Welcome to StaticBlog’s Live Blog of the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards
Okay, so you’re in the right place, so fall into a leather sofa or the nearest pile of socks, situate your laptop, iPhone, iPad or “Brazil”-style rigged-up IBM Selectric II Internet Machine where you cannot spill refreshments on it, sharpen your rhetorical knives and prepare to … comment. Snark in real-time is the best snark of all!
7 p.m. “She’s a monster, she’s a monster, SHE’S A MONSTER!!!” We’re starting out with Poker Face, looking almost entirely like Marilyn Manson with lady parts. And what’s with Elton? Looks like he had a toner mishap reloading the Kyocera.
7:05 p.m. You know, last night I was having my regular dose of rock religion (watching “Almost Famous”) and hearing some of Elton’s best songs, and hearing him croaking along with Lad Gag just emphasizes how much range he’s lost. Smudgy and pudgy is no way to go through life, son.
7:08 p.m. Stephen Colbert: “Pink-Eyed Green Peas!” And now it’s time for Song of the Year!
SONG OF THE YEAR
Beyonce, “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)”
Kings Of Leon, “Use Somebody”
Lady Gaga, “Poker Face”
Maxwell, “Pretty Wings”
Taylor Swift, “You Belong With Me”
And the winner is: Beyonce, who is not there, “60 Minutes” hype segment notwithstanding. (Oh, too busy preparing for her performance to accept. Priorities, kids, priorities.)
7:14 p.m. Nifer.Pez introduces Green Day: The Musical. This juxtaposition is making me dizzy. These pretzels are making me thirsty. Honestly, this version of “21 Guns” is Fonz leaping the sharp-toothed fish. This doesn’t work — I’m all about the rock opera, until it sounds more Andrew Lloyd Webber than Gilman Street. Blecch.
7:24 p.m. Josh Duhamel and Kristen Bell promote their cheesetastic rom-com, and announce Best Country Album:
BEST COUNTRY ALBUM
Zac Brown Band, The Foundation
George Strait, Twang
Taylor Swift, Fearless
Keith Urban, Defying Gravity
Lee Ann Womack, Call Me Crazy
And the Grammy goes to: Taylor Swift. Get used to those words tonight. Better go trolling for more photos.
7:28 p.m. CBS, easily the most shameless when it comes to trotting out properties as presenters/announcers, has Simon Baker of “The Mentalist” come out in his Rockefeller glasses to introduce Beyonce Knowles. Can’t wait for David Caruso to put on his sunglasses and announce, “It’s the record of the year — the homicide record!”
7:32 p.m. Ah, Beyonce’s doing the cover version of 2009 — she did it, Britney Spears did it, Michael Buble did it. Well, not really. But Alanis gets renewed activity on her “You Oughta Know” account.
7:40 p.m. Seal announces that Leonard Cohen received a lifetime achievement award, but no “Famous Blue Raincoat” for you tonight. Instead, we get Pink.
Nice Cirque du Soleil routine, but I want to know how she’s maintaining her lung control while spinning in a scarf. Wet. Without being electrocuted.
7:45 p.m. Miranda Lambert and Keith Urban announce that Loretta Lynn won a lifetime achievement award, but no “Van Lear Rose” for you tonight. (Pattern?) And announce Best New Artist:
BEST NEW ARTIST
Keri Hilson
MGMT
Silversun Pickups
The Ting Tings
Zac Brown Band
MG
And the Grammy goes to… Zac Brown Band. Guess MGMT should start working on their twang.
7:54 p.m. Miley Cyrus, y’alling so much she might hurt herself, introduces the Black-Eyed Peas, featuring will.i.am in “Phantom of the Opera” face armor. Damn you, Andrew Lloyd Webber!
Talk about your low-impact lyricism. Nothing new here, but will.i.am made millions with “I Got a Feeling” by transcribing party chatter. Sigh.
8:05 p.m. Jonases introduce Lady Antebellum, which could pass for Fleetwood Mac except for the steel guitar and the reference to whiskey instead of gold dust.
And we have Juanes and Kaley Cuoco talking Best Comedy Album, and if there is a Satan in Hell, Patton Oswalt wins it, but instead:
Stephen Colbert wins for his Christmas album, thanking “Jesus Christ for having such a great birthday.” Well, not a bad second choice, but Patton deserved this one.
8:15 p.m. One thing I’m noticing is that I don’t really have any dogs in this hunt. This might just be the most boring Grammy Awards since the advent of stereo sound. But now we’ve got Norah Jones and Ringo Starr (“Thank you Norah for being shorter than me!” announcing Bobby Darin’s lifetime achievement award. Record of the Year, anyone?
RECORD OF THE YEAR
Beyonce, “Halo”
The Black Eyed Peas, “I Gotta Feeling”
Kings Of Leon, “Use Somebody”
Lady Gaga, “Poker Face”
Taylor Swift, “You Belong With Me”
And the Grammy goes to…
“We’re all a little drunk, but we’re happy drunk!” Excellent work, Followills.
