Now that the Grammys are over and the winners are crowned, perhaps now is the time to address this topic: Every year there are plethoras of features on the web that highlight “classic rock” artists — particularly those from the 1960s — that never won Grammy Awards. This is the result of a bad habit of some journalists of judging the past by the standards of the present. The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences give out the Grammy Awards every year for this purpose, “to honor excellence in the recording arts and sciences. It is truly a peer honor, awarded by and to artists and technical professionals for artistic or technical achievement, not sales or chart positions.”

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When a little-known DJ named Danger Mouse mashed Jay Z’s a capella vocals from the Black Album with bits of the White Album to make his masterful Grey Album, no one could have guessed that it would lead to such success (or so many spinoffs.) This little artistic endeavor gave him enough notoriety to get gigs producing Gorillaz and Gnarls Barkley, which ultimately won him a Grammy. It’s a good life lesson. With the right material and a good set of ears, your average Joe Shmoe who’s handy with the mouse can become a sought-after mega producer. If only you had a badass isolated vocal track to get started, that could be you, right? Gotcha covered, kiddo. Here’s a link to David Lee Roth’s raw vocal take from “Running with The Devil,” courtesy of Chunklet, and it’s a doozy.

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Hip-hop, for all its hard edges, dirty beats, and tough-guy posturing, seems to have an odd soft spot in it for rock. And no, we’re not talking about the Run D.M.C.-meets-Aerosmith/Public Enemy-meets-Anthrax kind of thing. We’re talking MOR, radio-ready, smooth adult rock. A certain former drummer of Genesis has been the longstanding godfather of this certain brand of cross-genre collaboration, but most of Phil’s, um, genius has been limited to sample use, particularly of the song “In the Air Tonight” (here, here, and here, for example) — though this touching tribute does feature a live duet with Lil’ Kim.

But the times are a-changin’, and as sample clearance gets more and more difficult and hip-hop gets more and more popular, rappers have been called upon to find the predecessor successor to Mr. Collins, one whose voice rings as clear in the studio as it does on record! And as the first decade of the new millennium stretches well past its salad days, the new king appears to be in the form of one Chris Martin, heartthrob to millions and father to Apple, who lends his falsetto to recent albums from Jay-Z, the Streets, Swizz Beats, and even Kanye West.

• Jay-Z - Beach Chair (sample)
• The Streets - Dry Your Eyes (sample)
• Swizz Beats - Part of the Flow (sample)
• Kanye West - Homecoming (sample)

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Twenty-five years ago this month in November 1982, by way of People magazine, was the first public acknowledgment that singer Karen Carpenter was in Lenox Hill Hospital battling the effects of anorexia nervosa. Under normal circumstances, this event would merely be remembered as a chapter in the turbulent career of the Carpenters, a California-based brother-and-sister pop duo whose work dominated the charts of the Nixon era and whose personal lives were as tormented as their public personae were squeaky-clean — fodder for VH-1’s Behind the Music. However, reflecting on the initial shock of the announcement of such news 25 years on, what makes this a painful observance is that Karen didn’t come back to us — just 34 days into 1983, with a seemingly encouraging appearance at the Grammy Awards in between, Karen Carpenter was dead.

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