Grammys 2017: Adele's Revenge

Who gives a damn about a Grammy? Other than Chance the Rapper hopefully no one. But what I DO give a damn about is the Grammys telecast. It’s great! Sometimes for the wrong reasons, but whatever! I love watching it. So, as always, here are some thoughts on each of this years performances: 

Adele (Hello)

“Heeeellllooooooo from 12 months ago” - Adele

Nothing like showing how you have your finger on the pulse of music like starting your music awards show out with a song from 2015. Keep up the good work Grammys!

James Cordon opening

James Cordon is the best case scenario for a musical theater kid.

The Weeknd

The Weeknd is the best case scenario for selling out.

Also, The Weeknd is great in any situation, but definitely the situation The Weeknd is best in is when Drake cancels on your awards show last minute.

Keith Urban/Country Music Barbie

Is this country music is now??? If so I guess it’s true what they say: one generation’s dance-influenced guitar pop is the next generation’s country music. 

Either that or genre is now officially dead.

Ed Sheeran

Fun game I like to play: Former Harry Potter Actor or Ed Sheeran

Fun fact that is definitely true: No one over the age of 26 can name a single Ed Sheeran song

Fun thing to watch on The Grammys: Not this performance

Lukas Graham/Kelsea Ballerini

It’s been fun not knowing you Kelsea Ballerini. Best of luck with everything.

HOT TAKE SO HOT THAT IT’S ON FIRE: “7 Years” is a good song and I enjoy it.

(Feels good to get that off my chest)

Beyonce

In retrospect Destiny’s Child is the most fitting name possible for a young-Beyonce fronted group. This Beyonce is where the last 20 years of popular music have been building to. If 1998 Lauryn Hill, 2008 Lady Gaga, and 2010 Kanye had a daughter, that daughter would want to be 2016/17 Beyonce when she grows up.

Having the platform, permission, vision, and talent to give this performance is really the final level possible of popular artistic success. Clearly Beyonce is there and it’s awesome to see. But mostly I just enjoy how Solange Beyonce is now.

Bruno Mars

Bruno Mars paradoxes:

-Bruno Mars remains somehow both incredibly overrated and incredibly underrated at the same time.

-Bruno Mars is one of the most charismatic performers in history, yet also somehow has no discernible personality.

-Pretty much everyone would agree that a Bruno Mars concert seems like it would be awesome, yet I doubt there’s a single person I know who would ever actually want to go to one.

Bruno Mars remains a great live performer and an even greater enigma, and the Earth will now die and crash into the sun before The Grammys will ever again happen without a Bruno Mars performance.

Katy Perry

I don't know if its acceptable to ironically love Katy Perry yet or not, but regardless, I audibly expressed excitement when her performance was introduced. Listening to new Katy Perry singles is my heroin. I know I’ll never get back that original high of “Teenage Dream” but I’m addicted to trying anyway. It just makes me feel so good inside. And it will somehow probably lead to my death.

Also, how quietly Katy Perry is winning the Perry/Swift civil war is so Katy Perry. And as much as I like Taylor Swift I’m gonna be one of the first people off the boats at Normandy

Gary Clark Jr.

Gary, you're great and I'm sure that was lovely, but I gotta be honest, I was still Perry drunk for your whole performance.

Alicia Keys/Maren Morris

I feel like we as a society have failed Alicia Keys. She’s some parallel universe’s Beyonce.

And I had no real idea who Maren Morris was coming into tonight but I have a strong feeling her album sales just picked up significantly. So way to Ricky Martin that thing Maren!

Adele (George Michael tribute)

In an existential twist, messing up made that way better than it would have been had everything gone according to plan. (Wake up sheep! Adele’s Sound Issues were an inside job!)

And the in-the-moment confusion over how much of Adele’s post-song emotion was about George Michael and how much was about the restart is why there's still nothing quite like watching live TV.

Lady Gaga/Metallica

Wow Lady Gaga’s country phase sure just took a dramatic turn.

Pretty sure Lady Gaga is the first person to perform on the Grammys with both Metallica and Tony Bennett, but I’ll have to check on that. All I know is I’m looking forward to next year when she performs with Wu-Tang Clan.

Sturgill Simpson

Dwight Yoakum introducing Sturgill Simpson feels even more on the nose than Beyonce being introduced by her own mother.

After that performance Sturgill Simpson easily retains his title as My All-Time Favorite Live Performer That I Had Never Even Heard of Two Months Ago. Also there's literally nothing in life The Dap-Kings don’t make better.

The Bee Gees Tribute

I know that literally no one in the world needed or wanted that, but hey, good news, Little Big Town covering “How Deep Is Your Love” is now the official theme song of CBS. So there’s that.

