I’ve been watching the Red Carpet… I love this stuff.
So far the Foo Fighters won one award for best hard rock performance… but they lost to bruce springstein for best rock song. That sucks.
I’m watching during dinner.
Am I wrong, or did The Band just win a lifetime achievement award in the space of about 30 seconds of decent delivery, followed immediately by OMG THE BEATLES’ MUSIC WAS IN A MOVIE!!! ?
Kind of embarrassing and a little rude to The Band, I think. Did I mishear what award they won?
And a standing ovation for “best compilation of a soundtrack for a movie”? For a Beatles compilation? Not that any of the other nominees actually seemed to qualify as compilations.
I hate to shit in a thread before it begins, but are Grammys usually this lame?
I do understand that it was George Martin and Ringo walking up to get the award, but I just don’t get it.
Kanye’s performance was off the charts. He may be full of himself, but at least he lives up to his own hype.
The Tina/Beyonce duet went a lot better than I thought it would. Tina looked fabulous!
Kanye killed it. That’s all I needed to see.
Alicia Keys and John Mayer doing “No One” was spectacular.
Great performances all around (aside from Fergie).
I really liked the Gershwin piece.
Good for Amy! She’s had a really rough year.
I’m so glad Amy Winehouse put on a good performance. It sucks that she couldn’t be there to accept her awards. How crappy would it be to get Record of the Year and not even get to celebrate with all of the other stars? Oh well, I’m sure she’ll have no trouble finding a party tonight. 
That was a good performance? I’ve never seen her perform before this and frankly I just don’t see what all the hype is about. Oh well, to each his own.
I should amend that to say that I’m glad she didn’t put on a horrible performance. She’s been so messed up on drugs lately that I didn’t think she’d be able to pull it off in any decent way. This performance certainly wasn’t her best, in fact it wasn’t remotely representative of how beautifully she can sing and perform, but it wasn’t a total embarassment like it could have been. And she looked good, which is also a surprise because she’s looked terrible lately.
But oh my god, that horrid performance of Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard was absolutely the worst thing I’ve ever heard. What made them think this was a good idea? Ugh. These old farts CANNOT sing anymore.
They should have done a jazzier version of ‘Rhapsody’ IMO, but it was nice to have it anyway. I enjoyed Alicia Keys and I thought Little Richard did a good job as a nostalgic act. Other than that I’d say it wasn’t too impressive of a show. The writing was even worse than usual, probably because of the writer’s strike. I do not get the appeal of Amy Winehouse at all. She looks like an SNL character.
I thought it was one of the better Grammy ceremonies I’ve seen. How can you not love a ceremony that features a performance from Keely Smith? (Although they should have been able to find better collaborators than Kid Rock and Dave Koz.) The gospel medley was terrific and so was the performance of “Rhapsody in Blue”. Amy Winehouse sounded she was just on the edge of falling apart at times, but still put a strong performance. She also looked very attractive since she actually had some meat on her bones. The best thing was Herbie Hancock’s massive upset for album of the year. With artistic mediocrities like Fergie and Rihanna getting face time, it was great to see a living legend like Herbie get the award for an album that was easily the lowest selling album in the category.
I don’t know about the performances, but it’s obvious that most of the awards have nothing to do with musical talent. While Amy Winehouse isn’t horrible, especially compared to most music played on the radio, there are hundreds of other artists more deserving of the artist of the year award. I mean, even Baha Men won a Grammy years ago for “Who Let The Dogs Out.” I’m glad Kanye West and White Stripes won tonight, at least. But Rihanna?
It was nice of Tina to share the limelight with those other singers, maybe they picked up some pointers from her.
I am totally out of touch with current musical trends, so I have a somewhat alien take on the Grammys. It’s kinda neat that they completely emphasize the live performances, and de-emphasize the actual award distribution. But any ceremony where one has to stop and ask “why did tney just put up a picture of Burt Bacharach?” has some production problems.
If the Oscars worked like the Grammys:
They’d triple the number of awards, by breaking movies into categories (“Best Romantic Comedy”…Best Torture Porn").
Then give out 75% of the awards before the ceremonies.
All the presenters would be extremely badly dressed.
And the awards ceremony would consist primarily of actors re-enacting scenes from this year’s films. Or favorite scenes from past films…you could get Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson back together to do their “sister (slap)…daughter (slap)” scene from Chinatown. If one of the actors has died, no big deal – like, have Dustin Hoffman and Ellen Page do a scene from The Graduate.
I kind of hate the “People we lost” montages because they always end with whom they think was the biggest or worst loss and then continue with a special tribute to that one person. Sure Pavarotti was a great opera singer but he was older and huge, his death wasn’t as big a surprise to me as Dan Fogelberg’s. How about a little more equal distribution of the tributiness?
Eh, I think that he was arguably the most important musician who died this year; giving him a tribute didn’t seem like much of a stretch.
ETA: I do often wish they’d pick my favorites to do a tribute to, though. Joe Zawinul of Weather Report died this year, and a Weather Report tribute would have been hella cool.
Did she piss her pants again?
I don’t know much about her, but she did a vocal diva sort of ballad with just solo piano, and her voice is just not up to it.