8:20 p.m. Robert Downey Jr. announces elevation of the gauche proceedings with opera! Well, not so much. Fine Arts Editor Rick Rogers, it was a false alarm. Jamie Foxx goes so Auto-Tuney with T-Pain that I’m starting to think I might get a more natural listening experience by turning on my blender. Mmm… Margaritas might make this easier.
8:25 p.m. They just invited Slash up to do his “November Rain” solo. Snnnnorrrreeeee — ah, sorry, I just don’t understand what just happened, and why Jamie Foxx was even here. Speaking of Auto-Tune, Ke$ha is up with that tiny irritation Justin Bieber telling us to choose which Bon Jovi song the band should sing. Ke$ha looks like a linebacker next to that gerbil.
8:32 p.m. Katy Perry and Alice Cooper announce:
BEST ROCK ALBUM
AC/DC, Black Ice
Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood, Live At Madison Square Garden
Green Day, 21st Century Breakdown
Dave Matthews Band, Big Whiskey And The GrooGrux King
U2, No Line On The Horizon
And the Grammy goes to…
Green Day, for an album that I haven’t cracked in months — it’s joys were fleeting, to say the least.
8:35 p.m. Zac Brown Band plays with Leon Russell. Now, that’s some major cool, Oklahoma-style. Best pairing of a veteran with a newbie of the evening, but I thought the ZBB was going to go into a 20-minute extended bluegrass workout for a second there. This ain’t “Soundstage,” though I wish it were.
8:45 p.m. Seacrest introduces Taylor Swift, who’s sounding a little sour on “Fairytale,” and to compound the problem — Stevie Nicks!
This is not sounding good at all. It’s like two sick cats in a bag.
8:52 p.m. Lionel Ritchie’s face looks zackly like my… family oriented music blog, of course! Now, I’m supposed to put on 3D glasses so I can watch food shoot out of my face in all dimensions. So we have Celine Dion, Usher, Oklahoma’s Own Carrie Underwood ™, Smokey Robinson, and … a bunch of other people, possibly hundreds but because I don’t have blue-and-green “Creature From the Black Lagoon” glasses, I can’t identify everyone due to all the double vision and blurring during this Jacko tribute. Wait, they turned it off. Maybe they couldn’t hear over the sound of James Cameron laughing.
9:01 p.m. Jacko’s kids are scary-poised, like tiny marketing executives.
9:08 p.m. Sheryl Crow gets all mushy about Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music, who never really understood all that digital music thingy. And now she’s ushering in Bon Jovi, and my wife just asked if there’s been any actual good music tonight. Then Jennifer Nettles shows up and classes up the joint, although, since this is still a Bon Jovi song, it’s still a joint with peanut shells on the floor.
9:14 p.m. The viewers’ choice Bon Jovi track is “Livin’ on a Prayer.” Abbreviated!
9:16 p.m. Mos Def and Placido Domingo — two great tastes that taste like a mouthful of mush together. And now the Grammy for best rap-sung collaboration:
BEST RAP/SUNG COLLABORATION
Beyonce & Kanye West, “Ego”
Keri Hilson, Kanye West & Ne-Yo, “Knock You Down”
Jay-Z, Rihanna & Kanye West, “Run This Town”
The Lonely Island & T-Pain, “I’m On A Boat”
T.I. & Justin Timberlake, “Dead And Gone”
And the Grammy goes to:
Ri and Jay-Z (and Kanye, not pictured), which is perfectly alright, but in my mind, I was on a boat.
9:24 p.m. What Wyclef really said in Creole was, “two and a half hours, and the best thing we’ve got to offer so far is Andrea Bocelli singing Paul Simon in Italian.” And to be fair and true, Bocelli and Mary J. Blige sounded pretty amazing together. Huge applause, possibly because everyone had been waiting to hear some music tonight.
9:36 p.m. Neil Portnow, CEO of the NARAS speaks, and a nation dashes to the bathroom. Honestly, he’s talking about important things such as the excellent MusiCares program, but Portnow could put a meth den to sleep.
9:42 p.m. Adam Sandler introduces the Dave Matthews Band, playing “You and Me” From Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, and tonight’s general MO remains intact: graft a gospel choir onto anything and everything.
9:48 p.m. Lea Michele and Ricky Martin announce…
BEST FEMALE POP VOCAL PERFORMANCE
Adele, “Hometown Glory”
Beyonce, “Halo”
Katy Perry, “Hot N Cold”
Pink, “Sober”
Taylor Swift, “You Belong With Me”
And the Grammy goes to:
Beyonce. And to think I downloaded all those Taylor Swift pictures for nothing! Shut up, Chase.
9:54 p.m. “Here’s a Grammy-winning rapper – and a star of “NCIS Los Angeles” — LL Cool J!” He announces a Lifetime Achievement Award for David ”Honeyboy” Edwards, but there’ll be none of that Folkways tradition tonight. Ah, let’s get quiet-stormy with Maxwell and Roberta Flack.
10 p.m. Maxwell slips perfectly into the Donny Hathaway slot for “Where is the Love?” but I’m just asking, where is the end? Uh oh, wait for it:
10:01 p.m. Bring Out Your Dead!
