Thoughts on this year's Grammys
My thoughts on some of the performances at last night's Grammys, by performer. Without further ado, because I got a little bit long-winded.
Morris Day & The Time: Hell yes. How come no one told me Morris Day & The Time would be playing this year's Grammys? To think, I could have missed that shit. I thought Jimmy Jam, who happens to be chairman of the recording academy, was coming out to give a speech on music piracy or some shit. Then, next thing you know, here comes Morris Day and motherfucking Jerome. Shit was on, like this was 1984 and not 2008. Of course it wouldn't have been the Grammys if the performance wouldn't have been somehow ruined. No, Morris Day didn't bust a hip doing that side to side dance he does. Instead, they brought out motherfucking Rihanna, looking like a Y2K Grace Jones. They launched into what I'm assuming is her next single. Whatever it was, it fucking sucked balls. Her handlers might need to see about getting that fruit The-Dream back on the phone.
Alicia Keys: Performance of the evening, and I don't even like Alicia Keys. I mean, I find her to be a really good singer, and obviously her handlers have gone to great lengths to make her look like a woman, but her songwriting leaves a lot to be desired. Like, a whole lot. In fact, I've often wondered if there isn't some genetic mutation in halfrican americans that causes them to be miserable songwriters. Think about it: Alicia Keys, Lenny Kravitz, Ben Harper. All half-black, all the worst songwriters possible. (Absolute zero is absolute zero, there's no point in trying to draw any distinction.) And yet, Alicia Keys fucking sold "No One" last night. Silly as that song is, I couldn't bring myself to flip back to The Wire (which I had already seen). And lord knows I wanted to.
Kanye West: It's no secret that this guy is a fag and a douche. That's been well-established over the years. But damn it if there doesn't seem to be some Kanye West backlash picking up steam. Finally. I might even have to find the URL to my old petition. His performance of "Stronger" was lame, but of course it was gonna be lame. That song is as gay as a three dollar bill. Seeing it done live just confirms that. Then he launched into "Hey Mama," which - and I'm sure I'll catch flak for this - struck me as bald opportunism. So what his mother died? People's mothers die all the time. How come this year's Grammys had to be about his mother dying. That shit wasn't even on Graduation. Then there was his speech for Rap Album of the Year, the same statue they gave motherfucking Ludacris last year. He made himself look like even more of a douche, gloating about how the Grammys are his home and then trying to make the producers look like assholes for pulling the plug on that shit.
Foo Fighters: Does Dave Grohl have a cousin that's one of the TIs that runs the Grammys? How else to explain the fact he fucking ran the Grammys last night. There was a recurring bit revolving around their live performance, which featured orchestration by John Paul Jones; and it seemed like they cleaned up all of the rock-related awards. I suppose it could have been worse. Cats like Hinder and Nickelback and Daughtry, who still sell records as if they were Vs.-era Pearl Jam (but to whom?) were nowhere to be found. As was Bruce Springsteen, who was nominated for as many rock statues as the Foos, and took home a few of the ones that weren't televised. How come he couldn't perform? Or does he reject to playing the Grammys on principle, and that's how we ended up with the Foo Fighters.
Feist: In one of the essays that ran with this year's Pazz and Jop, one of those fruits took Feist to task for being, essentially, pretty much any guy's fantasy girlfriend. And not a whole lot else. They may have actually had a point, in that Feist has apparently only had like three good ideas in her life. If you listen to her album The Reminder, the few really good songs (which I fucking lurve) are just variations on "1, 2, 3, 4." And the rest of them kinda suck. And she's not even really all that good-looking. (Though of course I wouldn't kick her out of my bed for crackers.) And yet, she's probably the pre-eminent sex symbol in all of indie-rock, right up there with Jenny "Cans" Lewis. If anything, Feist is an example (a reminder, if you will) of why white women stay winning. They might not be born with much, but they take what they've got and they fucking work with it. It's like, they want you to like them. And damn it if we don't.
Cirque du Soleil: You guys know I have somewhat of a sensitive side. (Nullus.) I find Lost in Translation to be better than whatever gangster movie you think is the best movie evar but probably isn't even any good. That said, I'm at a loss for what's supposed to be so special about Cirque du Soleil's Beatles tribute, Love. Like, why would anyone pay to see that? It's just a bunch of fags on bungee cords dangling from the ceiling while Beatles songs play in the background. I like the Beatles songs, but why the fags?
Tina Turner & Beyonce: When Beyonce came out at the beginning in those hot pants, she looked fucking disgusting. I don't care what anyone says. Her legs are actually bigger around than mine, though I guess guys are built differently than women. Nhjic. She looked way better after Tina came out, though that could be because she was standing next to the most hideous thing I've ever seen evar. Why did Ike Turner have to die before he could see that? But obviously part of it was that her ass was covered up.
John Fogerty, Jerry Lee Lewis & Little Richard: Compared to those two, John Fogerty looked like a teenager, but he would have come off pretty well regardless. He's just the Man like that. I'm not familiar with anything he's done post, like, "Centerfield" (the president's favorite song, supposedly), but his new shit sounded pretty good. Er, at least as good as motherfucking "Centerfield." As far as those other two... well, I'm 26 years old, and Little Richard has looked downright scary for as long as I've been around, so that was no surprise. Jerry Lee Lewis seems like he might still have a little rock and roll left in him (I wouldn't bring my 12 year-old daughter around him), but he also looked incredibly stiff, like he was being propped up with a board and his jaw was being moved with a wire.
Amy Winehouse: Finally, the moment everyone had been waiting for. The Grammys had been teasing her appearance all night long, and you just knew they were gonna wait until way late in the telecast to bring her on, so that you'd have to watch all of the rest of that BS. You'll recall that when I saw her in Chicago last summer, she looked not half that bad, and she fucking tore it down. Well, that definitely wasn't the case last night. She actually didn't look that bad, given all she's been through (I guess being 23 years old will do that for you). But she sounded like shit. She kept fucking up all of the notes, almost as if she had never sung any of those songs before, and she kept dropping references to her husband, who's currently in the clink. Still, when she won, you couldn't help but feel glad for her. For all of her bullshit, there was a genuine sense of surprise and gratitude, compared to a douche like Kanye West. She had a pretty good night, too, taking home statues for Song of the Year, Best New Artist, and probably some other shit that I forgot.
