Beyonce and Jay-Z
“To kick off the Grammys…here’s a person not nominated
for any individual Grammys tonight! So give a warm Grammy welcome to Beyonce and
a disoriented old man!”
Nothing makes me happier than the fact that in Obama’s America
the person who sang the National Anthem at the Presidential Inauguration is the
same person who got bleeped at the Grammys while having sex with a chair. I may
generally have mixed feelings about Beyonce, but I’m becoming more and more pro-Beyonce
by the minute.
Lorde
#2014
Think piece idea: the embrace of minimalism in music by
children of The Great Recession
Think piece idea II: the children are our future – not such
a bad thing?
While Lorde may want to be called Queen Bee, I prefer to
call her Fiona Apple. Also, is epilepsy a thing now? It’s so hard to keep up
with what the kids are into these days.
Hunter Hayes
True story: Mark David Chapman only shot John Lennon so
he wouldn’t have to live to see his quotes projected during a Hunter Hayes performance
at the Grammys. It’s just a shame there was no one present in the building who
cared about protecting John Lennon’s legacy. (Yoko Ono burn!)
Anyway, the fastest possible way to get me to leave the room to use
the bathroom is to utter the sentence “Next up a powerful new ballad by Hunter
Hayes”, but from what I caught of it I’m just glad someone finally had the courage
and originality to write a song promoting the idea that the listener is special
and has the power to overcome adversity. About time we had a song like that.
Katy Perry
I want to take Lady Gaga and rub her nose in Katy Perry’s
performance while yelling “bad dog” until she feels bad about what she’s done.
I’m generally powerless to resist a good Katy Perry song,
but it says everything about Katy Perry that the part of her performance she
appeared to put the least amount of thought and energy into was the singing. And it was maybe
a little too on the nose to set that performance in the pits of hell. But
whatever, Juicy J was on the Grammys. I just hope when Katy Perry grows up she can be more like Lorde.
Chicago /Robin Thicke
Quiz: without cheating name a member of Chicago
While we’re doing quizzes, here’s a good ol’ SAT-style
analogy
Grammys : VMAs :: Robin Thicke and Chicago : Robin Thicke
and Miley Cyrus
I don’t really know what my point is necessarily other
than to say that anyone who thought the Miley Cyrus performance was the end of
civilization as we know it should really watch that Chicago performance and
then tell me which civilization seems more fun to live in. And I say this as someone
who owns three Chicago albums.
Keith Urban/Gary Clark Jr.
Remember when pre-mainstream-fame Mumford and Sons got to
perform with Bob Dylan at the Grammys? Gary Clark Jr. performing on the Grammys
with Keith Urban is the exact opposite of that. By which I mean I’m really
looking forward to bouncing my grandkids on my knee one day and telling them about the
time I wasted five minutes of my life watching Gary Clark Jr. suffer through a
Keith Urban song.
John Legend
Has anyone ever seen John Legend NOT at the Grammys?
Pretty sure he lives at the Staples Center. And while the last 20 years may have
seen the invention of the Internet and the iPhone, if John Legend is our
Stevie Wonder then we have failed miserably as a people.
Taylor Swift
Not sure if Taylor Swift was performing at the Grammys or
filming a shampoo commercial, but either way I thought it was pretty good. That
being said, we take you seriously now Taylor. You can let the mean comments
about that time you sang with Stevie Nicks go now. It would be cool next year
for stage-Taylor Swift to be more like audience-Taylor Swift
Pink featuring Nate Ruess
Remember that time we tuned into a Cirque du Soleil show
and a Pink concert broke out? By which I mean every awards show ever. Fun fact: there was a shark in that audience that Pink just flew over
(Speaking of jumping the shark: Nate Ruess’ mustache)
Seriously though, I think Pink is a great performer and everything
a pop star should be, I just wish she would get some new tricks already.
Ringo Starr
Good thing the Beatles’ legacy is literally impossible to
soil because all I could think during that performance was "don’t let Ringo
outlive Paul, don’t let Ringo outlive Paul…"
But really, please don’t let Ringo outlive Paul.
