not-so-live-blogging the Grammys
So it's a day late but definitely not a dollar short, and I'm sort of glad I waited because I watched and listened to a bunch of post-Grammys stuff since then, and it's always good, I think, to rewatch before posting.
Red Carpet: Dude, you could have knocked Ryan over with a feather when they were breaking the news about Chris Brown. He was like, "no fucking way!" and Mark Malkin was all, "way."
U2: You know, this is the Staples Center. There are concerts here. So why is the sound for the Grammys so consistently bad? Also, did anyone else feel like the boys were sort of phoning it in? Part of this may be that I'm not that impressed with the "Subterranean Homesick Blues"-ness of that song; haven't we already heard that? I did like Bono's "Can we get Whitney Houston on this program?"
Whitney: I'm sorry, dear, but you look a mess-and I've seen the pics from Clive's party Saturday night. You should have worn the curly wig. You also shouldn't have taken whatever you took for your nerves because you were slurring your words which isn't a good look for your comeback-from-the-crack-pipe Grammy appearance. Nice dress, though.
Jennifer Hudson: I watched it again, I cried again.
The Rock: No. *skips*
JT, Al Green, Boyz II Men, Keith Urban: This was a last minute sub for Chris Brown, or Rihanna, whichever, and was pretty great for their finding out they were doing it sometime Sunday afternoon. Boys II Men sort of got the shaft in this one, which is unfortunate, but JT really can hold his own, can't he? The hometown story was rambly, but cute; we have a general store like that in my hometown too. At first I was like, Keith Urban? but that was a really soulful solo.
There have been low ratings for the Grammys of late and it's disturbing to see, in the first pod, an ad for Olay and one for heart medication. Olay has a sponsorship IIRC, but heart medication? Really, CBS?
The other thing CBS does is leave out the host and haul in a bunch of their TV stars to randomly show up, like Simon Baker in his cute little glasses.
Chris Martin and Jay-Z: How awesome is Jay, rapping to just a piano? I also liked Martin's painted piano.
Coldplay: But because that was awesome, Viva la Vida was sort of like, oh yes and here's the hit. That said, of course I love their drummer, because I love all alternate percussion, and because then he could stand up front with the rest of the band in his cute purple jacket. I could take or leave Coldplay most of the time, to be honest. But in terms of sound, clearly what you need to have for Grammy sound is a goddamn backing track, which will mostly drown out whatever you're actually doing on stage, which seems opposite of the spirit of the thing, doesn't it?
Keith Urban: I'm not sure about these lifetime achievement awards that are just little announcements; seems like Gene Autry deserves more than that even if he is dead.
Carrie Underwood: She was great, and that outfit was very Carrie, all golden and flesh colored and short (though the sleeves were weird) but never mind that. Who was that super hot guitar player in the leather pants and the boots? She was like this black-garbed devil to Carrie's not-really-angel, and watching Carrie sing to her completely sick fills makes me want to slash them-when I'm not crushing on the guitar player myself. And I never like guitar players!
Sheryl Crow and LeAnn Rimes: Sheryl must be sick of "All I Wanna Do." Also, Brenda Lee, see above re Gene Autry.
Sugarland: I like them so much and they are SOOO adorable. Yay Sugarland!
Duffy and Al Green: As Simon might say, that was really self-indulgent, the little sing-out thing, and I sort of couldn't even watch it. (But showing Andy Williams in the audience while he was singing "Moon River" was completely adorable.)
Coldplay: My favorite part is the band hug. So cute that none of them had dates, but they were all sitting together. Oh, and the drummer talking is full of yay. (He even has a beard and ginger hair! I know I'm late to this party but he's so adorable!)
Kid Rock: No.
Miley and Taylor: So the thing is, Taylor writes these great little songs, and she has a great little voice (which is why she didn't sound that great on SNL, whose sound is not kind to singers in general-I remember Mary J didn't sound great on her first appearance, either). But Miley doesn't have a little voice, and she doesn't seem to know how to not SCREAM AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS all the time. And I can't help but think, jeez Miley, you have no idea what this song is about, for reals. Also, I wish they hadn't had any other musicians with them at all, because it would have been more interesting, but that's handlers for you.