A Tribe Called Quest and Friends

My review

1st Half: ….honestly? Kind of a mess.

2nd Half: ALL THE FIRE EMOJIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you kick it? I’m pretty sure you just did. The ONLY bright side to the next four years is the hope that we might get to experience even more shit like that.

Prince Tribute

Bruno Mars and The Time doing the Grammys' Prince Tribute is the occam’s razor of Prince tributes. It also feels like the last word. Although I also think we’d all be totally fine with just continuing to do Prince tributes forever.

Chance the Rapper

There was a 100% chance that was going to be transcendently great and indeed it was. I don’t believe in God, but Chance the Rapper is so great that he makes me think that I do.

John Legend/Cynthia Erivo

HOT TAKE SO HOT IT CAN MELT STEEL BEAMS: I’m over awards shows doing solemn In Memoriam segments.

Neil Portnow
NEIL PORTNOW BITCHES!!!!! James Cordon thought he could upstage Neil Portnow with his Neil Portnow intro but NOTHING CAN UPSTAGE NEIL PORTNOW! 

Real talk: At this point I legitimately don’t know if my excitement about Neil Portnow is even ironic anymore. This is my cry for help.

The fact that The Grammys ended the performance section of the night with In Memoriam and Neil Portnow

#ThatsSoGrammy

Grammys 2016

Yes, the Grammys are a dumb pointless out-of-touch awards show, but they're also a fantastic night for televised live music performances. It's always my favorite TV watching night of the year, and this year was no exception. So who cares who won or lost, let's run through what really matters - each of the performances in order:

Taylor Swift

You know what’s NOT out of the woods? Taylor Swift’s singing ability. But at least she was able to come up with a great concept for the performance - singing "Out of the Woods" while literally emerging from a darkened area full of trees. I mean, where does she come up with this stuff???

Well, the good thing about being Taylor Swift at The Grammys is you know there's always next year.

Sam Hunt & Carrie Underwood

Close your eyes and imagine how a person named Sam Hunt would dress for their Grammy performance. Now open them - you were exactly right!

Speaking of appearances, interesting to see that country music dealt with losing Taylor Swift by making Carrie Underwood look just like her. “Maybe no one will notice it's a different person!”

Anyway, totally unmemorable performance by Country Music Ken and Barbie.

The Weeknd

You know who would absolutely hate The Weeknd’s 2016 Grammy performance? 2012 The Weeknd.

Before performing a serious stripped down ballad at the Grammys, it's always important to ask yourself “Am I Adele?” If the answer is no then do something else. In The Weeknd’s case maybe try doing one of the songs that got you here and represent what you do best. Or, ya know, the exact opposite of that.

Andrea Day & Ellie Goulding

“Hey, I know, let’s follow a guy standing around singing an unmemorable ballad in an unmemorable way with two women doing the exact same thing! That’ll be a real Grammy Moment!”

I fell asleep at some point so I missed the exact name of that song, but I’m pretty sure it was called “Polite Applause”.

Lionel Ritchie tribute

Wow an overly-long, bland, inoffensive Lionel Ritchie tribute - or as it's known on CBS, Monday night.

A few other thoughts:

-If the Grammys aesthetic could be distilled down to a single person, that person would be John Legend.

-Holy shit, Demi Lovato isn't Vanessa Hudgens! Who knew?

-Luke Bryan honoring Lionel Ritchie is one of those ideas that sounds ridiculous in theory, but is also ridiculous in practice.

-They would have let Luke Bryan sing longer but they didn't want his cruise ship to leave without him.

Little Big Town

"Hey look, country music can be just as boring as stuffy as “real” music!"

Everything you need to know about country music is that there's a big division in the industry between people who think "Girl Crush" is controversial and people who think it's clever, when in fact it's not remotely either. I do however like Little Big Town’s follow-up single, “He Gets It In The Butt” about the dangers of cigarette smoking.

The Eagles

Wait, which one of these people died again? Jackson Browne?

Nice performance by wax sculpture versions of the Eagles, but maybe next time program them to take it little less easy. Pretty sure they took that “I’m standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona” line a bit too literally this time. But it did wind up being a great PSA for prescription sleep-aid abuse. So that's nice.

Tori Kelly & James Bay

“Shhh, we don’t want to wake up The Eagles…”

Hamilton

HAMILTON HAMILTON HAMILTON! IN CASE OF HAMILTON PLEASE BREAK GLASS!!! 