(Also, after that performance I feel certain that Pete Best
is on even higher suicide watch than usual)
Kendrick Lamar/Imagine Dragons
I’m pretty sure Kendrick Lamar has never listened to an
Imagine Dragons song, and I’m pretty sure their joint performance was a bit of
a train wreck, but I’m also pretty sure I kind of loved it. And when during
Kendrick’s last verse it appeared smoke was coming out of his microphone, well,
that was totally apt.
For better or worse it’s performances like that that you
can only get at the Grammys. They’re the whole reason we (and by “we” I mean I)
tune in.
Kacey Musgraves
What if instead of having the Grammys we just had a Kacey
Musgraves concert? Would anyone be opposed?
Two more Kacey Musgraves points:
1. I like Taylor Swift, but when Kacey Musgraves won Best
Country Album I shouted SUCK IT TAYLOR SWIFT!!! Now Kacey has beaten Taylor and
the circle of life begins anew.
2. Ten years from now nothing about these Grammys is going to seem dumber than the fact that Kacey Musgraves didn’t win Best New Artist.
(Are my Texas roots showing yet?)
Paul McCartney
I am an ardent and unabashed fan of Paul McCartney’s solo
work but I think it’s telling that the only person they could get a shot of
singing and dancing along enthusiastically to Paul’s song was his wife.
(Yoko Ono doesn’t count because it’s unclear if she was singing
and dancing along or if she was just being Yoko Ono (Yoko Ono burn!))
Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard and
Blake Shelton
Don’t know if it says more abot the Grammys or about
hipsterdom that the hippest performance at the Grammys was Willie Nelson, Kris
Kristofferson, and Merle Haggard. But gold star to whoever decided to cut
almost exclusively to shots of rappers during it. Says a lot that Jamie Foxx
seemed more into Merle Haggard than Taylor Swift and Taylor Swifts Dancing
Friend did.
Daft Punk featuring everyone who is awesome
Okay, that made the whole night worth it. It was just as
great as anyone could have predicted that it would be. Apparently when you get truly great people together to
perform a truly great song great things happen. Who knew?
Sara Bareillis/Carol King
Did this happen? Was this a thing that happened? I have
no idea if this actually happened or not. I might have dozed off.
Bruno Mars
While I was asleep I must have missed Bruno Mars’
performance. I mean this was the Grammys after all. You can’t have a Grammys
without the Grammy mascot. There’s no way they would allow that. Right??? I’m
sure he must have performed, so it’s a shame I missed my annual five minutes of
being a huge Bruno Mars fan. Oh well. Back to complete and total indifference towards
all things Bruno Mars. Til next year Bruno Mars…
Metallica/Lang Lang
The Grammys are Willie Nelson performing with Blake
Shelton and the Grammys are also Metallica performing with classical pianist
Lang Lang. The Grammys are all things. The Grammys contain multitudes. So once
the shock of seeing Metallica on CBS wore off I realized that the performance
was actually thoroughly Grammys, no matter how atypical the Metallica part of it
appeared. In the end I’m not sure how I felt about it as a performance, but I’m
glad it happened and that I saw it. Long live the Grammys!
“Same Love”
I’ll try and keep this brief…
As someone who considers Eminem performing on the Grammys
with Elton John a seminal moment of his adolescence I had been looking forward
to the performance of “Same Love” on the Grammys for months now because I recognized
it’s potential to be a similar moment for a new generation. And in the end it
exceeded even my highest expectations.
I don’t know that it’ll be a cultural moment of the
magnitude that Eminem’s performance was, but I think that’s more due to the fractured
nature of our culture than the performance itself. Because in the end, it was a
performance that perfectly captured the power of music, and its possibilities
as an agent of love and hope and change. Now I know snark and the Grammys go
hand and hand (I mean, have you read everything up until now?) but if you have
negative snarky things to say about this performance please stop reading my
blog forever and go take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror. And anyone
who thinks the Grammys are a pointless waste of time needs to watch this
performance and then shut the hell up forever.