Alison Krauss and Robert Plant: While Taylor was clearly genuinely excited that they won (and probably has a whole thing for Alison Krauss) did anyone else get the feeling that Miley didn't really know who they were?
Jennifer Hudson: How great did she sound, especially at the start before the track kicked in? Note entirely appropriate use of the gospel choir. Great dress, too. And yes, I totally teared up.
Emily Proctor and Jason Mraz: Ooh, more stars of CBS procedural dramas!
Stevie and the Jo Bros: So this is the thing about the Jonas Brothers: they sound exactly how you think they're going to-poppy and very, very competent. There's so much in the track and so many musicians behind them that I'm never sure those boys' guitars are plugged in. The shout outs to Stevie were sort of silly, as was their trying to be funky and sing "Superstition", but really, trying to be funky when Stevie is on the stage just doesn't make anyone look good. (cf JT and Al Green.)
Blink! Together again! Awesome! Also there isn't room in my head for a nomination for Kings of Leon.
Coldplay continue to be all adorable and it's all about the band, man. I love boys in bands, they're so chummy. And I liked Chris Martin's limestone joke. (Then again, I like all uses of the word "charming" because it's like, Ali's favorite word.)
I love Craig Ferguson.
Katy Perry: No.
Kanye and Estelle: I fucking ADORE this song. But what's up with Kanye's hair? Is he auditioning for New Edition later or something?
Adele: I admit, I was rooting for her, so I'm super excited and my god, she was SO CUTE wasn't she?
Okay, who knew that Kenny Chesney was BFFs with Morgan Freeman? The song was nice; I'm not really into Chesney but he certainly seems able.
Natalie Cole must be sick of that song, too. Damn she has a lot of makeup on, but she's pretty sick lately so it's awesome that she even showed up.
Alison Krauss and Robert Plant let T-Bone Burnett talk. It's not his fault that I look at him and I think, Sam Phillip's ex, but that's how it goes. Alison Krauss looks gorgeous in that magenta dress.
When is Queen Latifah going to rap again? Oh, Dino, you were sooo classy. The whole rat pack parallel was sort of silly, though.
Swagga Like Us: MIA fucking rules me. It was her DUE DATE and she was having CONTRACTIONS before the performance, and still she's running around in a body stocking with polka dots over her breasts, belly and bottom, and manages to look cooler than anyone else on the stage-which is saying a lot, since it's TI, Kanye, Jay-Z and Lil Wayne in tuxes. MIA was especially cute when Lil Wayne put his hat on her head-and when she was thrusting her formidable pelvis at TI. Can I be MIA when I grow up?
Basically, even Macca couldn't follow that, but it's awesome to see Dave Grohl behind the kit again. (yes, I have a thing for drummers.)
Oh, Jack Black and his love for his father in law. How adorable. And John Mayer, you know, he's fine.
Look, yet another CBS actor trying to get a shout out for LL Cool J.
Sugarland and Adele: Oh, I love them both, and the little duet at the end was sweet. ♥
Gwynneth: So there's all this stuff on the blogs about how "weird" it was that she came out and introduced Radiohead, and not Coldplay, but like, she and her husband have been pretty firm about their relationship not being up for public consumption, so I can't imagine she'd ever introduce Coldplay. Also, Coldplay are like, clearly huge fans of Radiohead, so I'd bet that she and Chris sit around listening to a lot of it. Besides, gossipy shippers, she gave him a big wink at the end of her intro, so stfu.
Radiohead: Perhaps the best performance of the night, even if it was only actually two of them and like, the USC marching band. Apparently the Academy has been asking them for years and they kept refusing. How excellent they finally accepted.
Oh Samuel L. Jackson, never stop being crazy.