YES THE SONG WAS SLOWED DOWN TOO MUCH, AND YES EVERYONE LOOKED SLIGHTLY NERVOUS, AND YES “MY SHOT” AND “SCHUYLER SISTERS” ARE BETTER AWARDS SHOW SONGS BUT THEY’RE SAVING THEM FOR THE TONYS, BUT WHO CARES, HOLY SHIT IT’S HAMILTON!

As a theater person through and through I never thought I would see the day that a pop music awards show would be desperate to steal some of musical theater’s mojo, yet here we are. It’s a real shame the cast recording wasn't nominated for Album of the Year, but still, Lin-Miranda got contemporary musical theater onto the Grammy telecast. How lucky were are to be alive right now. 

And now, in the immortal words of The Beastie Boys, no sleep til The Tony Awards.

Kendrick Lamar

THAT is why I tune into this ridiculous award show every year. Because every once in awhile something singular and visionary and incredible like that will slip through the cracks. And when it does, it feels like magic. It feels like an event. Like one of those “Moments” that the Grammys are so obsessed with talking about. But the lesson here is, as always, instead of trying to force a big Moment or manufacture them by committee, you just have to give an incredible artist with something to say the resources and space to execute their vision, and then get out of the way.

No one loves Kanye West more than me, but I really hope he was watching Kendrick because he could really learn something from that performance. We all could. The rest of the Grammys was entertainment; Kendrick made art.

Adele

There’s apparently no truth to the rumor that Taylor Swift was in charge of the audio for Adele’s performance. But even with all the sound issues, it's amazing that Adele was able to take the exact thing that has been so boring all night - people standing motionless singing overly-serious stripped-down ballads - and make it utterly captivating. 

Also, do you think Adele already has her 2017 speech ready? If I were her I would just keep some spare acceptance speeches in my purse at all times - never know when you might need one. 

Justin Bieber

I think I kinda…really liked that? Making a song overly serious and epic at the Grammys actually really worked for once. Is Jack U the new U2? Is Justin Bieber our new Bono? What world is this?

David Bowie tribute

Great performance by David Bowie’s Wikipedia Page!

On the one hand, if the Grammys had just said “Ladies and Gentlemen: Lady Gaga” and stopped right there, that would have been the best David Bowie tribute they could have possibly done. But on the other hand, at least they can now be sure that David Bowie is actually dead, because if he wasn't before, that tribute definitely killed him.

BB King tribute

Now THAT is how you pay tribute to someone. I want to buy music from every single person involved in that. 

Chris Stapleton paying tribute to BB King is one of those ideas that sounds ridiculous in theory, but is actually awesome in practice. And man, Bonnie Raitt, that was some Melissa Etheridge/Janis Joplin-tribute level shit right there. 

Well done all around!

Alabama Shakes

Man, Brittany Howard, that was some Melissa Etheridge/Janis Joplin-tribute level shit right there!

Excited that in Alabama Shakes, The Grammys have finally found their new Foo Fighters. I would listen to Brittany Howard sing literally anything.

Hollywood Vampires

“It’s music’s biggest night! We’re here to honor the very best in music! Now here’s a performance by Johnny Depp’s vanity band!”

That was offensive to me, but for absolutely none off the reasons The Hollywood Vampires wanted it to be. I mean I know Alice Cooper wanted some stage time to work on his Johnny Depp impression, but it would have been so much easier for them to just crash two small trains together and get it over with.

Pitbull

I have a lot of questions including: What? Why? Who? and How?

Remember the year that Arcade Fire won Album of the Year and then celebrated by playing another song to close the show? Serious question: why does that not happen every year? Just tell the five nominees to have a second song ready to go in case they win and then that song would close the show every year. It would be a cool tradition, and keep viewers tuned in til the very end. It's a perfect idea, which means instead, Pitbull will close the show every year form here on out. Which leads me to close this with the official motto of the Grammys: “Ugh”

The 2012 Adele's

As someone who can vividly recall every Grammys ceremony since 1997, I don't know if theres ever been a less suspenseful telecast than this year (except perhaps the year of the Santana sweep). And as the last living American who actually cares about the results of the Grammy Awards it felt good. Two years in a row now the Grammys have (very arguably) chosen the actual best album of the year for Album of the Year. Leaving aside the fact that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy wasn't even nominated for Album of the Year (which is a whole other issue, but that's for another time), it might actually be starting to seem like there is some sort of internal logic to the Grammys. Or I could be slowly going insane. But the very first time I heard 21 I thought "this will win a shit ton of Grammys". And it did! And that was true in nearly every category this year. The most obvious Grammy-friendly nominee wound up winning almost every time. And the fact that many of them were actually the most deserving nominees was an extra bonus.

But ultimately it doesn't matter.

