I watched last night with half my attention elsewhere. Here is what I saw:
- I like "Hey Ya" and was happy to see how the video was trasformed to a stage performance for live TV. Sooner or later I am going to be able to hire a high school marching band for some purpose in my life, too.
- If you did not wait to the very end you missed Faith Hill, looking like a Republican's dream of the girl to be met at the country club, squawking something into the mike to the effect of "the show is over" and walking away as 43 people (who were not going to be invited to that club) representing OutKast celebrated winning the final award for album of the year.
- The Foo-Fighters appeared, perhaps uniquely, as a rock band playing things like instruments and singing in to microphones without dancers or lights or any other distractions. That was good.
- The White Stripes were very good.
- My world just about crumbled when Richard "Dicky" Marks won an award for best song co-written with the living human tribute of the night, Luther Vandross. The king of the mullet was shown and, though shorn at the rear of his head now and though his song is something of a thematic rip of that 80s "love my departed Dad" song by Genesis going by another name Mike and the Mechanics, at least it was not a loser rock song about going down to the river and offing oneself which Dicky Marks was the absolute king of twenty years ago.
- Warren Zevon starred and won as the guy who recently smoked himself to death. [Ed.: error fixed in replies.]
- No one got Yoko Ono when she said give peace a chance.
- No one told Paul McCartney (who is really looking like a muppet who has sat too near the fire and melted a bit) that he was not speaking for all the Beatles as he followed taped Ringo and live Yoko and a nice also live lady who knew George (last year's guy who won for smoking himself to death) thanking everybody for remembering they were on TV 40 years ago.
- Christina A. and Beyonce Knowles were the only proponents of the porcine squealy decending decrecsendo pseudo-gospel thing done really well twenty years ago by Whitney Huston, destroyed by everyone ever since - especially the now disappeared Mariah Carey. Perhaps it will soon die.
- Funk (the music Jesus loved) had its day with Parliament/Funkadelic and Earth, Wind and Fire.
Comments
David Janes - February 9, 2004 8:50 AM
Zevon died from exposure to asbestos, not from smoking:
http://launch.yahoo.com/read/news.asp?contentID=214597
ALan - February 9, 2004 8:53 AM
Yikes - I knew he had more hair than Yule Brenner. I will not edit that out to show my shame. Is Faith Hill a democrat, too? Has my disinterested approach to pop culture failed me entirely. Take this as a lesson, kids - don't smoke asbestos either.
Alan - February 9, 2004 10:31 AM
The New York Times has all the winners and runners up here. I played <i>Elephant</i> driving into work in honour of the performance of the night.
SayNay - February 9, 2004 9:29 PM
You should wear a black armband for a week, in penalty for your shame in relegating Zevon to a wrong footnote in your posting on the Grammys – or better yet, down a fifth of Jack Daniels a day for a week, WZ would’ve liked that better.
Zevon was one of the bad boys of rock and roll and he would be the first to tell you that it wasn’t “easy living” that would kill him. You have to like a guy who titles his albums “Mr. Bad Example”, “Excitable Boy” (his best album), “Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School”, “Sentimental Hygiene” (probably one of the best album title ever), “Learning to Flinch” ( the acoustic version: put it on, light up and pour a highball of JD), “Life’ll Kill Ya” and “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” , as examples.
If you don’t have any of his stuff, do yourself a favor and go out and get “A Quiet Normal Life: The Best of Warren Zevon”.
Zevon was a character – never took himself too seriously - and his songs where full of “characters”. Remember: if you’ve been gambling in Havana and end up going home with waitress, the way you always do - I mean, how wer you to know she was with the Russians too - so your between a rock and a hard place, and down on your luck , just call Dad to send lawyers, guns and money - he’ll get you of this.
Alan - February 9, 2004 11:29 PM
I was too mean. I listened to the big album of his in 1976 and, if not for punk, it probably would have held a continuing place in the record collection. I was happy to see Lee-Ho-Fuk's restaurant in London in 1987. It was more the post-mortem celebration thing as part of a good housekeeping Dr. Phil group emote of the Zevon piece. On NPR today, they had a review of the re-release of <i>Nilsen Schmilsen</i>, thirty years after it came out and over ten since Harry Nilsen died of a heart attack after a hard drinkin' life. I thought the remebrance was less sanitized than the Grammy's piece and more satisfying. That being said what should you expect from the Grammy awards? Nice safe stuff. That being said, I thought White Stripes was the truest thing I have seen on that show for years. That and the marching band in hospital green for OutKast.