Hmm, TI and JT were just so-so, for me.
blah blah Obama blah blah blah
Four Tops: So the Four Tops are absolutely my favorite Motown act. They're often overshadowed by the Temptations, but I like them better. And the guys did a great job filling in for the other three members-it's fun to hear those songs again. (Sir Paul certainly enjoyed it and also, wtf, Jordan was sitting behind him?)
Neil: Okay, so this Sweet Caroline thing had better been because of Rihanna's pulling out, but seriously, are we in a bar? I mean, he sounds great, he always does, he's an old pro, but whatever. Jay-Z liked it anyway. (Also I love that in the opening montage the only picture they seemed to have of him was from the 70s when he was singing "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" with Barbra.)
My favorite part of awards ceremonies is the "those are people who died, died" montage. I didn't realize Jo Stafford passed; my parents had a lot of her records and played them all the time on Sunday afternoons. Nice that it started with Carlton and ended with Bo Diddley.
And then we get blues, and it's always great to see John Mayer playing blues guitar again. Wow, Keith Urban is just playing with everyone tonight, isn't he? Anyway, I hope everyone recognized that beat that's in, what, 75% of rock songs or something?
Ouch, there was Rihanna's CoverGirl ad.
Gary Sinise, why are you a conservative? You make me sad.
Lil Wayne, Allen Toussaint, Robin Thicke: You know, I get it? But I sort of didn't really care that much about it until the horn players came out. Everyone sounded good, and it's good to see Robin Thicke in this company, but still, it didn't reach me personally.
God I am so over will.i.am. Yay for Lil Wayne, because he was so damn happy about it and brought all his family up on the stage and all that.
Man, Blind Boys of Alabama and Tom Paxton didn't even get an on stage shout out? Lame!
Zooey Deschanel looks sooo cute and is clearly so excited to introduce Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. I'm not sure why they have a wind machine; Alison Krauss ≠ Mariah Carey.
Green Day! Also yay for album of the year for those crazy kids; I bet they'll go far.
And then Stevie plays us out. Sweet.
10 awards, people. 10. That was a special concert, not an awards show but you know, that's really fine. I wish that we could have had one jazz performance, or one gospel performance, but the ratings were a lot better and that's what counts.
Red Carpet: Dude, you could have knocked Ryan over with a feather when they were breaking the news about Chris Brown. He was like, "no fucking way!" and Mark Malkin was all, "way."
U2: You know, this is the Staples Center. There are concerts here. So why is the sound for the Grammys so consistently bad? Also, did anyone else feel like the boys were sort of phoning it in? Part of this may be that I'm not that impressed with the "Subterranean Homesick Blues"-ness of that song; haven't we already heard that? I did like Bono's "Can we get Whitney Houston on this program?"
Whitney: I'm sorry, dear, but you look a mess-and I've seen the pics from Clive's party Saturday night. You should have worn the curly wig. You also shouldn't have taken whatever you took for your nerves because you were slurring your words which isn't a good look for your comeback-from-the-crack-pipe Grammy appearance. Nice dress, though.
Jennifer Hudson: I watched it again, I cried again.
The Rock: No. *skips*
JT, Al Green, Boyz II Men, Keith Urban: This was a last minute sub for Chris Brown, or Rihanna, whichever, and was pretty great for their finding out they were doing it sometime Sunday afternoon. Boys II Men sort of got the shaft in this one, which is unfortunate, but JT really can hold his own, can't he? The hometown story was rambly, but cute; we have a general store like that in my hometown too. At first I was like, Keith Urban? but that was a really soulful solo.
There have been low ratings for the Grammys of late and it's disturbing to see, in the first pod, an ad for Olay and one for heart medication. Olay has a sponsorship IIRC, but heart medication? Really, CBS?
The other thing CBS does is leave out the host and haul in a bunch of their TV stars to randomly show up, like Simon Baker in his cute little glasses.
Chris Martin and Jay-Z: How awesome is Jay, rapping to just a piano? I also liked Martin's painted piano.
