We’re fast approaching the 2012 Grammy’s.

I personally stopped paying attention to these award shows a long time ago, and that certainly includes the Oscars as well (anyone remember the song “Hard Out There for a Pimp” winning an Oscar in 2005?).

Hard – Out – There – For – A – PIMP… won an Oscar… yeah.

This year, however, I have Mr. Dave Grohl representing the rock genre at the Grammy’s with Wasting Light, last year’s gigantic Foo Fighters record. He done me proud, and I almost wanna watch the show just to see their performance and how many of their 6 nominations they can sweep up.

Then I got to thinking: Is there still a rock category? Who are Foo Fighters up against?

After looking into it, the answers to my questions are “barely” and “no one, really”, respectively.

What happened?! Where are all the rock bands? (and no, acts like Nickelback don’t count). Am I missing something? Your top nominees for 2012’s “Album of the Year” category are: Foo Fighters, Adele, Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, and Rihanna.

Like Grohl, I’m extremely proud of Foo Fighters for holding their own in a world of poppy-danciness. A world that apparently only consists of poppy-danciness. After all, you have teams of producers, songwriters, and singers that created these Grammy-worthy (debatable) albums… yet Foo Fighters is right up there with them, represented by a record that was self-produced and recorded in Grohl’s garage, like a bunch of teenagers would do. Doesn’t that tell you something? A band like Foo Fighters doesn’t need these teams of writers/producers/singers to make it to the same spot. And I certainly don’t see Bruno Mars getting stadium crowds so engaged in his performance that it causes mild earthquakes (re: Foo Fighters in New Zealand).

So what’s the deal? Do people really have such a short attention span for music to where Dave Fucking Grohl is the only rock artist that can break through to them?

One of the best quotes I read from him about his Grammy nominations this year was an interview with AP, where he likens the scenario to a car show he recently entered with his vintage van. He won “Best In Class”, simply because he was the only guy at a car show with a van.

Sure, there are a couple others named in the Rock/Hard Rock categories: Wilco, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kings of Leon, Megadeth, Coldplay (?), etc. But those are all stuck in the “Best Rock Song” or “Best Rock Album” categories for the most part.

Might I mention, out of 76 musical categories and variations (leaving out music videos), only 3 cover rock music (4 if you add in Hard Rock). Compare that with 10 categories covering Pop/R&B

I have many friends who are fans of Adele and Lady Gaga, and I can certainly appreciate some aspects of their work. Like Adele’s vocal ability, or Gaga’s stage shows. But never before has it been so blindingly apparent to me that Rock N Roll is dying out.

How do you feel about it? Does it bother you like it bothers me?