Grammys Recap

Ahhh The Grammys... A TV event so special I even watched it over the Pro Bowl. For those of you who aren’t football fans, that previous sentence was drenched in sarcasm. Anyhow, this was the first Grammys event that I actually had intentions of watching in a really long time. Not because Neil Young was up for best Box Set Packaging, and not because Karen O & The Kids were up for “Best Song Written for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media”, instead I watched because Lady Gaga is the best thing in pop since... I’m having a tough time coming up with someone. So how convenient it was that Lady Gaga opened up the show, I could have turned it off immediately after and said, “Wow, this was possibly the best Grammy’s in history!” Now if you follow this blog at all, it’s pretty evident I like to gush over Lady Gaga, and the Grammy’s are just another reason for me to do just that. How could you not love Lady Gaga? She’s a genius who knows how to work an audience, she can write as good of a melody as anyone out there, her performances are unforgettable, and her name is derived from the Queen song “Radio Gaga”. With that said, I’m going to give a quick recap of how I saw the Grammys.

Starting off with the positives - Lady Gaga and Elton John were by far the best part of the show. Rumors were floating around that the fabulous duo were going to take the stage together, and their dueling pianos/outfits didn’t disappoint. Both Gaga and Elton played incredibly off each other and really brought out the best in each others attitude and vocals. Jeff Beck’s performance was a nice change of pace, and did Les Paul justice. Mary J. Blige and Andrea Bocellie were phenomenal with their performance of “Bridge Over Troubled Waters”. While I want to slam Beyonce for taking on that classic Alanis tune, I simply can’t, she was good.

Since this is a Grammy’s roundup I could write a few pages on the negatives, but I’ll try to keep it simple. Pink has turned into a Cirque de Soleil act and forgot that the performances were supposed to be musical. Leave the acrobatics to the acrobats and show us your vocal prowess. If the audience is supposed to vote throughout the show for the Bon Jovi song of choice, shouldn’t they play the entire song and not some abbreviated version? Bad job producers! It’s no surprise that the little rap group featuring Eminem was saved for the end, because hopefully by that point people were too tired to actually notice that there was more silence than music. Oh yeah, honestly, who likes the Dave Matthews Band? I’m also sick of people whining about Green Day selling out - so did The Who, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Kinks, Bob Dylan, and practically every other band that anyone holds in such high regards. Who cares, it’s a part of the business and as long as the original music doesn’t suffer as a result then should we really be bothered? Yeah, their performance was corny, but lets not use the term sell out. This years Grammy’s was a great display of how many people truly are unable to sing - examples 1) Taylor Swift’s total inability to hold her own with Stevie Nicks (sure she’s cute but don’t demean Stevie like that) 2) The hideous overuse of auto-tune, Jamie Foxx I’m looking at you. Oh yeah, and who is a bigger joke, Axl Rose or Slash? Lastly, did the Grammy’s give AC/DC an award for releasing the same album for the fifteenth time? Nothing is more embarrassing than handing out sympathy awards.

So were the Grammys a disappointment? Not at all! How could you say something is a disappointment when the expectations were so low that I was even questioned watching the Pro Bowl over it? Gaga was great, Elton was awesome, and I even got to see Spinal Tap for approximately two seconds.