No Rock And Roll Fun

GRAMMY MOUNTAIN HIGH: We've received an overview of the Grammy bunfight from Becky Bamboo, our American-at-large (Oddly, although there are about 300 music channels on Sky, and Living carries the Golden Globes, nobody shows the Gramps over here. You'd be more likely to see the Daytime Emmys.):

Aside from Prince kicking ass last night (I yelled down the hall that Amy needed to throw on her Purple Rain t-shirt and come dance with us in my room) I was pretty disappointed. I flipped back and forth during the whole thing but what I saw was not great.

Kory and I were united on our hatred of the Beatles tribute - Sting, Dave Matthews, and Vince Gill? Please. Vince was the only one to come out sounding halfway decent. Clearly they were trying for the same kind of thing as the Clash tribute, but that one featured Elvis Costello, Bruce Springstein, and Dave Grohl. No contest there. We made the "ewwww" face through the whole thing. Oh, and Sting continued the ew with his performance with Sean Paul. Not even wearing a skirt could make me forgive him for shitting over The Police. I swear if he touches "Message in a Bottle" I will hunt him down and kill him myself.

Meg White wasn't wearing a bra - big surprise - but she was wearing black. I guess they're mixing it up now. I don't know whose bright idea it was to shine the lights directly at the audience and camera during the performance so no one could see them though, because that sucked.

What in the holy hell was with the Luther Vandross stuff? I know the guy had a stroke and all but you'd think he was, like, CULTURALLY RELEVANT or something for all the praise that was heaped on him. And *two* of his songs get performed? What the fuck ever. It's not like he's Al Green or Otis Redding or anything. Same goes with Warren Zevon. Sure the guy was cool and Dave Letterman loved him, but I bet if you stopped 10 people on the street, only 1 could name a song of his and even then it would only be "Werewolves of London."

Oh, and have I expressed my hatred of the whole "In Memorium" thing that every awards show does yet? And how people clap for their favorites? It's like one last fucking popularity contest. Ugh.

The funk segment was all right. I flipped over in the middle, but flipped back away when George Clinton came out. It just seemed a little forced to me.

Speaking of forced... I was even disappointed in the Outkast performance of "Hey Ya." Andre going shirtless was a nice touch but the rest of it was just too over the top. I know that Grammy performances are not known for subtlety, but handing out polaroids to the audience down front was just a little too much novelty-song for me. Especially since the song actually does have lyrics worth paying attention to other than those regarding photography.

Christina Aguilera looked like she was wearing a really bad wig and massacred "Beautiful" which I actually think is a lovely song. She just over-sang it. Which is, I know, like complaing water is wet, but still. Go listen to Clem Snide singing it - you'll see what I mean.

Justin Timberlake though.. well, I actually liked his performance. I still don't buy the whole "it was an accident" defense of the "incident" but then again, I didn't think it was that big of a deal either. And how horrible and completely sexist that Janet Jackson was basically univited to present, yet they had no problem with JT up there accepting a bunch of awards and performing. What a bunch of double standard bullshit.

And speaking of bullshit - how about that RIAA guy? When he came out I was cringing in anticipation of the lecture I was sure was to come and was pleasantly surprised by the "don't take music out of the schools" speech... until it turned into the downloading lecture. What a load of crap. And that PSA was absolutely ridiculous. They have a bad business model and put out a shit product. Therefore the customers have to be in the wrong. Yeah, that works. Bullshit.