Bulova GRAMMY Awards Watch

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Bulova GRAMMY Award watch beauty shot

The best part of reading Ariel Adams’ everything is beautiful “review” of the Bulova GRAMMY Awards watch? The comments beneath it. “Awful,” Mikita opines. “I don’t understand what Bulova is doing. They are capable of much more than those ghastly Aliexpress watches.” Now that’s what I call a watch review. Mikita is right is so many ways, just as Mr. Adams wrong is so many ways. For example . . .

Grammy watches are important not just for their commercial value but also because Bulova supplies many of them to the Grammy Awards in order to hand out to winners. Watches are some of the most popular items given as rewards to accomplished people, so it makes sense that Bulova wants Grammy Award winners to wear a Grammy watch.

Citizen may want Grammy Award winners to sport their horological spin on the musical math known as the Circle of Fifths, but unless the Japanese watchmaker slips many thousand dollars in cash in the nominee’s swag bags, #itainthappening. As aBtW commentator Patrick Koch points out, “So they are handing out these watches to a demographic who wear Rolex or equivalent as daily beaters. …LOL”

Bulova close-up

The celebrity gimme is a music-themed watch with a picture window on an automatic movement so unremittingly bland looking it makes Andy Williams sound like Joey Ramone. For some reason ($), Mr. Adams sees it as a feature, not a bug.

The movement is the Miyota caliber 8N24 automatic, which is made more interesting by its skeletonized design. The Grammy watch dial is mostly translucent in the middle (but not distractingly so), offering a handsome view of the movement in its skeletonized glory. 

The Bulova GRAMMY Awards watch’s undecorated movement isn’t interesting. It is distracting. And putting its metal bits on display accords the Japanese watch no more “glory” than a bottomless stripper standing on her head and waggling her legs inches away from a VIP room customer sitting in a recently sanitized pleather wingback chair.

Bulova side shot

Still, some people like that sort of thing. They may even be the same sort of people who’d pay $850 for a 44.5mm X 12mm thick watch with a Grammium dial.

While Greek scholars wonder when Bulova found the lost city of Crete by that name, Mr. Adams’ celebrates the metal’s “gold tone.” It’s actually a zinc alloy developed to increase the Grammy Award’s gilded gramaphone’s ability to withstand drugged winners’ eventual and inevitable “I was a star!” temper tantrum.

Bulova GRAMMY Awards watch caseback

You can see the record player in question on the Bulova GRAMMY Awards watch’s caseback. Notice something odd about the picture from Bulova’s website? A little perspective problem perhaps? It doesn’t give one much confidence in Bulova’s attention to detail – although I really dig that guitar tuning peg crown. I can’t say the same for Mr. Adams’ reliably milquetoast summary.

I suppose what I admire most about the Bulova Grammy watch is how traditionally easy it is to live with, while also not having a traditional look. The interesting case, deep and colorful dial, as well as colors that match the Grammy Awards theme, are all pretty nicely done. 

“Pretty nicely done.” Heh. I’d accuse Mr. Adams of damning the Bulova with faint praise, but the “reviewer” is no more capable of biting the hand that feeds than a goldfish. But I give him max props for not censoring his commentariot – the Greek chorus reminding readers of the truth about watches. Welcome here anytime, of course.

13 COMMENTS

  1. The watch is unsurprisingly ugly and made worse by visualization of the drab movement. However, there’s nothing wrong with pleathor, especially if I keep it sanitized.

  2. That subtly horizontal asymmetry of the case shape is annoying without really invoking the intended instrument. It just looks a little pear shaped, hippy, saggy. At least they made it flat black instead of something more reminiscent of music, so it shows less.

  3. Bulova used to be a wonderful brand. With only a few exceptions, I can’t say I’m happy about the direction Citizen is taking it. A Bulova Precisionist or Accutron II with the 262khz quartz movement (I still own a few, including the Lunar watch) was something to be proud of.

    But now, these garish Bulovas with downmarket Citizen 8000-series automatics or retro pieces with run-of-the-mill quartz movements demonstrate that Citizen sees Bulova as a brand for wanna-bes with little money – and even less taste.

    A pity.

  4. Wow, that’s fugly. It’s so over the top, it reminds me of the episode of American Chopper, when Billy Joel commissioned them to make him a bike. He explicitly said to NOT make it musically-themed. As they went to work in the real bike, the younger son (Mike) and one of his goofball buddies started a moped build with an over-the-top piano motif. It was hysterical. Billy Joel, as it turns out, was quite the stick in the mud about it and did not find it humorous.

  5. Dear Sir,

    I found your sentence completely vulgar, sexist and offensive. This kind of imagery is just unnecessary.
    “And putting its metal bits on display accords the Japanese watch no more “glory” than a bottomless stripper standing on her head and waggling her legs inches away from a VIP room customer sitting in a recently sanitized pleather wingback chair.”

    Joe Gibbons

      • He found this sentence completely vulgar, sexist and offensive, as this kind of imagery is just unnecessary. Just so there is no confusion about what he deems objectionable, I’ll quote it.
        “And putting its metal bits on display accords the Japanese watch no more “glory” than a bottomless stripper standing on her head and waggling her legs inches away from a VIP room customer sitting in a recently sanitized pleather wingback chair.”
        I might as well use this opportunity to preemptively ask if a comparison of skeleton dials to crotchless panties is inappropriate, as that analogy is in something I’m writing.

          • I hope he responds. I took the full repetition and signed anonymity, as well as the haughty “Dear Sir” opening, to imply sarcasm. I may be wrong.
            But I do agree that skeleton dials, and for that matter exhibitionist case backs, are as indecent as spread collars. Such immodestly leaves little to the imagination.

          • It definitely has meaning. It means, “I don’t have a cogent argument or rebuke of your statement / claim. Therefore, I shall don the mantle of offended victimhood, which automatically elevates my status as superior to you and your offensive offensiveness. Accordingly, my fickle sensitivities supersede your Right to Free Speech.”

  6. Showing the innards of watches through their dial is a somewhat recent craze, and it is rather prevalent in the taste of customers from the East. For reasons unknown to me, they are the ones who find pleasure in an open-heart dial revealing the balance wheel in motion – and some companies (I am looking at you, ERA) tout this as a “tourbillon experience”. I have nothing against skeletonized watches, though, if the skeletonizing makes sense: but this movement is – err – too plain to be interesting.

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