you didn’t give the audio file a name, it assigned a default name “mic in track” followed by a number. Now if you were also running Napster, and you were careless enough to be sharing everything on your computer (which *many* were), then anyone also running Napster could just do a search for “mic in track” and find and download these personal recordings, usually without your knowledge.

Dixon did, and some of his archive is available here. Scroll down for the original “mic in track” files. Some of the recordings were probably intended for one other person, at most, like the audio love letters. The recordings that involve play-acting may have been meant only for the actors imagining alternate lives: What if I was an air-traffic controller? What if my brother and I got to make infomercials? (I have about ten cassettes of me and my brother pretending to be a band called Fine Country Wine, whose members sometimes interviewed each other and imaginary guests.) The biggest category of "mic in track" recordings is musicians practicing their craft: drumming, death metal Cookie Monster singing, semi-rapping, and doing barbershop-country-rap covers.

The people who made these recordings might be surprised to know these files are circulating; some of them will be surprised to discover that they had ever recorded anything in the first place.

My favorite development on the Web in 2008 was Muxtape. The idea was useful and its execution was satisfyingly simple. Users could upload MP3s to the Muxtape server and make mixtapes of up to twelve songs each. Muxtape then rendered the mixtape visually as a vertical list in 36-point Helvetica on a single Web page. Click on a title, and the sequence would play in order. Editing and managing tapes was easy and all you needed to create a mix was an e-mail address. Each muxtape had its own URL, like sfj.muxtape.com.

I made three or four tapes and enjoyed tweaking them far too much. Then, one day last August, the Internet changed. All Muxtape addresses suddenly led to a small image of a cassette tape and a brief note about “a problem with the RIAA.” It was the Web equivalent of a “Be right back” sign in a shop window. But Muxtape never came back.

As of yesterday, though, Muxtape has returned, sort of. The Muxtape founder Justin Ouellette and I conducted the following exchange over e-mail.

Can you tell me something about yourself?

I’m twenty-five, from Portland, Oregon, and moved to New York in 2006 to pursue photography and design after graduating from the University of Oregon. I was a photo editor before joining Vimeo—a video community and sister company of College Humor—as a Web developer. In 2008, I left to pursue personal projects, including Muxtape. Currently, I work on Muxtape full time and also serve as design director of the Normative Music Company, with which we share an office in Williamsburg. I live in Chinatown and spend my time away from computers taking pictures and listening to records.

The story of music is now largely a story of law: What rights do copyright owners have? How many are enforceable? How will anybody be able to track the flow of information and music on the Internet, much less adjudicate or monetize these goings on? How long until Internet neutrality becomes the No. 1 issue (or did that happen earlier this week?) and when will companies entirely lose interest in buying franchises along that road but concentrate instead on buying pieces of the road itself? Lawrence Lessig has been thinking about copyright law for a long time, and his recent appearance on “The Colbert Report” seems to have inspired Colbert. As will you see, Colbert’s stance on copyright is crystal clear.

President Obama was only obliged to make it to one Inauguration, but he and Mrs. Obama had ten different balls to attend last night, including the first-ever Neighborhood Ball, which was the main dance event for those watching from home.

There has been talk about how well Jennifer Aniston, who’s forty, is aging. I have no stake in contesting that; I only want to lodge a vote for Mary J. Blige, who’s thirty-eight, as our Beatrice Button. How does she get finer every year? She manages to be regal and sexy without ever becoming overly safe. No matter how distinguished the gig, or the semi-backless dress, Blige always looks like she might toss the mike down at any moment and stomp all the way back to the hotel in her boots.

I always liked Blige’s single “Just Fine,” and Blige had a great time with it at the Neighborhood Ball. (On Jools Holland last year, the final minute of the song inspired a surge of movement that merits a word much deeper than “dancing.”) Two mild caveats: I am not sure that Obama’s election will put an end to “segregation,” as Blige announced, and, like so many live R. & B. drummers, Mary’s drummer overplayed a song that does not need the false gift of ornament. A happy trainspotting note: towards the end, Mary’s band dropped in several bars of the Chubb Rock’s 1991 single, “Treat ‘Em Right” behind Blige’s vocals, a reference to a remix of “Just Fine” by producer Swizz Beatz from almost exactly one year ago, featuring a little-known rapper named Lil Wayne.

I am a pretty big Mariah fan, and I think maybe a song as dopey a “Hero” could choke me up at the right moment, but last night was not that moment. Her new husband, Nick Cannon, was the evening’s d.j. This job gave him the opportunity to call Carey his “hero,” but he shouted it out like he was cutting the ribbon at a new Best Buy outlet. Neither tender nor convincing. (Also, Nick? “Hero” is a ballad. Do your “serious face” before or after ballads.)

Mr. Cannon had the bad luck to protest too much right before Denzel Washington introduced the biggest rock stars of the night, who strolled out as if they only had maybe one or two other balls to hit. Mr. Obama was in black tie, Mrs. Obama, Jason Wu. Quite reasonably, President Obama asked the crowd, “How good-looking is my wife?” Nations melted, seas calmed, hostilities paused. More to the point, every other First Couple understood that notice had been served. Even you, Mrs. Bruni-Sarkozy, will have a tough time outshining an Obama.

The Obamas danced to Beyoncé’s version of Etta James staple, “At Last.” I didn’t expect this to be my weepy moment, but it was. These two gorgeous people were doing something so specifically American, sweet, mudane, and unprecedented. It was America’s first real prom, the dream of soda pop and radio for everyone. That said—this is still the music business, and performing an Etta James song is still cross-promotion when you’ve still got your Etta James picture in the theatres. Good going, B.

