grammy schwammy

[oily slick]

well they were bad as usual with most of the wrong shit nominated. more lowlights than highlights. who is this rihanna person, i thought stevie nicks was coming out with all the other near dead for a moment. for the umbrella song to win anything other than most annoying song of the decade sets the bar. little richard is older than jerry lee, though not his liver, if you can believe that. little richard's face has looked exactly the same for the last 30 years! i think he takes it off at night and keeps it in a jar at the house of tina turner's boob doc. john mayer made a guitar hero entrance to play with someone, but that didn't work. someone turn down brad paisley's guiter for god's sake so we can hear his funny song. whoever is on the sound board is asleep. scads of alicia keys prancing melodrama for a lame song, just hilarious. is her ass getting bigger or is she pregnant or something? the 5 second tips of the cap to lifetime achievement at least included cab calloway and max roach. max just died 20 minutes ago, so the timing could have been more meaningful. the foo fighters should have been at the super bowl instead of tom petty. the highlight of the evening was vince gill slapping kanye west about getting his grammy from a beatle, something yet to be done by kanye i guess, even though he "owns" the show. by the way, of all the people, how is it ringo starr ages better and acts like he has more sense than all the others pushing 70. who'da thought it. the runner up highlight had to be dueling the pianos of herbie hancock and lang lang on rhapsody in blue. fabulous! and amy winehouse didn't do anything horrible.

[mood swung]

got caffeine?

i thought stevie nicks was coming out

that would have been something.


this year's winner in Most Unbalanced Performance by a Duo or Group.

[migdd]

got caffeine?

i thought stevie nicks was coming out

that would have been something.


this year's winner in Most Unbalanced Performance by a Duo or Group.

ehhhhhh. . .hehehe. . .Beavis. . .you said "duo". . . eheheh. . . .

[Otis Westinghouse]

for the umbrella song to win anything other than most annoying song of the decade sets the bar.

Classic chart pop. It deserves whatever it won. Apparently our Amy was turned down a visa and when that was overturned decided to stay home anyway. Good on her. Anyone heard the cracking Arctic Monkeys cover of You Know I'm No Good? Really suits his voice, shows how good a songwriter she is (in that her songs can be covered in a different style and sound fantastic).

[oily slick]

no, you're wrong otis. that song really sucks. it isn't classic anything, but crap.

[Otis Westinghouse]

I'm no more wrong than you are, and I think it's great chart music. And other intelligent, savvy music commentators concur, e.g. Alexis Petridis reviewing 2007:

'Equally, there were moments when something exciting happened right at the top of the charts: Rihanna's undeniable Umbrella'

And the same writer elsewhere expanding on its 'undeniability':

'In an atomised musical universe, there's something cheering about a pop single so undeniable that it temporarily unites everyone except the cloth-eared and curmudgeonly. They intermittently arrive, usually provided by the hip-hop or R&B crowd, and usually as a party record - Crazy in Love, Hey Ya! - but Rihanna's Umbrella was far less straightforward: a melancholy dancefloor-emptier, with a lean-on-me message undercut by the icy synthesisers and Rihanna's imperious vocal.'

Or Garry Mulholland, choosing it as single of the year for 2007:

'1. Umbrella - Rihanna
Into every life a little rain must fall. But a bloody great deluge has rarely had such a dramatic effect on a pop song. Because, the first single from Barbados-born Rihanna's third album Good Girl Gone Bad hit No 1 just as summer storms hit Britain, and suddenly a powerful vocal about love and loss sounded like the singer was attempting to shield an entire country from the rain. The end result was a 10-week stretch at the top, the longest since 'Love is All Around' by - yes - Wet Wet Wet. 'Umbrella' was guided by Jay-Z, and, according to producer the Dream, was turned down by Mary J Blige and Britney Spears. It's recognisably R&B, but has a sinister electronic spookiness worthy of Gary Numan. However, its USP was that echoing hookline - 'ella... ella... ella' - which transformed the end of an everyday word into an elegy for... comfort? Shelter? Something more spiritual? Whichever, it became the darkest hook to ever get sung by all the girls in all the playgrounds in all the world. 'Umbrella' floated over pop 2007 like an ominous black cloud and cast a huge shadow.'

[oily slick]

oh well if alexis petridis says it's ok. what does e f hutton say? i'm delighted to be a curmudgeon i guess, cause i know rhythm and blues son, and that's not rhythm and blues. i have the 45 of sam's chain gang. mary j blige turning it down might tell you something. "sinister spookiness?" my goodness. "Maybe in magazines, but you'll still be my star. Baby cause in the dark, you can't see shiny cars." you need to aim higher, dude.

