50th Annual Grammy Awards - NAY
If you’re even slightly up to date on current events, you know that the 50th Annual Grammy Awards were given out Sunday night in Los Angeles. Award shows, as we all know, are a bunch of hooey. They represent the best in nepotism and favors in the music industry—not necessarily the actual best acts in music. But because the writer’s strike was just resolved and I can’t watch new episodes of Gossip Girl yet, I tuned in and lost out on three and a half hours of my life.
Because fifty years is such a major milestone, the Grammys were out in full force, with performances from the past half-decade from every genre. Alicia Keys performed once with a dead man (a very dapper looking hologram of Ole Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra) and again with John Mayer, who for once, didn’t look like a dead man. Good for you, John. Carrie Underwood showed off her shorty-shorts in order to sing her hit “Before He Cheats”, which I prefer calling “Before you have to get a restraining order because you didn’t realize I was a crazy bitch”. Amy Winehouse, whom the TV honchos obviously saved for next-to-last, stuttered through her songs “Rehab” and “You Know I’m No Good” from a satellite feed from London. Homegirl couldn’t get a U.S. Visa in time for the show due to her drug problems, incarcerated husband, and a little thing I like to call “batshit crazy”. Unfortunately (or fortunately, I don’t know which) it was the best that I’ve seen her perform in quite some time. Beyonce also dueted with Tina Turner. Beyonce is by far the most overrated act today in music, perhaps second only to Kanye West (which I will get to later). She screeches and screams and moves to the left to the left, and frankly, I think she’s overexposed. Also, honey, fire your mother as your stylist. She shouldn’t put you in feathers on every red carpet. Tina Turner, on the other hand: bitch is fierce. If I look half as good as she does when I’m sixty-five, bless ME. She’s fabulous. There’s a reason her legs are insured. But Be had to go and ruin it by trying to upstage her idol while singing “Proud Mary”. Why don’t you give Kelly Rowland a chance, Be? Let the other Destiny’s Child girls have a crack at it, and you can go on hiatus with Jay. I hear he’s retiring again. Or coming out of retirement. Whatever.
My favorite part of the night was the smack down of Kanye West by elder and more talented musicians. To be fair, Kanye puts out some innovative stuff—he melds genres, he does duets with all these different people, he wears cool clothes. Fine. That’s all well and good, but the guy is probably the biggest tool on the planet. That’s a lot of jerks to compare, and in the game of douchebaggery, Kanye West is the winner. His performance was good (mostly I think because I like Daft Punk so much), and the part about his recently deceased mother was moving. (See, I do have a heart, sort of). But it is inappropriate to be such a bully. During his Best Rap Album of the Year acceptance speech, he told Common he needed to plan his album releases better because “this is [his] award”. And then he yelled at the orchestra who interrupted him before he was trying to talk about his dead mother. I understand that it’s a hard and terrible thing losing a parent like that. I get it. But he’s rude, and his talent will never make up for his attitude. But he got knocked down a peg when Vince Gill got the award for Best Country Album from Ringo Starr, and he said, “I just got an award given to me by a Beatle. Has that ever happened to you, Kanye?” Owned.
Like I said before, the awards were horse crap, and they always are. But at least the 50th anniversary proceedings gave us something to laugh at instead of watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. If the performances didn’t keep you occupied, go to E! Online and try to figure out how much hairspray went into Alicia Keys’ first performance hairdo. Sanjaya’s people called, Alicia, and they’re demanding a cease and desist. The pony/faux-hawk is copyrighted, baby.
Lindsay
