Artist: Alyssa Graham
Video: ''Til My Heart Quakes'
Highlight: "I think ''Til My Heart Quakes' is about embracing contradictions, especially when it comes to love," Alyssa Graham tell Spinner. "Encouraging love to grow and flourish in a space where we know it's bound to fail. We tend to think in black and white, but the grey area is where the magic happens and probably where most of us actually live. ''Til My Heart Quakes' is about savoring every moment that is filled with love and passion and living with the resulting consequences when the moment has passed, knowing it was worth it."

Watch Alyssa Graham's ''Til My Heart Quakes' Video

The Grammys are long. You know that. We know that. What you might not know is what else you could accomplish in those three and a half hours.

We combined our limited math skills and excellent Google prowess to come up with some of the other ways you could pass your time instead of watching Sunday night's Adele awards show. Here are the informative, depressing, stupid, awesome and stupid awesome things we came up with!

You could...

- Walk 14 miles while listening to the Proclaimers' 'I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) 59.1 times.

- Watch this video of Christina Aguilera falling over at last year's Grammys 1,800 times:

This week Canadian rapper Shad got a taste of what Polaris Prize jurors went through when debating the merits of his Juno Award-winning album when 'TSOL' went head-to-head with 10 other Canadian albums back in 2010.

"It does give a little bit of insight as to what happens in the Polaris backroom," Shad tells Spinner following his judging gig on Canada Reads 2012, CBC's annual book competition which crowned his pick, Carmen Aguirre's memoir 'Something Fierce: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter,' the winning title earlier Thursday.

"I've just never understood the game of strategy -- I wasn't in cahoots with anyone," he says of the roundtable discussion that pitted him against "experts" such as supermodel Stacey McKenzie and actor Alan Thicke. "It's fun to discuss the merits of books so that part of it I really like, but I don't understand the 'Survivor'-style voting. I'm the most anti-'Survivor' person."

Since the beginning of his music career, Tom DeLonge has maintained eternal youth and rebellion through his punk powerhouse Blink-182. But when the band collapsed and announced an indefinite hiatus in 2005, the guitarist was left searching for a brand-new avenue -- a bigger picture. Angels and Airwaves have been DeLonge's main focus for several years. While the band has grown to considerable heights, DeLonge has slowly changed his adolescent ways and adopted a more philosophic lifestyle, writing about the universe and its infinite mysteries.

But now Blink -- the band that made him, the band that launched three budding rock stars from the MTV generation -- have returned. Without much thought, DeLonge has thrown himself back into the mix, but this time with a much more responsible and stoic demeanor that is featured on their newest full-length, 'Neighborhoods.'

At the same time, Angels and Airwaves released their much-anticipated 'Love Pt. 2' and an accompanying sci-fi film. DeLonge has accomplished more in one year than most rockers do in a decade. Spinner recently spoke to the singer about his battle with anxiety, Blink-182's awkward reunion and the why the 36-year-old still likes to "get drunk and break things."

What did you ultimately want to accomplish through Angels and Airwaves' 'Love Pt. 2'?

When Angels and Airwaves started, it was an exciting time to create something completely new. It was an exciting time to figure out how to make a big band without the resources of a record label and how to gather new fans that would look at this in a different way. We thought that if we made a brand and called it Angels and Airwaves and created a world within that brand and we worked with other artists and we did different forms of media, we can tackle big subjects. We can have aspirations to make people think and feel a little differently when they're encountering the art we're putting out. And then they don't have to judge our project based solely on the music; they can judge it based on the entirety of the world.

So when doing 'Love,' it's not just getting our feet wet. We're jumping in and making the biggest splash we can with the resources that we have. That's why it took us almost five years to make a film, but the next one is going to be much bigger and much quicker.

The 2012 Grammy Awards may garner more drama than a typical Kanye West outburst. According to Spin, 23,000 musicians and recording-industry employees have signed a petition demanding all categories cut from the Grammys be reinstated.

The debate began back in August when the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences cut some 52 categories from the Grammy Awards while creating 21. The cuts were supposed to be a consolidation of obsolete categories, but many claim the exclusion has marginalized several different cultural traditions and many artists.

"Under President Neil Portnow's leadership, NARAS has failed in its mission to honor, propagate and nurture all forms of American born music and to educate the general public about all genres, not giving preference to one over the other," National Hispanic Media Coalition's Inez Gonzales said in a press conference. Hispanic and Latin categories were among the most affected with Latin jazz, regional Mexican Tejano, banda and Norteno being cut indefinitely from Grammy consideration.

"Grammys? It's cool. Electronic music's ripped a f---ing giant new ---hole in that thing, eh?"

So sayeth Deadmau5, the Canadian superstar DJ/producer also known as Joel Zimmerman who is not only up for three Grammy Awards at this year's ceremony -- including Best Dance/Electronica Album for '4x4=12,' Best Dance Recording for 'Raise Your Weapon' and Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical for his revamp of Foo Fighters' 'Rope' -- but will also be performing with the Foos in the Grammys' first-ever inclusion of dance music in the televised broadcast.

"Before we were commercial break motherf---ers. That's good for all electronic music, not just me -- it's all about the bigger picture," Deadmau5 told Spinner at this week's announcement of the Juno nominations, the Canadian music awards where he's up for not just best dance recording but also Artist of the Year and the populist Fan Choice Award.

'Barchords' is the second release by Bahamas -- the alter ego of Toronto singer-songwriter Afie Jurvanen -- and follows up 2009's 'Pink Strat,' a record that thrust the mild-mannered one-time guitar-for-hire into the spotlight through a wave of critical acclaim, capped off with a Juno nomination in the Roots & Traditional category.

Jurvanen isn't exactly the folk festival type, though; in fact, the way in which his songs echo the pure melodies and straightforward themes of classic pop are, ironically, what makes Bahamas hard to classify in this day and age.

Jurvanen learned more than a few tricks from his circle of musician friends and notable employers such as Jason Collett, Howie Beck and Feist (he was guitarist and pianist for the '1234' hit-maker for two years of international touring). With 'Barchords,' Jurvanen can now proudly stand alongside them as another shining example of the changing face of Canadian folk-rock. He can also revel in joining the roster of Jack Johnson's Brushfire Records.

"I'm just thrilled to be able to put something out into the world and have people gravitate towards it, especially with so many records coming out all the time," Jurvanen tells Spinner.