From: The MusicFest Magazine – Spring/Summer 2014 Issue
By Mike Ethan Messick
Awarded for accomplishments mostly sown in 2013, and preceded by years and sometimes decades of experimentation, collaboration, and general butt-busting, international stars such as electro-rock pioneers Daft Punk and pop sensations Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, snagged quite a few Grammys this time around. Rock legends including Paul McCartney, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin all got their due. So did Texas upstarts like the newly minted country music sweetheart Kacey Musgraves and R&B guitar-slinger Gary Clark, Jr. Joining them all was Sarah and Shauna Dodds of Backstage Design Studio. The two tall, striking brunettes in full L.A. glam mode grabbed the Gramophone statue for Best Recording Package – for Reckless Kelly’s album Long Night Moon – to bring home to the Lone Star State.
Not to overgeneralize, but the Grammy Awards – perhaps even more so than their counterparts at the Oscars and Emmys – tend to award commercial success as much as (maybe more than) the subjective, harder-to-define qualities of artistic success and innovation. Which make is remarkable, to the point of nigh miraculous, that a quintessential business from Austin, Texas was out in L.A. duking it out with infinite-budget heavyweights like Jay Z, Metallica and David Bowie. If that list doesn’t make it clear, let’s reiterate: their competitors were not limited by genre or scale and potentially included every single album that went to print in 2013. Also impressive? Sarah and Shauna Dodds beat them all, and it wasn’t even their first nomination (Reckless Kelly’s previous album, the 2011 project Good Luck & True Love, also earned a deserving nod).