The oh so annoying antics of Nicki Minaj at this year's Grammy Awards.
My oh my, where do I begin. Let’s just start with Whitney.
LL Cool J as the host? Nah. I like him just fine, but I think they needed someone with a little more pizzazz. Luckily he didn’t do too much in the hosting department and it was more left up to the presenters. What I did like this year was the show was more focused on performances on the awards portion. Yes, it is an awards show, but it’s better to see why the artists have been nominated in the past or present, then they can mention later whom won what, as they did. Of course there are a few we got to see that gave some good speeches that were worth seeing.
By the way, the random gaggle of presenters from CBS prime-time dramas (except for Neil Patrick Harris, although also from a CBS tv show), lame. I get that they wanted to save a buck and promote their network at the same time, but come on people, let’s step this up a bit. Musicians should honor musicians. The goth girl from one of those tv shows and the two football players, very awkward.
So let’s get on to picking apart this show!
Bruno Mars. Damn! He made me feel like a dirty old woman! That boy and his band tore it up on stage! The song and performance were fantastic and quite classy. They went back to the soul performances of the 50’s from their doo wop right down to their gold lame suits. Brilliant! I understand why the teeny girls like him, but I think he’s better than that teen pop bullshit. There’s an old soul in that 20-something year old body and we’re gonna be seeing a lot more from him. Plus, he’s a ham, and I like that!
Taylor Swift’s performance. No doubt the girl can sing and is as freakin’ cute as a puppy, but trashing up that stage to look like the set of Hee Haw after a hurricane? Lame. Then ,she went and hillbilly trashed up her appearance. The song was about someone breaking your heart and being “mean” (the lyrics to this thing were like what a 14 year old would write on her school notebook), not about being so poor you eat squirrel for breakfast.
There was the added bonus of the night with the duo, “Civil Wars” that did a 60 second performance before Taylor played. They had a great vocals and were a nice surprise that I will digging more into!
Coldplay just sucks, there’s no two ways about it. Chris Martin is hot to look at and can play a pretty good acoustic guitar, but that band… just sucks.
The combo packs of having new performers do songs by artists that were there to play their own music, bad decision . The Beach Boys seemed very confused and uncomfortable with Foster The People and Maroon 5 on stage with them. I was confused as well. The Beach Boys sounded fantastic and didn’t need any help from the likes of shitty bands like Maroon 5 and Foster The People. I’d like to punch the person in the face who came up with that idea.
Then there was The Band Perry and Blake Shelton that played with Glenn Campbell for his tribute.The Band Perry was pretty darn good, (although what was up with their hair “styles”! The guitar player with the David Cassidy “Partridge Family” cut was killing me. Someone needs to talk to those boys and get them a comb and scissors fast!. That cut wasn’t ok back then and it ain’t ok now!) but I think they should have played on their own and let Glenn play on his own. This is his farewell show (sadly, he has Alzeimer’s and is heading to retirement). Sad to see him go, but he sure did it in style.
On a happier note there was the wonderful performance by The Foo Fighters. They never fail and they kept it as solid as ever during this show. Dave Grohl gave a great, and necessary speech regarding real music production versus computers. “Music should come from here,” and pointed to his heart. Amen! He started to get a standing ovation, then the music cut him off and the handful of people that began to stand sat back down. (Yet later they would let Bon Iver ramble on and on when he won his award, ugghh.) Dave Grohl found a way to say “Suck It” oh so nicely. Aahhh. Thank you Dave, you continue to be my hero.
Chris Brown, uggh. His first song was so formulaic, I imagined him at home thinking, “If I put the words “sexy” and”music” together with this generic beat, I’ll have a hit.” Or something to that effect. The song went in three different directions and was about as original as a shoe. I can see the kids blaring this from mom and dad’s convertible while heading to the beach this summer. Yuck. And I know that sometimes people need to be forgiven for what they do, but I cannot get the get horrible pictures of Rhianna with bruises all over her face from this shit bag out of my head. Fuck him.
Rhianna, by the way, looked Holy Crap Hot!!! in her low cut black dress and blonde hair. Nice!
Alicia Keys and Bonnie Raitt did a beautiful version of the Etta James song “Sunday Kind Of Love” as a tribute to her. They stayed away from her obvious hits which I like. This unlikely duo sang so naturally together and would be great to hear more of them together in the future.
Lady Gaga was there but she didn’t perform, or present an award, which I thought was odd. I appreciate her existence and love that she stands out on her own, but I really wanted to take a pair of scissors and cut that damn net off her face! It looks like she’s having trouble breathing!
It would have been nice to see her up on the stage in some capacity, but instead we got Nicki Minaj in the “what the fuck is this” performance of the night. Lady Gaga would have done it better and classier, and her songs make sense with a story behind them. Nicki Minaj, this was some sort “I need attention and to be quirky” shit. The song was a mess, some sort of mix of goth, rap , and pop. It was all over the place. Her singing was atrocious, and the voice changes that went along with it were just creepy and fucking weird. Oh, and then there was the video, “The Exorcism of Roman”. Ummm…. In a nutshell, stupid, and mindless. And if that girl thinks that was acting, she’s in trouble.
However, suddenly live on this night her voice sounded fine. It pissed me off that they let her use Autotune to fix that rat hole whine of a voice. This is the fucking Grammy’s – it’s not just about the performance itself, it’s also about the singing. This was another performance that just confused me. She was dressed like a robot of some sort, then some other shit was going on, then the lights and sound go out like it’s a techincal difficulty all so that she can sneak across the stage to get into a glass box, then break it. What? Ugghh some more. And, her hair looked she stayed too long in a chlorine filled pool, then pulled out a crimping iron. A crimping iron? I’m pretty sure they don’t make those anymore, and for good reason.
And then there’s Adele. What can you say. She’s just wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! Adorable, humble and talented. She deserved all of those trophies and more.
I loved the end of the show, this just made me happy. It’s nice to end the show with a performance and not just a wave goodbye. And what a great one. Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Joe Walsh and Dave Grohl all on the same stage together, genius! I just hired back the director of the show I fired two hours ago! I got super excited about this, enough to scare one of my cats out of the room with my enthusiasm! They delivered a helluva a performance, including a much needed guitar jam. Let’s face it, this show lacked in Rock music. Thanks guys!
For future shows I would like to see more older and newer artists on the show, playing their own music that is, but a good representation of what’s out there rather than what’s on the Top 40 station. I would also love to have more of a variety of music as well. I wondered at one point why, for example, The Black Keys weren’t there or nominated. They are one of the best bands around right now and represent a wide audience. Whatever, it’s the Grammy’s I think I expect too much. But I can always hope!
