Grammys

For the first time as long as I can remember following the Grammys, I didn't really have a problem with the winners of the main awards. To me, the biggest surprise of the main ones presented was Green Day winning once again for Best Rock Album. American Idiot, to me, is one of the best albums to have come out during this past decade and while 21st Century Breakdown is decent, it is hardly Rock Album of the Year material and pales considerably in comparison to American Idiot. It would not have surprised me at all had Dave Matthews or U2 won for their respective albums in this category and to me, they were probably more deserving. In retrospect, I regret not taking Kings of Leon up for Record of the Year for the song, "Use Somebody". Their odds to win were 3-1 and I loved their chances and they came through. To me, from a production and engineering standpoint, Kings of Leon and Lady Gaga were the top two by far in this category. In the Song of the Year category, which I thought was probably the most up for grabs, I expected Taylor Swift to come away with this award but thought Beyonce would be the one to get the second most votes. You Belong With Me had better lyrics, but Single Ladies had much better music and really took on a life of its own with one of the better videos to come out in a while...not ready to declare it one of the best of all time, but its definitely a good video compared to most modern ones. I think the video certainly helped, but it is an enjoyable song to listen to as well. I'm not the biggest fan of Beyonce's solo career, but this is one of her songs I like a lot. Now onto Album of the Year, I'm going to call it as I see it. This was simply a weak year for music. The average age of three of the nominees is 24. The Black Eyed Peas are all about thirty and have regressed musically and then the members of DMB is about forty. When three of your nominees are that young, you know you haven't had a great year musically. This has historically been an odd category because you never know which way the Academy is going to go. The last 2 years winners have been relatively unknown albums coming from Robert Plant and Alison Krauss for "Raising Sand" and the prior year Herbie Hancock for "River:The Joni Letters". But prior to that, the Dixie Chicks, U2, Ray Charles and OutKast won, obviously all well known musicans. But then prior to that, it was a virtual unknown at the time with Norah Jones winning, the "O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack" and then Steely Dan for "Two Against Nature". So this is definitely an eclectic and unpredictable category. I haven't heard much of Dave Matthews album, but have heard a lot of the other 4 albums and to me, the best 3 of those 5 albums were Taylor's, Lady Gaga and probably DMB. A lot of Beyonce's songs were on the radio and I wasn't a fan of a lot of them. However, she is EASILY the best singer of the 5 nominees and well deserving of her record setting six awards. But her and the Black Eyed Peas definitely should not have won this award. I could see her winning it a lot easier than I could've seen the Black Eyed Peas. The Black Eyed Peas should frankly be happy just to have been nominated. Most hip-hop albums recently were better than that album such as "Get Rich or Die Tryin" as well as Nelly's first two albums. Obviously, the top 3 albums I mentioned all have vastly different styles. Because Lady Gaga is in a more Electronic/Dance genre, I think it hurt her chances to win this award and it also sounds like its been done before while Taylor Swift sings from a perspective that is different than most singers have taken in the past. To me, as much as I like Lady Gaga, I don't think the general population have been that quick to embrace her because she is certainly different and not like a lot of singers although she does have some artists such as Madonna, clearly in her. Taylor is deserving of this award because "Fearless" was a very good album. It had numerous hits on it. She shows her deftness in songwriting on the album and that's something many artists, especially nowadays don't have. And she just turned twenty. While she gets a lot of heat for what she sounds like live because it pales in comparison to her voice in the studio, there is no doubt that she is a very talented songwriter and will likely be around for a long time. Her intimate and true music of tales about love and heartbreak unequivocally have spoken out to many people in the Academy and thatis certainly one of the reasons why she was awarded with Album of the Year. She also showed with this album something you want to see in every upcoming artist, maturity. I do have a couple problems concerning Taylor though. Hopefully she will begin to expand her song themes at some point, because the repeated ideas will become staid quickly. At some point, the general public will tire of her if her themes do not expand. While singing about love and heartbreak is all well and good, there is plenty more to write about and hopefully she will through time. I also wished last night she didn't sing "Today Was a Fairytale" just coming off an album with "Love Story" on it, a song very close in theme, because it does show here repetition and some people make not take her seriously if her themes remain the same and she's only about one idea. Another thing that annoys me about Taylor to no fault of her own, is her meteoric rise in no time. It's the most annoying thing when you knew who the person was before they made it big and then everyone knows who she is. I asked my friend to buy me her album in the summer of 2007 and he was like who's that? I asked my friend jokingly do you know who that is now recently and he laughed because of how big she's become really overnight. To me her first album is better. The first album is more heartbreaking than her second album and certainly more reflective than her second album and I really like songs that are introspective and reflect on the past. I also find the non-hits to be much better on her first album than her second album and it is totally bewildering to me how "Tim McGraw", "Picture to Burn", "Should've Said No" and "Mary's Song" all weren't played on mainstream radio. Listen to anyone of those and tell me they aren't hit songs. Don't get me wrong her second album is very good too, but something about the first album is a little more genuine...probably because she hadn't made it big yet. After the show, she dropped one of her Grammy's and it broke, hopefully it's not a bad omen of things to come for Taylor because I know talent when I see it and she is certainly talented.

As for the show itself, I thought they did a pretty good job with the performances but there's too many of them. Because theres so many, it almost looks half-assed and overdone. They should cut down on them in the future. I also didn't like how going to each commercial they showed how long till each performance, rather than each award. People care about the awards, not the performances for the most part. I thought the best performances were Lady Gaga's/Elton John's, Pink's, Jamie Foxx's, the tribute to Michael Jackson and David Foster, Mary J. Blige and Andrea Bocelli's rendition of "Bridge over Troubled Water". Another thing I'd get rid of is the ridiculous amount of actors as presenters at the Grammy's merely promoting some movie they're in or the show they're on on CBS. I also find it comical how they focus so intensely on the artists from the 1960s and legendary people in music and then the next thing they have on television are the brilliantly talented Ke$ha and Justin Bieber lol. I like "One Time" by Justin Bieber, but Ke$ha may be the worst artist ever to have a hit song. She's the poor man's Lady Gaga. Overall, it was an enjoyable show and hopefully music will see a renaissance over the next few years and we can find our roots a little bit.

A couple extra shout-outs to end my first blog:
Neil Young for finally winning a long overdue Grammy for Best Boxed/Special Limited Edition Album
Steve Martin for winning Best Bluegrass Album (what's that saying about the genre)
Funny enough, Martin's now won the same amount of Grammy's for music that he has for comedy at 2
A.R. Rahman for winning Best Soundtrack and Song for a Motion Picture with "Jai Ho" and his work in "Slumdog Millionaire", it is really a masterpiece of a soundtrack and anyone who has not seen the movie, definitely go see it and check out the music too. It's one of the best soundtracks that has come out in a while and goes great with the movie.