Because the Grammys have always been the anti-Oscars. No cares about the awards; we all just watch for the entertainment value of the show itself. When talking about the Grammys it's never about who won or lost but how they played the game. "The game" of course being "performing great live musical numbers". And this year, they played (mostly) great as always. But before moving on to thoughts on each of the night's performances there are a few stray comments I had:

-LL Cool J was totally useful and necessary

-I'm really curious to see how the ratings are for this year's show because I feel like with Whitney Houston's death they could be off the charts. If you have to die (and we all do) I think we've now learned that the absolute best time to do it is the day before your industry's biggest awards show. Although I do wonder how things would have been different if she had died the SAME DAY as The Grammys. That would have been insane. And here I am looking at a human life and a great tragedy solely through the lens of how it effects a meaningless awards show. But one of my first thoughts when I heard the news of her death was, "well, I guess we know who is getting the final slot in the death montage tomorrow night". Which is awful. And also human.

Welcome to perspective in the age of twitter.

On a related note...

-Alicia Keys and Bonnie Raitt what were you DOING?!? Singing a tribute song that’s not by Whitney Houston??? Who is this Etta James person? Did she just die yesterday? I don’t think so! So why are you honoring her? How could Neil Portnow let this happen?

-Kanye is not at The Grammys??? That’s like Taylor Swift not being at the Country Music Awards. Is it some kind of protest? Yes everyone would agree he got egregiously shafted this year. And yes it must especially hurt since MBDTF was clearly designed specifically to win awards and critical approval. But even Stevie Wonder and Norah Jones collaborating on a Paul Simon tribute album released two days before he died in a terrible car accident wasn’t beating Adele this year so who really cares?

So where were you Kanye? Don’t even try to act like you had something better to do. A nation (specifically me) demands answers!

-In the upset of the evening, Adele’s speaking voice is even better than her singing voice! She should give speeches always. I havent enjoyed a person's Britishness that much since Amy Winehouse won Record of the Year for "Rehab". (BTW, gold star to whoever decided to sit Adele literally 3 steps from the stage)

-Text of the Night: (from my friend Chris on the strangeness of the Grammys) “George Strait and Taylor Swift in the same category makes me uncomfortable. It’s like having Shakespeare and Neil LaBute in the same category.”
(And if you don’t know who is Shakespeare and who is Neil LaBute in that analogy, then clearly you didn’t grow up in Texas)

Alright, on to the show. In chronological order:

Bruce Springsteen
This was a Bruce Springsteen song. It sounded like a Bruce Springsteen song. Bruce Springsteen performed it exactly the way Bruce Springsteen performs songs.

Bruce Springsteen.

Bruno Mars
I think Bruno Mars should only ever perform on Grammy Awards telecasts. Based on my experience of Bruno Mars in non-Grammy contexts he's a disposable performer of cheesy, bland, personality-less songs. Based on my experiences of him at the Grammys the past two years he's a person who brings the charisma of 1,000 suns to his high energy performances of awesome retro-soul jams. One of these two realities is not right. And I have no idea which.

Chris Brown
Don’t know why people were upset about Chris Brown performing. Pretty sure he didn’t beat any women TODAY. He did however rape my memories of playing Q-Bert surrounded by men wearing surgical masks. Which really are my some of my fondest memories.

I could come up with other thoughts on this performance but Chris Brown isn’t worth it. If he had beaten Taylor Swift he’d be in jail right now. Let’s move on.

Jason Aldean & Kelly Clarkson
BATHROOM BREAK!

Foo Fighters
Not the Foo Fighters best song obviously, but a pretty great performance. Dave Grohl always makes me wish I had chosen “rock n’ roll” as a profession. Also, nice to see that long hair is still around. It’s fun to watch it being whipped around.

All that being said though, no matter how many Grammys they win or great performances they give I will always consider The Foo Fighters failures until the day when they finally defeat Foo.

Rihanna & Coldplay
Wow, not a good Grammys so far for epileptics. A good Grammys however for Olivia Newton-John’s "Physical"-era fashion sense.

Some questions:
If you're a Los Angeles-based hip-hop dancer and you weren’t employed in that "We Found Love" routine is it officially time to hang it up?
Is it a bad thing that the lead singer of arguably the biggest band in the world is terrible at singing live?
Is it bad that a Chipotle commercial just did a better job of presenting Coldplay’s music than Coldplay did?
Is Chris Martin on the Mucaulay Culkin diet?

