Grammy Recap

As much as I love Fergie, my first thank you for the show opener has to go to Gwen. Crappy as her solo debut was; any woman who can get the Grammy's to open their show with the international symbol of piracy, the skull & crossbones, & wear a pirate outfit no less, has my eternal admiration. Go Gwen!! Obviously, if they were hip enough to figure the thing out, they would have squelched her artistic freedom so fast it'd make your head spin. Showing their stupidity only makes it more fun.

Adam, the key needs to come down baby, thank goodness Franz Ferdinand kicked some ass out there & saved the open. Grammy has featured great crossover for years now & it just keeps getting better & better. As much as I loved Beyonce & Prince last year, I think this opener topped it.

I loved seeing the first prize go to Los Lonely boys, the Tex-Mex brothers with heart & their proud dad. It was great to see the keys get some props from Alicia, who was described by Sheryl Crow on the way in as basically the great girl hope. I have to agree, if anyone can take Aretha's mantle, it's her. She's an amazing artist and watching her face off with Jamie as Q looked on with a big Ray T shirt kicked it up.

Bono supposedly makes "out there" into "out of the box" and that's supposed to sound fresh. Not to me. I'm sorry, I can't get past their suit of Negativland & the Ebay/iPod stuff (12/2/04 post). He should be supporting artistic freedom not just human rights.

I choked up as soon as I saw Freebird coming... it's been my favorite song all my adult life. They didn't do a good job with it, but it was good to hear Ramblin' Man, I went to college in upstate New York, it's as redneck as it gets & we saw all those southern rock bands constantly. As to Sweet Home Alabama, if I hear one more band cover that song...

The carpet last night wasn't red. It was Green (even though it was the day before Valentine's Day), as is my blog background today, in their honor. Take the time to check out these lyrics. American Idiot is a concept album chock full of great songs & deserved Best Album. Ray was a legend & it was our last time to honor him but it's so important to highlight stuff that's fresh and risky and, most of all, good music.

Kanye West was awesome. I can't remember a performance that electrifying since Ricky Martin. I was thrilled to see him take the Grammy & his acceptance speech had me in tears. His music came from a deep appreciation of a life he had a second chance at. Everything in this blog has basically had this overriding message of live your life to the fullest, make it exactly what you want or you're wasting the gifts god gave you... and to see this young man express that so fully, to take rap music from gangsta straight to gospel. WOW. Check out these lyrics.

The Janis tribute rocked but what happened to Pink's invite? She did a Janis tribute at her Shoreline concert a few years back that brought the house down & is slated to star as the blues legend in a major upcoming biopic... the ladies kicked ass but were out of breath at the end. I'd rather sing Aretha than Janis... aside from the rasp, she could hit five notes at once... no wonder she pooped out.

Joss' voice is too smooth for the material but Melissa was amazing, delivering dead on vocals despite dealing with chemo. Plus, being able to go totally bald inspired many cancer survivors to also say, hey, this is who I am right now. She really deserved that standing ovation.

The highlight of the evening, if not my life, was the performance by Usher & James Brown... amazing! I wish I could say more, but I'm speechless.

Then they have this unfortunate post-coital phase with Neil Portnow reviewing a bunch of dead people & dead ideas, I guess this is when the audience runs for its limos. The audience pan showed limp clapping over snide remarks. They showed their stupidity by offering up some vapid We Are the World rip-off rather than the Usher/JB duet for charity. Hey, at least they made it into the current century. After everyone & their brother started doing award shows, MTV, Billboard, AMA etc., they were forced to get with it. They aren't kidding about the gramophone thing... they used to be so out of it, they'd be giving Perry Como Grammy's in 1969 & stuff.

I was glad Ray got it in the end, our new patron saint of music was made so real in the movie and I really hope it will encourage more musical biopics. I agreed with most of the awards and agreed with the embarrassed Bono, who said this was the best show ever. I'm rewinding the tape as I type this. If you didn't catch Usher/JB give me a call because you don't want to miss this.