It could only, logically, go downhill from here, but I was not prepared for how quickly and oddly it did.

Many famous people helped Stevie Wonder sing “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” one of those collaborations designed to deal with the “We invited all these famous people, now what?” problem. Why not let Stevie just ride it out himself? He sounded fine. Shakira’s accent did some interesting things to the lyrics, Blige sounded fantastic again and Sting’s new beard was one of the weirdest things to appear on a handsome man in some time. (The people around me mentioned both The Gorton’s Fisherman and Robin Williams.)

Ray Romano did some puzzling, unfunny and unnecessary stand-up comedy, and then Jay-Z, as Presidential a rapper as we’ve ever had (other than Slick Rick), performed his deeply dull song “History,” wearing black tie and eyeglasses that almost managed to make him look nerdy. Nobody needed reminding of the “h” word—a little bit of “Hard Knock Life” would have touched all the bases more comfortably, give or take a few words.

Alicia Keys did a strong version of “No One,” which could stand to be retired for a few years (still like it, just need a break), and a group called Anti-Gravity did some aerial routines, mostly because television variety programs need at least one act that nobody understands. Next was the evening’s one truly glorious train wreck—Shakira took on Van Morrison’s “Bright Side Of The Road,” which didn’t suit her in any way. The comedy was provided by her poor violin player, who was loudly and proudly out of tune as the song began. The violin was gradually mixed down, but I was laughing too hard to hear anything until Shakira played the harmonica. That’s right. The harmonica. Why? Are harmonicas American?

By the end of the two-hour event, the one-two punch of Mary J. Blige and the Obamas dancing to Beyoncé seemed like it had happened a week before. Too bad. There was a killer half-hour buried in there, but not even Obama can stop television from being television.

This otherwise helpful guide to inaugural musical performances on Current TV omits the facts that Sheryl Crow is playing every single ball in D.C. How? Holograms.

A friend and correspondent Rich Juzwiak wrote in about YouTube’s policies:

I’ve experienced the stuff you wrote about YouTube and song copyright. It is nice that instead of just deleting the offending video, and having that apply to the three-strikes-you’re-out banning rule, YouTube allows you to go in and swap out the audio for one of their approved tracks. That often makes the original video irrelevant but at least they’re trying to work with the people that make them money, instead of against them.

Here are the mechanics of it. This video was originally set to Mariah’s “Bye Bye.” It’s a sarcastic tribute I made in response to an “America’s Next Top Model” elimination. The images were cut to match the song’s rhythm. When notified by YouTube that I’d violated their copyright rules, I swapped out Mariah for an Aretha Franklin track from their minuscule approved library. But now it seems to have no backing music at all, and none of it makes sense. But, hey, it’s still up.

This used to be set to Hi-Five’s “I Like the Way (The Kissing Game),” and the exact same thing happened.

Neither of these are unofficial “videos” for the songs, but instead simply use the songs as soundtracks. These videos never would have been detected as infringing on copyright had I not included the song titles and artist of record in my tags. I’m assuming that YouTube did a big sweep of, for example, Def Jam and Jive material, and my videos came up because I had entered those tags. This was, in hindsight, needless. Duly noted.

As for something more connected to the visual, there’s this. It was originally set to an edit I made of her “Don’t Stop the Music.” The edit was mine, but not mine enough. I chopped the video to complement the song’s rhythms. When I had been notified of the copyright breach, I reset the video to a super holy-roller organ version of “What Child Is This.” I believe that if you’re not going to make sense, you should really not make sense, and if you can involve some Christmas music while doing so, all the better.

Weirdly, this still exists, proving that YouTube’s rules are wholly arbitrary.

The Knife’s “Silent Shout” was chosen as the No. 1 album of 2006 by the influential music site Pitchfork. The Knife’s Karin Dreijer Andersson and her brother Olof Dreijer have worked with fellow Swede Robyn on user-friendly material like “Who’s That Girl?,” but their stock in trade is spooking the bejeezus out of you with electronical machines. Do you not believe me? Look at their idea of a Web site. They will terrify you into joining their fanbase. No? Then think for a moment how you’d feel about them hearing that you didn’t like their haunted-house boogie. Not so good, right? You’d rather just fall in line, yes? Safety first.

There is a recent tendency in American female pop stars to look to Europe for inspiration in the middle of their careers. Madonna reached out to William Orbit and Mirwais for the 2000 album “Music.” Christina Aguilera and producer Linda Perry aped Goldfrapp for the single “Keeps Gettin’ Better,” and Aguilera then asked the actual Goldfrapp to work on her new album. The next step: Someone big will channel The Knife for their next single, with or without the actual The Knife.

If you want to know how high the bar is, then listen to Fever Ray, Andersson’s new solo project, which is more or less the perfect test case (seeing as how she’s in The Knife and all). Fever Ray sounds roughly like The Knife with the party music taken out, though this is an almost meaningless distinction. The Knife doesn’t exactly make party music, even when it does.

If you collect skeleton headsocks and are friends with lots of zombies, you will love the video for Fever Ray’s “If I Had A Heart.” (I think the verb “to have” works here in its secondary form, as in, “If I had eggs for breakfast or maybe oatmeal or maybe your still-pumping heart after I throw you into the swimming pool and tear it out of you.”)

Even if the music isn’t your thing, who do you think could get Knifey for album six? Who could use the Andersson trick of pitch-shifting their voice down until it sounds like a scary male butler? Could this be the next step after Auto-Tune? If so, then let’s figure out who can take it to the people. J Lo? Beyoncé? Britney? It could solve her paparazzi problem forever. (I am not suggesting the obvious candidates.)