Grammy Awards: My Eyes, My Ears, & My Thoughts

I’m glad I watched the Grammy awards Sunday.  It gave me something to talk about today.  However, the first hour of the 54th annual Grammy Awards made me realize how much I miss the “American Music Awards” shows from the 1980s when music was fun.  I’ve always felt a disconnect from the Grammys.  It tries to be too much to too many people.

Bruce Springsteen kicked off this year’s show and it made me realize two things:  I’m getting older, but I still like fun music and I really miss the “Born in the U.S.A.” album and I wish the Boss could generate the same magic with me that he did at his career apex to me.

I liked L.L. Cool J’s short prayer and tribute to Whitney Houston and he did a good job making us feel at home and then Bruno Mars livened up the place with his doo-wop number and throwback to James Brown.  I loved his yellow stage!

When it came time for Alicia Keys and Bonnie Raitt to pay tribute to Etta James, they indirectly mentioned Whitney, too.  While I hoped they would not perform “At Last”, I really didn’t like their version of “Sunday Kind of Love”.  I’ve honestly never heard Etta’s version of the song, but no one does it like Reba did in 1988 when she took the song to number five on the country chart.  Epic Fail.  Reba should have performed that tribute instead of introducing Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson!

Here’s Reba’s far more superior version:

When it came time for Grammy winner Chris Brown to perform, I had mixed emotions.  I have to admit that I love his music.  It’s fun.  However, I still can’t forget what happened three years ago Grammy week when he assaulted then-girlfriend, Rihanna.  So, as I watched his performance, objectively, I liked the energy and I loved the colorful stage.  And, while musically it was very, very weak, I was distracted.  You can tell that unlike David Beckham, he wasn’t wearing underwear and “those pictures” that he tweeted a couple of years ago were not fake!!  Just saying!

Miss Reba looked great introducing the first country performance of the night with Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson.  The duo did a great straight forward performance of their Grammy nominated hit, “Don’t You Wanna Stay”.  I believe that Kelly sabotaged Jason’s microphone near the end of the performance, so she could go solo!!  At least, we know he was singing “live”!

I’m not a rock music fan and I don’t care about heavy metal.  I cannot tell you one song by the Foo Fighters, but the repeat Grammy winners this year rocked the house and added some life to a boring show.

“Contagion” spoiler alert near the end of this paragraph — beware.  I was really confused about the big build-up to the Coldplay-Rihanna pairing.  RiRi looked great and I felt like dancing when she performed “We Found Love”.  Fun times!  However, when Chris Martin and Rihanna sang together, it was more painful than watching Martin’s real life wife, Gwyneth Paltrow dying at the beginning of “Contagion”.  The gruesome autopsy was nothing compared to this Grammy performance.  Martin redeemed himself with his solo performance.

At this point of the show, it was time for the pairing of The Beach Boys, Foster the People, and Maroon 5, and the show hit rock bottom!!

I mentioned this on Facebook Sunday night.  While I’m happy to report that the Beach Boys have some devoted fans, they weren’t too happy with my assessment of their performance.  One person told me, “Yes they are old, yes they are not what they used to be, but to be so disrespectful is in very poor taste.”  Ouch!  So, here is what prompted that response.

Maroon 5 did a great tribute song to the Beach Boys and Adam Levine looked and sounded great.  Foster the People looked a little nervous and very out of place singing the Beach Boys and not “Pumped up Kicks”, from one of my favorite CDs of 2011, “Torches”.

And then it happened.  I realized how much I was watching the wrong show.  Zombies took over the Grammys when the Beach Boys came out on the stage and performed “Good Vibrations”.  I really should have watching the return of “The Walking Dead”.  It was painful!!!!

It didn’t get any better when Stevie Wonder came out on the stage to introduce Sir Paul McCartney.  I get it that Stevie was happy or drinking some good stuff, but I’d rather hear him sing.  The legendary lead singer of the Beatles sounded great and he’s still got it.  I just wish I was sitting in some dimly lit little piano bar sipping on a bottle of champagne while he sang about Valentine’s Day!

Taylor Swift, I loved you when I saw you in concert in 2009, but please take your millions and your Grammys and go away.  I know and I can hear you right now, “why you gotta be so mean?”

Katy Perry was fun and energetic.  I loved the crashing glass in the box theatrics and the guitarist, nice eye candy!

Adele was stunning, amazing, incredible, and absolutely beautiful.  My favorite performance of the night!

The one part of the show that I really wanted to see was the tribute to Glen Campbell with The Band Perry, Blake Shelton, and Campbell himself.  I had to find this online when I got home since I was doing weather live on television at the time of the performance.

The Band Perry wad great with “Gentle on my Mind”, but was that a grass hula dancer skirt that gorgeous Kim Perry was wearing?  Blake Shelton did a nice job on “Southern Nights”, one of my favorite Campbell songs.  And, then it was the man himself on his signature song, “Rhinestone Cowboy”.  Hats off to Campbell for his heartfelt performance.  Beach Boys, this is how you go out in style!

Jennifer Hudson looked great and sounded so angelic in her “I Will Always Love You” tribute to late, great Whitney Houston who passed away Saturday in Beverly Hills, California.

The Beach Boys performance was definitely my least favorite performances of the night.  One that should have been near the top of my list was French DJ David Guetta.  I lovr his music and his energy is amazing.  However, Chris Brown and Lil Wayne did him no justice.  The spectacle was nice to look at, but it sure didn’t have the energy of partying to his beats in Ibiza.  David, stick with the divas like Kelly Rowland and Nicki Minaj and male diva Chris Willis!

I really didn’t need to see the Foo Fighters again, even with visually and audibly stimulating performance from Deadmau 5.

And, then Lady Gaga took to the stage with another over-the-top religious-themed salute to “The Exorcist”.  Gaga was in rare form, but it seemed so MTV Video Music Awards in 2009 when she did “Paparazzi” and she did it much better then.  I have to hand it to Gaga that when the song ended she was levitating above the stage.  Nice touch!

What?  That wasn’t Lady Gaga.  It was Nicki Minaj???  Well, sorta.  It was her alter ego, Roman Holiday.

Charles Kelley of Lady Antebellum looked hot in his hairy chest exposed/gigolo get-up when the group was presenting an award.  Diana Ross looked great awarding album of the year to a stunning, gorgeous, and talented six-time winner this year, Adele.

And, the finale.  It should have been cut because the show was running long, it was boring, and Paul McCartney and HD (high definition) don’t compliment each other.

My final thought is that Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett should have performed the Bennett/Amy Winehouse duet that won them a Grammy last night.

I know you may have different thoughts and as always, I welcome them.

Anthony