Le Grammys: Part Deux

(continued from below)

• Beach Boys medley: I was worried about Adam Levine at first, but he sounded *much* better after took his in-ear monitor out. LOVED that Foster the People did “Wouldn’t it be Nice?” (even though the lead singer looked terrified. haha)
• Beach Boys on “Good Vibrations”: Was that live?! They still got it! In year *51* together!!! Also, I loved the cool slidey piano thing! (The interweb tells me it’s an electro-theremin.)
• Paul McCartney: I think I was looking up the electro-theremin during this performance. *shrug*
• Best R&B Album: Okay, I understand that Chris Brown is the most famous of the nominees, but I don’t know that “Look at me Now” technically qualifies as a song. Also, button your damn shirt.
• Civil Wars: YEA CIVIL WARS! I first heard of this song on VH1’s “Top 40 Songs of 2011.” I had never heard of it, so I knew this list was clearly based on the tastes of the production team and not sales. And yet, when I heard the track, I was SO on board. I’ll be doing a cover of that at some point. (Also, I just saw online that they won for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group and Best Folk Album. 2 Grammys for a new, relatively unknown group. Not too shabby! And they beat out “Don’t You Wanna Stay” to win the first one! Holy cow!)
• Taylor Swift: I liked that they went Old Tyme for this. I don’t know that I can get behind a grown woman singing lyrics like, “Someday I’ll be livin’ in a big ol’ city, and all you’re ever gonna be is mean.” I get it, it’s for a very young demographic, specifically, those not “livin’ in a big ol’ city.” So she can’t use the words adults use to describe perpetrators of domestic abuse (e.g. Chris Brown). It is what it is. I will say that the line about “grumbling about how I can’t sing” and the clapping breakdown at the end redeemed it. (OMG apparently this made “Country Bear Jamboree” trend on Twitter. HA!)
• Song of the Year: YAY!!!!!!!!! Darn tootin’ "Rolling in the Deep" was the song of the year. (Sorry, I’m still in Taylor Swift circa 1910 mode.) Honorable mentions to “All of the Lights” and “Grenade.”
• Katy Perry: Oh thank god, she didn’t try to sing E.T. live. Let’s assume “Part of Me” was pre-recorded too, because she’s usually a full-on disaster live.
• Best Country Album: I honestly didn’t know who this would go to (especially given that Taylor Swift had just performed). But yay for Lady Antebellum! Their album is great. I’m supportive of albums that appeal to people who otherwise stick to different genres. (Note after the fact: I’m looking at the full list of awards, and I see that Taylor Swift won for Country Solo Performance with “Mean”, so I guess it all makes sense.)
• I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO ADELE’S PERFORMANCE SINCE HER VOCAL SURGERY! I think it’s such a shame that a true talent will burn out her voice because she believes in giving her all to her audience, and then you have jerks who just come onstage and lip-sync. She of course was fabulous but I was *so* worried the whole time that she was hurting her voice by singing like she was (not in terms of technique, just in terms of it being too soon). I loved the audience response though. The girl is a rockstar.
• Glen Campbell tribute: The Band Perry is always good. For me, they exemplify hipster country. Me likey. Blake Shelton did a great job too. I think country artists have no choice but to perform well live, because so many of them start out at state fairs and things like that. (Apologies if that’s stereotyping, I just connect country so much more with live performances.) I’m not familiar with Glenn Campbell’s music, but he did a great job. It’s always so impressive when older performers still have a range/voice.
• Speaking of which…Tony Bennett! What a rockstar. 85 years old, for crying out loud. I need to pick up Duets II. I just love the concept for the album.
• Best New Artist: Bon Iver?! What?! Who?! This is Arcade Fire all over again. Granted, in 2012, I don’t consider Nicki Minaj to be a “new” artist, but 2011 was her year, so that was a little upsetting. And “If I Die Young” was so huge that I thought The Band Perry had a solid shot too. Guess I’ll have to youtube this guy later to figure out what the heck is going on.
• To put things in perspective, his single "Holocene", post-Grammys, has about 2.5 million YouTube views. "Super Bass" has over *225 million* views. And "If I Die Young" clocks in at a respectable almost 50 million.
• Tribute to those we’ve lost this year: sad, as always.
• Whitney tribute: (prepares to weep for 5 minutes straight) This is obviously so emotional for Jennifer (no pun intended). I’m so glad they had her sing though. She’s beautiful, talented, and she made the song look easy, which it obviously is not.
• David Guetta/Deadmau5 performance: Wait, what happened, why is Chris Brown performing again? Why is he dressed like the lost member of Run DMC? Why are the Foo Fighters performing again? What’s going on?!?! (Budget cuts? I can only assume the artists weren’t paid twice the usual going rate. Don’t worry guys, I feel you.) But hey, anything that brings David Guetta and Deadmau5 together is fine in my book.
• Nicki Minaj performance: From the second this started, you KNEW it was going to be crazy. I was so glad to see that Roman was in attendance for this performance. This girl is OFF HER ROCKER and it’s AWESOME. Between “I Feel Pretty”, the mini-movie-within-the-performance, and the Catholic church theme, it was all wonderful. The whole performance reminded me of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi” performance at the 2009 VMAs which, for the record, is one of my favorite performances at an awards show.
• Record of the Year: YEA ADELE!!!! (still trying to figure out how Song of the Year and Record of the Year are different)
• Oh hey, Wikipedia just cleared this up for me: "Despite both the Record of the Year award and Song of the Year being awarded for a single or for one track from an album, [Song of the Year] goes only to the composer(s) of the song whereas the Record of the Year award goes to the performer and production team of the song."
• Album of the Year: Okay, like we even needed to sit through the nominees. SA;LKFJAEIOAV;LKETDKSL GO ADELE!!!!!!!!!! I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve listened to the album from start to finish. Every song is gold. (This is how we ended up with 3 out of 23 Dartmouth Idol semifinalists on Adele songs. haha) OMG SHE IS SO CUTE ACCEPTING HER AWARD! (with the crying, “rubbish relationships”, snot, etc.)
• Closing performance: faces were melted.
• Other observations/conclusions of the night:
• Katy Perry and Rihanna are obviously BFFs.
• Poor Lady Gaga. Largely ignored at this awards show. Her singles this year were actually *great*, she just had the misfortune of releasing "Born This Way" the same year as "21." Also, a lot of her non-singles were filler songs (unfortunately).
• The Foo Fighters must be very well-connected to be getting as much facetime and as many nominations/awards as they are. (And a nomination for album of the year? Did they run out of better options? Did they just need someone in the rock category? Je me confuse.)
• I would’ve loved to have seen Drake for more than just Nicki Minaj's introduction. I guess they save appearances like that for the "younger" awards shows.
• The award for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For Visual Media went to Boardwalk Empire, which I think is pretty cool, since I'm always fascinated by the time-appropriate (~1920) music they play on the show.
• Last and *most definitely* not least: the award for Best Spoken Word Album went to Betty White, for “If You Ask Me (And Of Course You Won’t).” As Tina Fey hypothesized in Bossypants, this may be due to her timeless sex appeal. I guess Betty's still got it! ;)

