Overall, I enjoyed the show this year. I’ll share my thoughts of the awards as a whole at the end but first I’ll go through all the performances in chronological order.
Bruce Springsteen “We Take Care of Our Own” - A
“America Are You Alive Out There?” What a great line to kick off the show. I loved the random shots of Paul McCartney and Chris Martin trying to sing along but not really knowing the words. I don’t love the Boss as much as, say, Paul McCartney, but this was a solid performance to get the show started and it definitely felt appropriate as it really was speaking to our times. Great energy and a nice kick start.
LL Cool J – He gets a solid A for hosting duties. He somehow managed to keep the show going, pump up the crowd, and keep the tone somber simultaneously. It was pretty impressive. The opening prayer for Whitney Houston was short and sweet. Seeing all of the celebrities with their heads bowed was very touching. The clip of Ms. Houston singing “I Will Always Love You” made both my mom and I cry a little bit. But LL kept it cool and transitioned smoothly into welcoming Adele back onto the music scene. Welcome back, indeed. Paul McCartney’s little nod to that was fabulous.
Bruno Mars “Runaway Girl” - A+
He comes up on stage with blaring brass and a bright gold jacket strutting his stuff and crooning away moving like some mix of Elvis Presley and Michal Jackson with the voice to match. I loved this performance. It was very lively and Bruno really sounded awesome. “Get off your rich asses and let’s have some fun!” Amen to that. This is tied for my favorite performance of the night. He’s a great performer. I’m definitely looking forward to his next album and hopefully it will win him some damn Grammys!
Alicia Keys and Bonnie Raitt “Sunday Kinda Love” - B
This was an incredibly weak tribute to Etta James. They should have done something a little more upbeat or well known. I love Bonnie Raitt and Alicia Keys but this performance was just very much “blah” for me. It was just very short and very random to me. No energy and no harmonies. Justice was not done to the legacy of Etta James.
Chris Brown “Turn up the Music/Beautiful People” - D
Let’s disregard the assault charges. If this were a dance awards show, I might have thought differently about this. But this is the Grammys. Maybe if this were the VMAs this would be appropriate with all the ridiculousness that occurs there. But no. He jumps up and down on some white-stepped platform, occasionally attempting some very poor lip-syncing and looking more nervous than that dude from Foster the People. This was terrible. Bruno Mars has some killer moves AND he can sing AND play guitar. So, no. Just no. This would have been my least very performance of the night but Nicki Minaj has that honor.
(By the way, anyone else thought there were WAY too many commercials?!)
Fergie was wearing grannie panties and a strange red cover-up and Marc Anthony looked like a skeleton.
Anyway.
Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson “Don’t You Wanna Stay” – B
I don’t really have much to say about this one. It was a pretty good performance and Jason and Kelly sounded nice together. It wasn’t all that memorable to me, though. I’ll probably forget about it in a few days.
Foo Fighters “Walk” – B+
I really want to give them an A+. I really do. They’re one of my favorite bands ever and Dave Grohl is the coolest man on the planet. Anyway, I digress.
Jack Black’s intro was pretty passionate. I liked that.
2008:
2012
Rihanna and Coldplay “We Found Love/China Girl/Paradise” - C
God their voices sound TERRIBLE together. Rihanna has a very unique voice that just doesn’t mesh well with anything else. The duet was really awkward. Again with her, it seems like it was more about the dancing and the raving than the singing before she sang with Chris Martin. Sing, woman. Coldplay seems like they’re trying too hard to be more like Arcade Fire. All of the songs on the new album are trying-too-hard-to-be-hippie/indie-sounding. Also, Chris’s voice seemed a little weak. The glowing wristbands looked kind of cool though. I would also like it if Rihanna decided to wear something a little less promiscuous to the show.
Manningham and Cruz looked happy to be there.
Foo Fighters for the win!
And that was so not cool they were cut off during the middle of their speech .
Beach Boys Reunion
Maroon 5 “Surfer Girl” - D
Adam Levine should NOT be allowed to sing live. His voice sounds like a goat and he can’t harmonize because his voice doesn’t blend in.
Foster the People “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” B-
Their harmonies were slightly better but they all looked intensely nervous and scared to be on that big, bad stage.
The Beach Boys “Good Vibrations” - B-
Look, I love the Beach Boys just as much as the next girl, but this whole thing was so….awkward. There were too many people on stage and the Beach Boys themselves had no energy.
Paul McCartney “My Valentine” – C
I was so stoked when I heard that Paul McCartney was performing but what was this? I loved the Beatles. I love Paul. But, sorry, sir, NO ONE wants to hear you sing standards. Joe Walsh sounded really cool on the guitar. Paul didn’t sound bad. This was just completely lackluster. Mick Jagger proved last year that any old man can rock as hard as any of the tweens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iif2UhFBZdM
Paul redeemed himself later though so I’ll stop here.