[BlueChair]

They need a new voting committee, basically. The nominations are so out of touch and all-over-the-place that the end up nominating people like Amy Winehouse alongside Herbie Hancock. As okay a record as River: The Joni Letters is, people are unlikely to remember it in the same way that they'll remember Back To Black. Remember back in, 2001 when Steely Dan's Two Against Nature beat out Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP and Radiohead's Kid A? That seemed so odd at the time, but then again, where's Eminem now? Grammy thinks they're so cutting edge by putting sub-par albums by old favourites (like Paul Simon's You're The One, also nominated in 2001) alongside flavours of the month, but it's rare that any of the nominated albums are actually going to become classics, whether they're by a legend or a newcomer.

Grammy still has occasion to get it right, of course. I was delighted when T-Bone Burnett hit the Grammy stage to accept the award for the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, sweeping the rug out from under U2, Outkast and Bob Dylan. But when you look at music critic and music lover favourites over the past few decades in particular you notice a lot of oversights and odd choices. I feel out of touch with the music industry until I open Rolling Stone, Paste, Harp, No Depression, and even the New York Times, and still recognize many of the names that are being written about. At least some of them are being nominated, albeit in the wrong categories.

As for this year's show? It was the first one I've sat through in years. I enjoyed Kanye West and Daft Punk's performance, along with Amy Winehouse's, but for the most part I found it to be one of the dullest Grammys in years. And that's saying a lot.

[mood swung]

times are tough in rock and roll
beer can't be bought, wine can't be sold
...
reason that I feel this way
Rolling Stone has seen it's day
all my feelings, all my fears
were confirmed with Britney Spears.

thread jack to say - Rolling Stone bores me to tears anymore! And their sales reps are making me crazy. Harp and Paste and No Depression are ok, but I'm becoming a Blender girl. At least they have a sense of humor!

Did anybody believe Amy was surprised? While you're waiting, try to decide if Natalie STILL looks like a man.

[BlueChair]

Not sure, moody, but she certainly didn't have very nice words for Amy Winehouse:

Natalie Cole slams Amy Winehouse

By JAM! Music

Singer Natalie Cole had a few unforgettable words for Amy Winehouse after the troubled British singer took home five Grammy Awards Sunday night.

The New York Daily News reports that although Cole has also fought addictions to drugs and alcohol in the past, she told journalists at a Grammys after-party that she thought Winehouse was gifted but crazy.

"I don't think she deserved it," Cole said. "I think she needs to get her life together first and then get the awards later."

She also told People.com that "it's not right for her to be able to have her cake and eat it too ... She needs to get herself together." You don't get to just do your drugs and go onstage and get rewarded."

Former Beatle Ringo Starr, who was nearby and overheard Cole's remarks, quipped, "Man, those are some grapes," the News said.

Winehouse checked into rehab in London last month to deal with her addictions to drugs and alcohol. She didn't get her visa in time to travel to Los Angeles for the Grammys gala but performed via satellite from a studio in London

[miss buenos aires]

I like the idea that you get awards for having your life together. What about me? I have a steady job, no addictions and a live-in boyfriend--where's my Grammy?

[cosmos]

Excellent thread - nice job, oily!

To even remotely associate that Rihanna crap with R & B....well, it's just wrong. There's not much music out there now that can be accurately called R & B. Rihanna's music might be good chart music, as Otis pointed out. But I personally stopped paying much attention to the charts a long time ago.

I watched the Grammys for about ten minutes, just long enough to get depressed watching Jerry Lee Lewis try to sing. Little Richard's face hasn't changed, and to his credit, his voice hasn't changed much either. Very impressive.

[Otis Westinghouse]

You know I was wondering where you'd got to, Cosmos - it's been 5 months! I was wondering how the show was going. Moody seems to have given up being your personal plugger.

I take it Rihanna won in a R & B category. Well it's pop with R & B roots, innit? It's all labels, R & B isn't some gold standard to be revered as a term. I thought Mary J Blige on Later the other week was very professional, doing everything according to the book, but also phenomenally boring. Music by numbers, basically, with nothing different or surprising in there. If she's the most deserving current wearer of the cherished R & B crown, I'll listen to Umbrella every time. The rapping is crap, but the tune is fantastic, and I love the tone of her voice.

[cosmos]

Hi Otis! The show's going quite well, thanks. There are now four djs (two in Minnesota, one in Tokyo, and myself)....each with distinct tastes. We rotate weekly, and my show is the third show of every month.

You're correct - it's all labels. But R & B (rhythm and blues) IS a term that is revered by some, especially those of us who are fans of the old "real" stuff. If I had to label Rihanna's music, it would be pop then dance. R & B would be a very very distant third. I don't even consider Mary J Blige to be R & B. Amy Winehouse, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings - those are current artists that can called R & B in my opinion.