Neil Portnow
NEIL PORTNOW!!! I LOVE THAT NEIL PORTNOW THINKS WE
REMEMBER EXACT DETAILS OF HIS SPEECH FROM LAST YEAR. BECAUSE WE TOTALLY DO!!!!
HOW COULD WE EVER FORGET YOUR SPEECHES NEIL PORTNOW?? YOU ARE THE HIGHLIGHT OF
OUR LIFE! THAT’S WHY IT’S GREAT YOU POSITIONED YOURSELF RIGHT AFTER THE
EMOTIONAL HIGH POINT OF THE EVENING. BECAUSE YOU ARE THE EMOTIONAL HIGH POINT
OF THE YEAR!!!! NEVER CHANGE NEIL PORTNOW
Everly Brothers tribute
I wish I could go back in time to 1994 and try to explain
to people how not weird it will seem when one day the lead singer of Green Day performs
an Everly Brothers tribute at the Grammys. Who knew at the time what a pivotal song
“Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” would wind up being. Or maybe I just missed
something and playing acoustic guitar with Miranda Lambert is the new punk.
Lindsey Buckingham, Nine Inch Nails, Dave Grohl, and
Queens of the Stone Age
This was great but also seemed like it never really had a
chance to get started. Right when it finally felt like it had some real
momentum they cut to the credits. Which whenever you have a rocking performance
that seems like it could really invigorate the whole evening it’s best to play
the closing credits over it. Great job Grammys! Speaking of which….
THE BIG FOUR AWARDS
(Okay so this first one wasn’t so great…)
Best New Artist
“Macklemore and Ryan Lewis meet the rap group Arrested
Development. Arrested Development, meet Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.”
(Speaking of introductions, can a clip of Anna Kendrick
wearing that dress while doing clever comedy bits play on a loop forever?
Asking for a friend.)
---------
(But these next three awards…I mean you could make a
legitimate case that these are the actual song, record, and album of the year.
Not an embarassing choice among them, and in all three cases the best
choice out of all of the nominees. Of course all this means is that next
year all of the awards are going to go to Bruno Mars and Phil Collins.)
Song of the Year
The Grammys not giving Song of the Year to “Same Love”,
the most Grammys song ever, is the most Grammy thing ever. If a white rapper collaborating
with a female vocalist and live instrumentation for a positive song about human
rights can’t win a Grammy then what can? An ever better song by a hip young
outsider dabbling in a genre all her own, challenging the mainstream status quo??
It’s like I don’t even know you any more Grammys!
Record of the Year
Daft Punk remaining in character to receive their awards was
the highlight of the night and will do way more for their sales, popularity, and
notoriety with the public at large than reading a list of names could have done in a million years. Lady
Gaga is so pissed that she’s not Daft Punk. And unlike Lady Gaga there’s a zero
percent chance the popularity and success of this Daft Punk song will ever seem
dumb.
Album of the Year
Well, we now live in a world where Daft Punk have won a
Grammy for Album of the Year. We’ve come a long way since Vaughn Meader. I’d
also just like to say that I called this one back in June. If I had bet money I
would be a wealthy man. But also betting money on the Grammys is the ultimate
form of insanity. So there’s that.
But with this win, here are the past four Album of the
Year winners: Arcade Fire (The Suburbs),
Adele (21), Mumford and Sons (Babel), and Daft Punk (Random Access Memories). No embarrassing clunkers in the lot and
all albums that had real connection to the trends and popular music scenes of
their day. Large numbers of people under the age of 40 own and enjoy each of those albums.
And I know some people aren’t big on Mumford and Sons but each of those albums
could make a legitimate claim as the best album of their respective years. I don’t
know if it’s an extended fluke or a real trend. But it’s encouraging and I profoundly
hope it continues. And on that note I’m now off to come to terms with Beyonce
winning next year because it’s going to take me a whole year to be emotionally
ready for it.
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