The 2011 Grammys

Hey everyone,

I have completely neglected this thing for about a year now but once in a while the urge to write about stuff just hits me and while I generally can ignore it I'm sitting in bed with a sore throat right now and felt like this would be as good of a time as any to bust out the old blog defibrillator and charge this bad boy back up.

I know I'm a bit late with the Grammys but there was a lot to talk about so let's get to it

First of all let me just say this year's show was quite well done. Good performances, competitive categories, surprise winners, it was all there and the production of the actual show was excellent. I'm not going to review the entire show, just the things that stuck out:

I was really pumped to see Em and Dre on stage again, so I'll start with that.

I almost always enjoy seeing Eminem perform live but I was really more interested in what Dre was going to sound like. The man is pushing 50 and hasn't really spit anything since he was pushing 40, so I was kinda charged to hear what he sounded like after having put the mic down for over a decade.

Well, he sounded old. And Eminen sounded fine but he's made that exact same song about 25 times now and there wasn't really anything that stood out about it from his perspective. What

made this a memorable performance was Alex Da Kid's production and the absolutely devastating hook delivered by Skylar Grey. Grey saved that entire performance, in my opinion.

Her vocals are powerful but with a hint of softness as she breathlessly begs for a doctor. Keep an eye on Grey, she wrote Rhianna's part of "Love The Way You Lie" and has an album coming out with Alex Da Kid. Frankly, I think she blew Em and Dre away in this performance, and she only came in on the hook. There were a few songs on "Recovery" that had a female vocalist on the hook ("Won't Back Down", "Love The Way You Lie", "Almost Famous") but Grey's hook beats all of them, in my opinion. If Em's verses weren't such retreads I would call this an early favorite for single of the year for 2011.

The problem I had with Eminem's "Recovery" was that it relied too heavily on songs like this one. The best songs on Recovery were the songs where Em just let loose (So Bad, Untitled, No Love, Almost Famous, etc.) but "Love The Way You Lie" and "Not Afraid" got all the attention because they appealed to a much wider group of fans. In "Not Afraid"'s chorus he basically begs listeners to "Holler if you feel like you've been down the same road", which of course everyone has at some point in their lives. I'm not hating on the guy for trying to reach people it just seems like he didn't have to pander so much in his earlier hits.

He did take the award for best Rap Song with "Not Afraid" but lost to Jay-Z in two other Rap Singles categories. Recovery took home best album but only because Kanye's album didn't hit the cutoff date. All of the albums up for best rap album were flawed, The Roots' hooks were too distracting on "How I Got Over", "Blueprint 3" was too top-heavy, "Adventures Of Bobby Ray" was too inconsistent and "Thank Me Later" relied too much on Drake's singing ability to bring the tracks together. There was no perfect album this year, including "Recovery", which had a lot of flaws itself and that's why I never really thought it would be a realistic option for Album Of The Year.

Speaking of Album Of The Year, good for Arcade Fire. I really enjoy their music even though I can barely understand anything frontman Win Butler says. "The Suburbs" is a great album and although I didn't think it had a prayer of beating Lady Gaga it was cool to see a group win that really cared about winning.

I'm still confused as to the difference between Record of The Year and Song of the Year, though. All I know is that I hate Miranda Lambert. I mean what the hell was that all about? "The House That Built Me"? A song about knocking on the door to the house you grew up in and asking the people who live there if you can stand in their living room or their kid's bedroom and reminisce for a bit? Really? Does that not sound like something a crazy person would do? The fact that it's presented as such a touching endeavor when it's really just the inane ramblings of a couple of country music song writers who ran out of ideas made me cringe. It seemed like something that would be on a kid's country album. I hated it.

I also didn't really care for Lady Antebellum and their emo-country ode to the late night no-other-options booty call but at least I could relate to it. Miranda Lambert and her house fetish was just disturbing.

What I couldn't relate to was how Lady Antebellum beat Cee Lo for song of the year. I thought that'd be a runaway, and it really should have been. "Fuck You" is a triumph, so much so that having Gwyneth Paltrow, a back up band of muppets, and Mr. Green himself on stage wearing an outfit that Elton John would probably consider too flamboyant was still awesome. You can't screw up "Fuck You", it's just one of those songs that cannot be ignored. You can ignore "Need You Now" when it comes on the radio if you're not in the mood for it. Nobody is ever "not in the mood" to listen to Cee Lo.

Once "Need You Now" won Song of the Year it was pretty obvious it would take home Record Of The Year as well. I wasn't all that surprised when it did but to say that Cee Lo got robbed is a massive understatement. The difference is that "Fuck You" will be a hit for decades while "Need You Now" will be little more than a karaoke favorite in a year or two.

So happy to see Bieber get snubbed on best new artist. Not because I hate Bieber, but because he's capable of producing much better music than what he's made so far, and I think everyone knows that. I think Bieber has a chance to be a very important entertainer in our lifetime and probably has the chops to pull it off. Remember when dudes everywhere hated Justin Timberlake? Now he's pretty much awesome, right? It's not hard to fathom, folks. Bieber has a sense of humor about himself, he has a huge following and he can sing and dance, so yeah, I'm glad he got the snub, and I'm glad he got snubbed by a truly remarkable musician like Esperenza Spalding. She will never have his star power but he will never even come close to her musical abilities.

Bruno Mars is a stud. He may have stole the entire show. B.O.B. was good, but his pantomiming on the guitar while Bruno actually played the drums was pretty cheesy. If you're gonna be up there learn a few chords.

Mumford and Sons sounded good, Avett Bros. sounded great, and Bob Dylan sounded like he had a stroke before going on stage.

What else.....oh yeah! Ok so I don't know if everyone watched the red carpet pre-show festivities (I was bored) and saw Lady Gaga get carried in the egg, but did you happen to see her manager? It was that girl who was on Diddy's reality show where he was looking for an assistant. The one who seemed to get WAY too into whatever job she was given? Remember her? (Ok truthfully I don't really either but someone told me that. )

Anyways since Gaga was up in the egg, and therefore unavailable for comment, this woman fielded Ryan Seacrest's questions, and it was weird. Really weird. She used the word "incubating" about 35 times in 1 minute. She did not seem to have a life or a purpose in the world beyond explaining to people how Lady Gaga was incubating in her egg before her performance and that she would be born on stage. I've been trying to find this online and can't get it but if anyone can find the video of Seacrest talking to this insane woman I would love to watch it again.

By the way Lady Gaga's new song sucks. And I say that as a huge fan of "Bad Romance", "Paparazzi", "Pokerface" (both versions) and "Telephone". I think Lady Gaga is an incredible songwriter and deserves every bit of praise she gets, but "Born This Way" sucked. Hard. I didn't like anything about it. It was unoriginal, not very catchy, and about as shallow a song as she's ever made.

That being said, I enjoyed the show. Although I'm outraged that Guru was not included in the death montage. Come on, people. This is not some random unknown rapper who died, this is Guru from Gang Starr, one of the most influential hip hop groups in the genre's history. Leaving him off of the montage was inexcusable. Shame on them for such an egregious omission.

I was going to tack on my thoughts about the Carmelo Anthony Trade here but I'll save that for my next entry since this one's long enough already.

Thanks for reading, and from now on I'll be doing this a lot more often so make sure to check back in.

-Judge