Coldplay: But because that was awesome, Viva la Vida was sort of like, oh yes and here's the hit. That said, of course I love their drummer, because I love all alternate percussion, and because then he could stand up front with the rest of the band in his cute purple jacket. I could take or leave Coldplay most of the time, to be honest. But in terms of sound, clearly what you need to have for Grammy sound is a goddamn backing track, which will mostly drown out whatever you're actually doing on stage, which seems opposite of the spirit of the thing, doesn't it?
Keith Urban: I'm not sure about these lifetime achievement awards that are just little announcements; seems like Gene Autry deserves more than that even if he is dead.
Carrie Underwood: She was great, and that outfit was very Carrie, all golden and flesh colored and short (though the sleeves were weird) but never mind that. Who was that super hot guitar player in the leather pants and the boots? She was like this black-garbed devil to Carrie's not-really-angel, and watching Carrie sing to her completely sick fills makes me want to slash them-when I'm not crushing on the guitar player myself. And I never like guitar players!
Sheryl Crow and LeAnn Rimes: Sheryl must be sick of "All I Wanna Do." Also, Brenda Lee, see above re Gene Autry.
Sugarland: I like them so much and they are SOOO adorable. Yay Sugarland!
Duffy and Al Green: As Simon might say, that was really self-indulgent, the little sing-out thing, and I sort of couldn't even watch it. (But showing Andy Williams in the audience while he was singing "Moon River" was completely adorable.)
Coldplay: My favorite part is the band hug. So cute that none of them had dates, but they were all sitting together. Oh, and the drummer talking is full of yay. (He even has a beard and ginger hair! I know I'm late to this party but he's so adorable!)
Kid Rock: No.
Miley and Taylor: So the thing is, Taylor writes these great little songs, and she has a great little voice (which is why she didn't sound that great on SNL, whose sound is not kind to singers in general-I remember Mary J didn't sound great on her first appearance, either). But Miley doesn't have a little voice, and she doesn't seem to know how to not SCREAM AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS all the time. And I can't help but think, jeez Miley, you have no idea what this song is about, for reals. Also, I wish they hadn't had any other musicians with them at all, because it would have been more interesting, but that's handlers for you.
Alison Krauss and Robert Plant: While Taylor was clearly genuinely excited that they won (and probably has a whole thing for Alison Krauss) did anyone else get the feeling that Miley didn't really know who they were?
Jennifer Hudson: How great did she sound, especially at the start before the track kicked in? Note entirely appropriate use of the gospel choir. Great dress, too. And yes, I totally teared up.
Emily Proctor and Jason Mraz: Ooh, more stars of CBS procedural dramas!
Stevie and the Jo Bros: So this is the thing about the Jonas Brothers: they sound exactly how you think they're going to-poppy and very, very competent. There's so much in the track and so many musicians behind them that I'm never sure those boys' guitars are plugged in. The shout outs to Stevie were sort of silly, as was their trying to be funky and sing "Superstition", but really, trying to be funky when Stevie is on the stage just doesn't make anyone look good. (cf JT and Al Green.)
Blink! Together again! Awesome! Also there isn't room in my head for a nomination for Kings of Leon.
Coldplay continue to be all adorable and it's all about the band, man. I love boys in bands, they're so chummy. And I liked Chris Martin's limestone joke. (Then again, I like all uses of the word "charming" because it's like, Ali's favorite word.)
I love Craig Ferguson.
Katy Perry: No.
Kanye and Estelle: I fucking ADORE this song. But what's up with Kanye's hair? Is he auditioning for New Edition later or something?
Adele: I admit, I was rooting for her, so I'm super excited and my god, she was SO CUTE wasn't she?
Okay, who knew that Kenny Chesney was BFFs with Morgan Freeman? The song was nice; I'm not really into Chesney but he certainly seems able.
Natalie Cole must be sick of that song, too. Damn she has a lot of makeup on, but she's pretty sick lately so it's awesome that she even showed up.
Alison Krauss and Robert Plant let T-Bone Burnett talk. It's not his fault that I look at him and I think, Sam Phillip's ex, but that's how it goes. Alison Krauss looks gorgeous in that magenta dress.