Civil Wars “Barton Hollow” - A +
I haven’t really listened to these two much but oh man. They sounded so amazing and definitely deserved to be on for longer than one minute.
Taylor Swift “Mean” - B
I don’t really care much for Taylor Swift’s voice but she did a pretty solid job with this performance. Her lyrics about being bullied in high school are becoming a little redundant though and her choice of attire was a little odd for me but overall it was okay. After all, not every pop star shows up playing the banjo during the Grammys.
Katy Perry “ET/Part of Me” – C
I think everyone was looking forward to hearing a revenge song from Katy Perry after her divorce from Russell Brand so I was surprised she sang “ET.” Then something blew up and she went into her new song. It’s nothing really special. It was certainly no “Rolling in the Deep” and Katy looked very awkward moving around the stage. The song sound typically syncopated and auto-tuned like the rest of her songs and I’m sure it will be top 5 on the radio in no time.
Adele – B+
Why on earth did Gwyneth Paltrow introduce her?! Whatever. It was awesome to see Adele back on the stage again. I’m glad she chose to sing “Rolling in the Deep.” I was getting tired of “Someone Like You.” This was one of her more dramatic performances with the acoustic intro and the lights blacking out. I thought she sounded a little shaky though. It’s hard to blame her. She often gets stage fright and her return to the music scene was the most talked about so it’s no wonder if she seemed nervous. I think towards the end she really found the strength in her voice and belted out the rest of the song. It definitely was not her best performance but it’s good to see her back and healthy. She looked stunning in her black dress during the performance.
Glenn Cammpbell Tribute
The Band Perry “Gentle On My Mind” – A
The sounded nice and looked very happy to be there. Nothing terribly special about the performance but I enjoyed it.
Blake Shelton “Southern Nights” – A
This guy has the typical low southern cowboy voice and he sounded good covering a classic. He also looked happy and proud to be representing one of his country heroes.
Glen Campbell “Rhinestone Cowboy” – A
This was really touching as it’s one of his last public performances ever. Sure he stumbled on some of the words, but it was sweet seeing him as well as younger generations of country singers on stage singing together.
Tony Bennett and Carrie Underwood “It Had To Be You” - C
Yawn. There’s really not much to say here. This was a very dull and seemed kind of unnecessary to me.
Jennifer Hudson “I Will Always Love You” - A+
This was a gorgeous, very moving tribute to Whitney Houston. It’s a shame that the Grammys could only squeeze in this one performance for such a legend but obviously having just a day to throw together something for a huge awards show is difficult. This was by far the most emotional performance of the night and you could easily tell how hard Jennifer was trying to keep it all together and just make it through. She nailed the song and I think Whitney Houston would have been proud.
Chris Brown, David Guetta f/ Lil Wayne – Fail
Lil Wayne is a failure to society and Chris Brown’s autotune is atrocious. I don’t really understand the electronic music and DJing scene so maybe I’m already a little biased against it but this whole performance seemed like such an overall mess.
Foo Fighters/ DeadMau5 “Rope” - ???
Foos sounded awesome. I just don’t know how to rate this. I was a little confused by the whole live remix thing.
Nicki Minaj – Epic Fail
Lady Gaga puts on weird shows but at least her music isn’t completely and utterly insane. This song, this whole performance was just ridiculous and disgusting and I don’t even want to talk about it to further stir the pot and give her any more attention that she obviously desperately craves.
Paul McCartney Part 2 "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End"A+
Sure, I’m biased. I love classic rock. But whatever. Seeing Paul McCartney and Dave Grohl on stage together was too much for me to handle. I LOVED this medley and that jam session at the end with Bruce Springsteen and Joe Walsh was so awesome. It’s like LL Cool J said, “I’m going to show you an ending.” And he did indeed. I wonder if any of the other artists who performed that night will also have the longevity and iconic status of Paul McCartney.
Here’s a video of the performance. If you haven’t already seen this, you’re missing out.
Watching the standing ovation Adele got for her performance gave me hope for the future of the music industry, but seeing this destroyed it.
We can’t all know every artist in every genre in music but, really? How do you not know The Beatles? This upset me greatly. Ah well. To each his own. If the kids want to go on listening to auto-tune and computerized tones, then who am I to tell them they have no idea what real music is. I’ll just watch performances like this again and again and enjoy the fact that I’ve been to over a hundred concerts where I saw artists play, not just perform.
I liked the Grammys this year overall. There were a few performances that fell flat, a few that I will definitely remember, and others that will fade from memory soon after I post this. There seemed to be something for everyone this year, other than classical music, of course, because I guess it’s not cool or hip. Classical music aside, there was rock, country, pop, rap, something for the older and the younger generations. The death of Whitney Houston was also a ratings booster for the show, which brought in a total of 39.9 viewers, the most since 1984. The awards season continues this weekend with the Oscars, which I’ll probably watch but will most likely not review seeing as how I’ve gone to the movies a total of five times in the past two years.
Congratulations to Adele on six...count that...SIX Grammys!!
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