The release of the 2009 Grammy nominations marked probably the last time the words “Grammys” and “relevant” were ever used in the same sentence. Remember when Radiohead’s In Rainbows was up for Album of the Year? Or how Lil Wayne received eight nominations for Tha Carter III? Yeah, that’s not happening again. This year, the Grammys reverted back to their normal selves, favoring baby boomers for the rock categories, veteran heavyweights for the rap ones, and Beyoncé and Taylor Swift for pretty much everything else. Beyoncé led the night with six trophies, while T-Swizzy took home the coveted Album of the Year honors. With Kanye West safely blacklisted from the ceremony (he wasn’t invited to perform with Drake, Eminem, and Lil Wayne on “Forever,” a song he’s featured on), the 19-year-old country superstar was able to deliver her acceptance speech without interference.
But this is the Grammys. Nobody actually watches these things for the awards, especially not those of us on the west coast who were forced to watch the entire presentation on a three-hour tape delay. Thanks to Twitter, I knew the winner of every award before the show was even aired in my time zone. But I still watched the whole thing. And here are 10 things we can take away from it:
Best Performance: This isn’t even up for discussion. Following a typically arty horror-movie skit and a brief run through “Poker Face,” Lady GaGa sat down opposite Elton John, and the two traded lines on “Speechless,” working in a bit of “Your Song” at one point. The performance was an absolute powerhouse, both visually and musically, ranking up there with the most memorable Grammy collaborations in recent years (for those keeping score at home, here’s the rest of the top 5: Kanye and Daft Punk doing “Stronger” in ’08, Eminem and Elton doing “Stan” in ’01, Radiohead and the USC marching band doing “15 Step” in ’09, and Moby, Jill Scott, and the Blue Man Group doing “Natural Blues” in ’01).
Award Given Most Obviously to Compensate for a Previous Snub: Green Day’s 21st Century Breakdown winning Best Rock Album. By all rights, American Idiot should have won Album of the Year in 2005. Unfortunately, Ray Charles happened to die that year and put out a posthumous duets album, and of course that’s the kind of thing the Grammy judges fall all over themselves to vote for, and as a result arguably the finest rock album of the decade got the shaft. The 21st Century nod in the rock category was a little surprising, as you’d figure that the Dave Matthews Band’s Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King should get this one…you know, what with it being the token rock record nominated for Album of the Year and all of that nonsense. Not that I’m complaining–21st Century was the best album of the lot (which also included entries from such contemporary rock upstarts as U2, AC/DC, and, for some reason, an Eric Clapton/Steve Winwood live album), and the band performed a pretty good version of “21 Guns” with the cast of the soon-to-hit-Broadway American Idiot stage musical.
Most Obvious Proof That People Need to Shut Up About How Axl Rose Has No Right to Use the Guns N’ Roses Name Without Slash: The bizarre trainwreck of a performance by Jamie Foxx and T-Pain of their heavily AutoTuned hit “Blame It,” which featured everything from opera singers to a pointless Doug E. Fresh cameo and ended with Slash reprising his legendary “November Rain” solo over the whole mess. Between this and his recent performances of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” with Fergie, I’m absolutely taking Axl’s side in the debate over who has more respect for the Gunners’ legacy. Chinese Democracy had 6 or 7 songs that were as good as anything in the original GNR catalog, and all of it is better than the entire recorded outputs of Slash’s Snakepit and Velvet Revolver put together. So Slash, please don’t play the “November Rain” solo over random hip-hop songs on nationally televised awards shows anymore.
Award That Proved How Out of Touch I Am With Most of What America Listens To: Something called the Zac Brown Band winning Best New Artist. I had thought for sure MGMT would be a lock–“Time to Pretend,” “Kids,” and “Electric Feel” are three of the most memorable singles of the last couple of years, and they’ve opened stadium shows for Paul McCartney. I had never even heard of ZBB until last night, and a read over their Wikipedia page reveals that their latest album (their third, for the record–and yet Lady GaGa was somehow ineligible on a technicality) peaked at No. 11 and spawned three Top 40 singles. I guess I just don’t listen to the radio enough, because never mind knowing any of their songs–I had never heard of them. They get props for landing Leon Russell as a guest during their performance, but their music seems pretty generic. Think Jack Johnson gone country, with a heavy, heavy flag-waving lyrical bent.
Big-Name Winner I Thought I’d be Annoyed At But Wasn’t: Beyoncé is the kind of artist that you take for granted as being nominated for these awards every year, so when it was announced that “Single Ladies” won Song of the Year, my instant reaction was that the Grammys were getting conservative even by their standards. I already liked Beyoncé a lot (and “Crazy in Love” could very well be the best pop song of the last two decades), but that’s such a predictable pick. But her inspired medley of “If I Was a Boy” and “You Oughta Know” (yes, the latter is an Alanis Morissette cover) and her surprisingly humble victory speech (in which she weirdly refused to refer to her husband by name) won me over. Again.
Biggest Giveaway That the Academy Doesn’t Mean a Word of its Anti-Kanye Posturing: Out of the five nominees for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, three of them featured Kanye West, and another was “I’m On a Boat,” the instant-classic Lonely Island SNL digital short featuring T-Pain. If you’re the Academy, you’ve already told West that he can’t come to perform with Eminem, Drake, and Weezy. You could either: a) treat attendees and TV viewers to an Andy Samberg/T-Pain acceptance speech, or b) force Jay-Z and Rihanna to go up and make a speech for “Run This Town” and dance around the issue of why Yeezy wasn’t there to accept the award with them. Three guesses which direction the judges went with that one.
What, Apparently, Michael Jackson Wanted: If Lionel Ritchie is to be believed, Jacko’s last wish was for Grammy viewers to be forced to wear 3D glasses to see the tribute portion of the show. I threw away the glasses I got when I saw Avatar, so the entire thing just looked awkward. The “Earth Song” cover, with singing courtesy of Celine Dion, Usher, and Carrie Underwood, among others, was actually surprisingly good, especially when Smokey Robinson came in and made the rest of them look like amateurs. Having MJ’s two oldest children come onstage to accept his posthumous lifetime achievement award was a nice touch as well. Overall the tribute was a success.
Artist That’s About to Blow Up Who is So Not Worth the Hype> Drake. First of all, he rose to fame as an actor on DeGrassi: The Next Generation. Second of all, his flow is a substantially less interesting mix of Kanye and Lil Wayne. In the final performance of the night, these three doing the Drake single “Forever” and the Rebirth track “Drop the World,” Weezy and Eminem were an absolute pleasure to watch, both bringing it in a way they hadn’t been doing in quite some time. And then there’s Drake, warbling with AutoTune and awkwardly trying to keep up with the two virtuoso MCs he’s sharing the stage with. I’d feel bad for the kid if he hadn’t just signed a multimillion-dollar deal with Lil Wayne’s Young Money Records.
Emptiest Words of the Night: Academy President Neil Portnow’s obligatory “please stop downloading music” speech. He talks a good game about unknown artists needing exposure. If only he were in charge of an organization that puts on a hugely-publicized awards show every year, then he could give some of these up-and-comers awards instead of just passing out more hardware to Beyoncé and Bruce Springsteen.
Dance-Off that Needs to Happen: Dave Matthews. Thom Yorke. One stage. Can someone please get on this for next year?
