Kurt Loder On The Grammys: Rough Justice
U2 have been around so long, it's easy to take them for granted. I guarantee you Kanye West and Mariah Carey won't be making that mistake in the future, though. Not after watching Bono and company walk off with the Album of the Year Grammy that rightly should have gone to ... one of them! Not to mention the Song of the Year award the smiley Dubliners also scurried away with. (Sorry, Mariah!) And hey, wasn't last year supposed to have belonged to Green Day? What were they doing up onstage snatching the Record of the Year prize before Kanye and Mariah could even uncrumple their acceptance speeches? Is there no justice?
Of course there is. If Kanye had won, the supposedly faux egomania with which he's been wearying us in recent months ("If I don't win, there's gonna be a problem!") might have mutated from whimsical shtick into complete, insufferable annoyance. As for Mariah, well, she got to make a comeback, she sold 5 million albums -- that should be enough for now. Gwen Stefani got skunked in the Album and Record categories, too, and we don't hear her complaining.
Speaking of Mariah, it was a big year for belters, did you notice? There's something about a belter -- a singer who can soar all around a melody without making more than token contact with the tune, and who can hold a screaming high C until all the dogs in the neighborhood drop dead -- that'll sucker an audience every time. It may not be worth doing, but there's something so pointlessly heroic about it that people feel they ought to be impressed. Mariah was outdone in that category by Christina Aguilera, who went off the rails in her Herbie Hancock-assisted rendition of the old Leon Russell hit, "A Song for You," which abused both the song and the sainted memory of Ethel Merman. Kelly Clarkson and Mary J. Blige's sins in the belting department, while not inconsiderable, were venial by comparison.
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Madonna & Gorillaz, Kelly, Coldplay, Mary & U2 Highlight The Grammys[/article]
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All of these people might profitably contemplate the opening performance by Madonna. Here's a woman who has never made a fetish of vocal technique -- her larynx is only a part of her artistic arsenal, not the sole point of her existence. Madonna cares about songs and about creating a musical experience with them. This is what she did last night, rising up onstage with the ABBA sample burbling away and those cruel thighs flashing and the usual contingent of funky folk slinking and twirling around her. It was the Madonna experience. Mariah Carey, whose awkwardness onstage is almost touching, will never have this power to command as a performer. Carey may sell twice as many records as Madonna these days (more than that, actually), but as they never say in the record business, sales aren't everything.
There was an unwelcome new wrinkle in the Grammy proceedings this year, something called the Trustees Awards. Who are these "trustees," and why was it thought necessary to have them add another layer of meaningless salutation on top of the tiresome Lifetime Achievement Awards that already clog the show? There's something ominous and end-of-the-line about these Lifetime honors -- you get the feeling the honoree may be having Last Rites read even as the announcement is being made. Of the people who got one last night, David Bowie underwent heart surgery in 2004; country veteran Merle Haggard had to drop out of an opening slot on the Rolling Stones tour last fall, with his reps emphasizing that he hadn't been hospitalized; and Robert Johnson, the great blues singer -- well, Johnson's actually been dead for nearly 70 years. (Making him a record label's dream artist -- still sells records, never bitches about getting paid.)
Rub elbows with Kanye, Gwen and Kelly Clarkson on the Grammy green carpet, see West's epic clip for "Touch the Sky," get the real Mimi story from Mariah and much more.
My favorite part of the Grammy show, if I may be entirely sarcastic for a moment, was the "tribute" to Sly and the Family Stone, the pioneering rock-and-soul band that can still be seen at the peak of its powers in the "Woodstock" movie. This group is worthy of a tribute any day of the week -- but why right now, you may have wondered. Well, it seems that Sony just this week released a "tribute" album called Different Strokes by Different Folks -- a "re-imagining" of Sly's old music, with a motley assortment of up-to-the-minute performers playing along with Sly's original master tapes. No, I can't believe it either, but there you are. Several of these people were reassembled for the Grammy gig, and some of them were certainly legit -- Will.I.Am and John Legend were definitely in the spirit. And I suppose Steven Tyler and Joe Perry might have pulled this off if the rest of Aerosmith (and nobody else) had been backing them up. But Maroon 5? Devin Lima? I think not. (Isn't Devin Lima the guy that used to be in LFO? The tattoos are new, right?)
There were too many people fumbling around onstage, and the beat never locked in, and the energy started to sag virtually from the get-go. It was certainly a coup, of sorts, that Sylvester Stewart -- Sly himself -- actually turned up to take part in this desecration. (A man who's mainly been a mystery for the last 20 years or so, Sly also had a hand in putting together the Different Strokes album; I think we can assume he needs the money.) He walked out onstage under a towering platinum Mohawk, wearing a big gold lurex greatcoat and what looked like a cast on his right hand, with his eyes walled away behind outsized Dior shades. He sang a bit (you could still hear some of the old power) and he played some organ -- and then, altogether too soon, he walked off again, leaving a gaping charisma vacuum into which the rest of the set collapsed.
I haven't heard the Different Strokes album; it may sound great. (John Mayer, Big Boi, and Janet Jackson also pitch in.) But "tribute" albums are lame by definition. If you're interested, I'd suggest you pass this one up and head straight for The Essential Sly & the Family Stone -- 20 remastered original hits on two CDs, which'll set you back about 23 bucks. A bargain. As any artist will tell you, there's no tribute quite as meaningful as a fat new royalty check. Do the Grammy people know about this?
The show's over, but there's still plenty of Grammy goodness right here on MTVNews.com. Check out photos of the hottest green-carpet and onstage moments, find out what went down at the celeb-packed parties, and share your thoughts on the performers, winners and losers. Plus watch videos of all the nominees on MTV.com and check out exclusive video footage from the big night on Overdrive.