Grammys 2012: Hour 1

If I were to tweet/post on fb all my thoughts about the Grammys, it would be really annoying to my friends, so I thought I’d put it all in a blog post here (at least my commentary on what I got to see so far!):

• Kudos to Bruce Springsteen to be able to perform like that at 62. He could convincingly pull off 45. (And as we’ve learned, even making it out of your 40s alive in the entertainment industry is a feat. I’d say “these days”, but I think it’s always been that way.)
• Video of Whitney’s performance: to be able to sing that way live…WOW. That kind of talent is so rare. It’s not just sad that the world lost her, but sad that we lost her voice several years ago.
• I’m glad they sat Adele near the stairs, so she’ll have easy access as she goes up and down them to collect her awards all night.
• I love seeing who’s sitting next to whom at these awards shows. E.g. Lady Gaga next to Miranda Lambert, Nicki Minaj next to Taylor Swift. Too cute.
• LL’s speech about music: PREACH Brother Cool J!
• Bruno Mars’ vintage performances: nothing if not consistent. Possibly predictable, but always delightful.
• Alicia Keys and Bonnie Raitt: woah! What an unexpected pairing! And how funny that I actually performed songs by each of them within the same week this past year. (“Something to Talk About” at Topsfield and “Superwoman” at ArtWorks, for anyone who was wondering.)
• Best Pop Solo Performance: YEA ADELE!!!!!!!!!! (props to Lady Gaga and Pink for excellent songs in the category though)
• Chris Brown: how sad that I loved him when he came out and judging by this performance, I guess I’m officially too old for his music. Granted, I like the song “Beautiful People”, but the dancing did nothing for me. Maybe this is because they were just playing a recording of the song as he bopped around the stage and half-heartedly attempted to lip-synch. Back-flip was cool though, I’ll give him that much.
• Did Fergie get injections in her cheeks or something?!?! She’s starting to look like a cat-lady… (not this, THIS)
• Best Rap Performance: HAHAH Jay-Z and Kanye were both too cool to go to the Grammy’s. Classic.
• Kelly Clarkson and Jason Aldean: I love this song. So much. Perfect country/pop crossover. Kelly’s awesome for sticking to all the riffs on the original recording. (OMG Jason’s mic turned off!!! Oh no!!!)
• Jack Black. Indie cred. He is too much. I love it.
• Foo Fighters: whatever genre it is they fall in, I can’t differentiate songs in that genre. (It’s not that it’s bad. There was a chord progression in there I liked.) Ah well.
• Rihanna and Coldplay?! oh my, this is the year of the duet! (If you can consider what just happened a duet.) My favorite part of Rihanna’s performance was when she jumped up and started doing “bar mitzvah dancer” moves solo. But in all seriousness, the girl can dance.
• Coldplay: I really love the song “Paradise.” Like a lot. Just wanted to throw that out there.
• Best Rock Performance: I literally did not know any of these songs. But hey, kudos to the Foo Fighters and that chord progression at the end of the chorus of their song. I don’t know that all of the songs in that category qualified as “rock.” They were at least the group that most belonged in that category.

That's it for hour one (or so). I may post the rest of my brain droppings when I get to watch the rest of the show. (Not sure when I'll have a free 3 hours, but I guess we'll see!)