When is Queen Latifah going to rap again? Oh, Dino, you were sooo classy. The whole rat pack parallel was sort of silly, though.
Swagga Like Us: MIA fucking rules me. It was her DUE DATE and she was having CONTRACTIONS before the performance, and still she's running around in a body stocking with polka dots over her breasts, belly and bottom, and manages to look cooler than anyone else on the stage-which is saying a lot, since it's TI, Kanye, Jay-Z and Lil Wayne in tuxes. MIA was especially cute when Lil Wayne put his hat on her head-and when she was thrusting her formidable pelvis at TI. Can I be MIA when I grow up?
Basically, even Macca couldn't follow that, but it's awesome to see Dave Grohl behind the kit again. (yes, I have a thing for drummers.)
Oh, Jack Black and his love for his father in law. How adorable. And John Mayer, you know, he's fine.
Look, yet another CBS actor trying to get a shout out for LL Cool J.
Sugarland and Adele: Oh, I love them both, and the little duet at the end was sweet. ♥
Gwynneth: So there's all this stuff on the blogs about how "weird" it was that she came out and introduced Radiohead, and not Coldplay, but like, she and her husband have been pretty firm about their relationship not being up for public consumption, so I can't imagine she'd ever introduce Coldplay. Also, Coldplay are like, clearly huge fans of Radiohead, so I'd bet that she and Chris sit around listening to a lot of it. Besides, gossipy shippers, she gave him a big wink at the end of her intro, so stfu.
Radiohead: Perhaps the best performance of the night, even if it was only actually two of them and like, the USC marching band. Apparently the Academy has been asking them for years and they kept refusing. How excellent they finally accepted.
Oh Samuel L. Jackson, never stop being crazy.
Hmm, TI and JT were just so-so, for me.
blah blah Obama blah blah blah
Four Tops: So the Four Tops are absolutely my favorite Motown act. They're often overshadowed by the Temptations, but I like them better. And the guys did a great job filling in for the other three members-it's fun to hear those songs again. (Sir Paul certainly enjoyed it and also, wtf, Jordan was sitting behind him?)
Neil: Okay, so this Sweet Caroline thing had better been because of Rihanna's pulling out, but seriously, are we in a bar? I mean, he sounds great, he always does, he's an old pro, but whatever. Jay-Z liked it anyway. (Also I love that in the opening montage the only picture they seemed to have of him was from the 70s when he was singing "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" with Barbra.)
My favorite part of awards ceremonies is the "those are people who died, died" montage. I didn't realize Jo Stafford passed; my parents had a lot of her records and played them all the time on Sunday afternoons. Nice that it started with Carlton and ended with Bo Diddley.
And then we get blues, and it's always great to see John Mayer playing blues guitar again. Wow, Keith Urban is just playing with everyone tonight, isn't he? Anyway, I hope everyone recognized that beat that's in, what, 75% of rock songs or something?
Ouch, there was Rihanna's CoverGirl ad.
Gary Sinise, why are you a conservative? You make me sad.
Lil Wayne, Allen Toussaint, Robin Thicke: You know, I get it? But I sort of didn't really care that much about it until the horn players came out. Everyone sounded good, and it's good to see Robin Thicke in this company, but still, it didn't reach me personally.
God I am so over will.i.am. Yay for Lil Wayne, because he was so damn happy about it and brought all his family up on the stage and all that.
Man, Blind Boys of Alabama and Tom Paxton didn't even get an on stage shout out? Lame!
Zooey Deschanel looks sooo cute and is clearly so excited to introduce Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. I'm not sure why they have a wind machine; Alison Krauss ≠ Mariah Carey.
Green Day! Also yay for album of the year for those crazy kids; I bet they'll go far.
And then Stevie plays us out. Sweet.
10 awards, people. 10. That was a special concert, not an awards show but you know, that's really fine. I wish that we could have had one jazz performance, or one gospel performance, but the ratings were a lot better and that's what counts.