Lastly, I’m a big Coldplay fan so I say this with love, but here are some things that they should maybe never ever again reference in any of their songs:
-rainbows
-teardrops
-waterfalls
-butterflies

The Beach Boys
(I preface this all, like the last one, by saying I’m a HUGE Beach Boys fan. Pet Sounds is a desert island album for me and I’d put their 70's stuff up against anything. Seriously, check out Sunflower.)

I don’t usually watch CBS but I assume that their programming is normally just that Beach Boys reunion performance on a loop. It's the exact opposite of the dance music performance that’s coming up. I never thought a song usually in the discussion for Greatest Song of All Time could sound so placid.

Also, my mom texted before the performance to ask how many of the Beach Boys are still alive? Is it safe to now say technically none of them? And how long do you think it will take Madame Tussauds to get their Brian Wilson wax figure back?

Paul McCartney (1st Performance)
John Lennon is glad he’s dead

Taylor Swift
I am an unabashed Taylor Swift fan. I thought she was great. I liked the presentation. I like the song. And I’m thrilled to see her growing into a confident and exciting live performer. Which is important because she will be performing on the Grammys every year from now until the end of time.

Good job.

Katy Perry
Thought that was definitely one of the best performances of a song about having sex with an alien that Ive ever seen at the Grammys. When she switched over to the stuff with the fire and the shattering glass I got a little confused, but hey, a new Katy Perry song! That's all I really need out of life. (No really, it is.)

Adele
I think people have treated appearances by the Pope with less reverence than I treated that Adele performance. Watching Adele sing is like watching Meryl Streep do a monologue. Whitney Houston only died because she finally felt confident that she had an acceptable new host body. Give Adele all the awards ever. (Oh, you were already planning on it? Okay, carry on then…)

Glen Campbell Tribute
That was nice. I’m glad they did it. My emotional reaction to it probably had more to do with my deep-seated fear of Alzheimer’s than the performance itself, but whatever. Still nice.

And hey, remember that time Jon Lovitz hilariously had the DJ play “Rhinestone Cowboy” at the school dance in High School High? Yeah…neither do I…

Neil Portnow
NEIL FUCKING PORTNOW BITCHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not quite enough on how downloading music will lead to the downfall of civilization this year, but who cares??? With his body of work that’s like complaining that Bob Dylan’s new stuff isn’t as good as the classics. It’s still Neil Portnow!!!!

Oh Neil Portnow, never change.

(On a side note, are we all entirely sure that Neil Portnow wasn’t at the Beverly Hilton Saturday afternoon…?)

Whitney Houston Tribute
Barely a day’s notice to prepare for singing a tribute to the greatest vocal performance of all time? And you absolutely nail it? That’s some fucking lady balls (ovaries?) right there Jennifer Hudson. Mad props.

Dance Music Thing
Dance music has been on The Grammys on CBS, so we can all be done with it now, right kids?

To get semi-serious for a minute, one of the questions I’ve always had is what sort of insane music our kids would have to listen to in order to piss us off. I mean we’re a generation that knows all the words to Tupac’s “Hit Em Up”, a song that begins “That’s why I fucked your bitch you fat motherfucker” and then goes downhill (uphill?) from there. Well, we finally have our answer. Because I’ve never felt older in my life than the first time I heard (the Grammy winning!!!) “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites”. (I still feel genuinely scarred by the experience.) And basically the only thought I had during this whole dance music tribute thingy was “I am very old and very scared”. Also, “that mouse head seems very unsafe”.

(But seriously though, what did the Foo Fighters playing “Rope” have to do with dance music? I demand logic from my nonsense!)

Nicki Minaj
Nicki has taken all of Gaga’s style but none of her substance. I love Gaga, but I really hope this is not what she hath wrought. I’m sure the Grammys let Nicki Minaj go second to last in the show because she promised them controversy, but really, it was just predictable and boring. I’ve seen train wrecks that were better conceived than that.

Nicki is somehow the exact opposite of nearly every other successful mainstream hip hop artist in that her actual rapping ability is inversely proportional to the quality of her music instead of the other way around. And unfortunately that doesn’t appear to be changing any time soon.

Oh well, we’ll always have “Monster”

Paul McCartney (2nd Performance)
Needed more guitar.

No but seriously, how great was that? The only thing that would have made it better was if he had capped it off with "Her Majesty". But then again (like all people worth knowing) I’m a huge Beatles nerd.

(And speaking of being a Beatles nerd, is it safe at this point to declare Paul’s longtime backing drummer as the 5th Beatle? Because that guy is awesome. And if so, I should probably learn his name. Especially since he’s basically a member my family at this point)

Anyway, great way to close the show as that’s exactly why we tune into the Grammys. For reminding us that despite the awards they give out honoring the best in music, that music can infact still be the best.

Can't wait for next year.