Monday, February 11, 2008

The Grammy Awards

I am finally beginning to understand why my father has always been against watching awards shows like the Grammys, the Emmys, and the Oscars. For him it's been rooted in not caring about a bunch of egomaniacal celebs celebrating themselves in the largest fashion possible.

With the Academy Awards I get bored because I've never seen 95% of the movies that get nominated, and there's no way to predict how any particular category will go.

With the Emmys it's similar, but just too many categories not to care about, like "Best supporting actress in a made for TV movie that was on a pay channel I don't get and about subject matter no one cares about but was an excuse to find and cast the actor who played the kid who appeared in one episode of a sit-com thirty years ago and has not been seen or heard from since."

Then there are the Grammys. Oh the Grammys, at least with the music award shows you can hope to see some unique performances especially considering that people like Bon Jovi are touring now and charging 4 times what you paid to see them 19 years ago, and you know the show won't be nearly as good considering they are now all approaching 50 years old.

So we watched the show last night. With the writers' strike there was really nothing else on, and here are my awards based on the awards show.

Biggest ego who needs to realize the world does NOT revolve around him/her goes to...... Kanye West. You polarized yourself 2 and a half years ago with your "George Bush hates black people" nonsense during the Hurricane Katrina benefit show. Last night they gave him the stage to accept an award and he disrespected every other artist by blatantly passing his alloted time on the microphone saying, "You aren't really turning the music on on me." He then went into an extended tribute to his late mother, during which he called the shows' producers disrespectful for continuing to play music over him. At this point I would have turned off his microphone. The media made a big deal about his mother's death .

Best "Why is this guy on the show and what is he on moment" goes to Jason Bateman. I imagine no one else wanted the task of hosting the "My Grammy Moment" segment, but really? You couldn't find anyone else more relevant or interesting? Pepper needs new shorts! (reference to Bateman as he was funny in the movie Dodgeball)

Best Surprise Performance goes to Jimmy Jam reuniting with Morris Day and the Time to perform "Jungle Love" smashed up with Rhianna. The only thing missing was Kevin Smith up there dancing with them.

Best Wow Performance goes to Beyonce with Tina Turner. We know Beyonce can shake it, but at 68 years old, Tina still has it. She could be an exception to the older performer bias I eluded to with Bon Jovi. After seeing this performance my thought was that some osteo-related OTC product has GOT to sign her to an endorsement deal. Take our supplement and you too can move like Tina!

Best "Lord is this person annoying performance" goes to Amy Winehouse. The drama off the stage in her life has for some reason captivated the entertainment news world. She's a drugged-out tattooed mess who could be pretty and has a decent voice, but we'd rather focus on her jailed hooligan of a mate and her need to be in rehab despite the irony of her hit single saying she does not want to go. Her acceptance speech was as criptic as the old British guy cursing on the bus to France in the movie Eurotrip.

Best "That was cool" Performance goes to the Cirque du Soliel cast members from the show "Love" performing their segment on the Beatles "A Day in Life" followed by the gospel version of Let it Be taken from the movie featuring Beatles music this past year.

Best Swerve of the night goes to Herbie Hancock. An upset is when a favored individual is beaten by an underdog. A swerve is a term borrowed from the scripted world of professional wrestling. When a swerve occurs, an individual who is expected to win does not win, and he/she is NOT told that it is going to happen that way. The m0st famous swerve in wrestling is known as the Montreal Screw Job which took place at the Survivor Series in 1997 or '98 I think. Then champion Bret Hart was leaving the company to go work for a competitor and refused to give up the title, and they expected he would carry it with him to the rival operation and desecrate it. To prevent that from happening, management said "Fine, you can keep the title til you leave," but they set it up for Shawn Michaels to beat Hart by a very quick count by the referee and then get Michaels out of the arena and out of the country because Hart was Canadian and was loved by his fans.
So last night the Grammy board NARAS (National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences) may have orchestrated a swerve by giving the album of the year award not to Amy "The Heroin Addict" Winehouse or to Kanye "The World revolves around me" West, or even to Vince "Why was I even nominated in this category" Gill. They gave it to Herbie Hancock, the jazz legend who gave us "Rock-it" back in the 1980's. I would LOVE to hear that West was going to receive that award, but that the producers changed the name after his podium antics involving his mother.

6 comments:

Pug Mama said...

your wife sent me over here to read our post on the Grammy's.
Seems we share the same opinion regarding Kanye West.

Anonymous said...

I loved Kanye last night. I thought his performance was awesome. And the tribute to his mother was moving.

Amy Winehouse also rocked. That song is great. So is the album.

See. The thing is. It is music.

And they have their problems like we have our problems.

I'm not judging them on anything other than their music. And both make GREAT music.

Unknown said...

I agree they do make great music but Kanye was just rude. Its hard not to judge musicians with their personal life or their personality when they throw it all over the place. Last year Kanye complained he didnt get an award. I do think he probably deserved one..The dude is talented. But when he is that rude and disrespectful, its hard not to remember that when he is on the radio.

That was quite annoying

Valtool said...

Pug Mama, thanks for coming by and please don't be a stranger. Driving home from work I was listening to the radio and they played the clip of Vince Gill saying "I just got an award from a Beatle! You haven't had that happen yet Kanye." or something similar. Hpefully Vince made it out of the arena and back to the hotel safely.

Steven, I can't say much about the music. I recognized the two songs Amy performed, and "Stronger" by Kanye. Visually his performance was captivating and I even thought the electric shades were cool.
You said the show is about the music. I agree that the show SHOULD be about the music, but people use it for whatever they wish to take the opportunity to make it about. You watch the Oscars and you get idiots like Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and Marlon Brando making political statements, as with Sally Field on the Emmys this year. All four are/were talented actors, but they are out of place using these shows as a political platform.
Kanye may have struck you as moving, but to me he was arrogant and self-centered. His mother's death has no bearing on the world in general. It is fine for him to want to dedicate it to her memory, do it and be done. In his case his time was over long before he started talking about her, and he was inconsiderate to all the other award winners and the shows producers for taking more than his allowed time. In my opinion, they should have turned the microphone off.
Ultimately, I'd like to see award recipients get up there and say, hey I had a fun/hard/adjective time working on this album. Thank you to those who helped me make it, my fans for buying it and my family for supporting my time-consuming efforts.

Rebecca said...

Ya, I'm not really an awards show watcher... I'm more on the side of agreeing with your dad, "For him it's been rooted in not caring about a bunch of egomaniacal celebs celebrating themselves in the largest fashion possible."

It's sad to me when average people get too wrapped up in the celebrity world. And I just can't seem to care who Amy Winehouse is dating (and should I know who she is, because I don't really - she's Brittish, right?)

Carol said...

LOL this cracked me up!! I so agree...I could care less about these people and their lives......I'm so tired of hearing about Brittany's latest mess too!!

I never watch these shows I figure the news will cover the good stuff anyway!!