Allen Klein, we’ll miss your mad business skills — what you did for the Beatles was nothing short of show-stopping! DJ AM, we hardly knew ye!
10:07 p.m. The Dude (Or maybe His Dudeness, or Duder, or El Duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing) introduces Jeff Beck and Imelda May performing Les Paul and Mary Ford’s “How High the Moon.” Bocelli, consider yourself usurped — that was magnificent. Real music — three hours and change into the thing.
10:15 p.m. Quentin Tarantino, looking alot like Presley circa ’77, introduces Drake, Eminem and Lil Wayne with Travis Barker. Oh, what the Hell! CBS is bleeping “War and Peace” sections of this thing. How about a light touch on the dump button? I swear we lost 10 seconds at one point, and I know that Weezy wasn’t just spewing an endless stream there. The censor was leaning on that button like he had the launch codes.
10:25 p.m. John Legend and Carlos Santana announce Album of the Year:
ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Beyonce, I Am… Sasha Fierce
The Black Eyed Peas, The E.N.D.
Lady Gaga, The Fame
Dave Matthews Band, Big Whiskey And The GrooGrux King
Taylor Swift, Fearless
And the Grammy goes to…
Taylor Swift. And as she said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” though I doubt this is the story we’re going to be telling when we’re 80 years old. Good night and good luck!
Your StaticBlog Live-Blogging the Grammys Ballot
Just a few more hours to go, so get your ballot on so you can snark with efficiency and vigor.
SONG OF THE YEAR
Beyonce, “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)”
Kings Of Leon, “Use Somebody”
Lady Gaga, “Poker Face”
Maxwell, “Pretty Wings”
Taylor Swift, “You Belong With Me”
RECORD OF THE YEAR
Beyonce, “Halo”
The Black Eyed Peas, “I Gotta Feeling”
Kings Of Leon, “Use Somebody”
Lady Gaga, “Poker Face”
Taylor Swift, “You Belong With Me”
ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Beyonce, I Am… Sasha Fierce
The Black Eyed Peas, The E.N.D.
Lady Gaga, The Fame
Dave Matthews Band, Big Whiskey And The GrooGrux King
Taylor Swift, Fearless
BEST NEW ARTIST
Keri Hilson
MGMT
Silversun Pickups
The Ting Tings
Zac Brown Band
BEST FEMALE POP VOCAL PERFORMANCE
Adele, “Hometown Glory”
Beyonce, “Halo”
Katy Perry, “Hot N Cold”
Pink, “Sober”
Taylor Swift, “You Belong With Me”
BEST MALE POP VOCAL PERFORMANCE
John Legend, “This Time”
Maxwell, “Love You”
Jason Mraz, “Make It Mine”
Seal, “If You Don’t Know Me By Now”
Stevie Wonder, “All About The Love Again”
BEST PERFORMANCE BY POP DUO OR GROUP
The Black Eyed Peas, “I Gotta Feeling”
Bon Jovi, “We Weren’t Born To Follow”
The Fray, “Never Say Never”
Daryl Hall & John Oates, “Sara Smile”
MGMT, “Kids”
BEST POP VOCAL ALBUM
The Black Eyed Peas, The E.N.D.
Colbie Caillat, Breakthrough
Kelly Clarkson, All I Ever Wanted
The Fray, The Fray
Pink, Funhouse
BEST DANCE RECORDING
The Black Eyed Peas, “Boom Boom Pow”
David Guetta, & Kelly Rowland, “When Love Takes Over”
Lady Gaga, “Poker Face”
Madonna, “Celebration”
Britney Spears, “Womanizer”
BEST ELECTRONIC/DANCE ALBUM
The Crystal Method, Divided By Night
David Guetta, One Love
Lady Gaga, The Fame
LMFAO, Party Rock
Pet Shop Boys, Yes
BEST ROCK SONG
Pearl Jam, “The Fixer”
U2, “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight”
Green Day, “21 Guns”
Kings Of Leon, “Use Somebody”
Bruce Springsteen, “Working On A Dream”
BEST ROCK ALBUM
AC/DC, Black Ice
Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood, Live At Madison Square Garden
Green Day, 21st Century Breakdown
Dave Matthews Band, Big Whiskey And The GrooGrux King
U2, No Line On The Horizon
BEST ALTERNATIVE MUSIC ALBUM
David Byrne & Brian Eno, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
Death Cab For Cutie, The Open Door
Depeche Mode, Sounds Of The Universe
Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It’s Blitz!
BEST RAP/SUNG COLLABORATION
Beyonce & Kanye West, “Ego”
Keri Hilson, Kanye West & Ne-Yo, “Knock You Down”
Jay-Z, Rihanna & Kanye West, “Run This Town”
The Lonely Island & T-Pain, “I’m On A Boat”
T.I. & Justin Timberlake, “Dead And Gone”
BEST RAP SONG
Drake, “Best I Ever Had”
Kid Cudi, “Day ‘N’ Nite”
T.I. & Justin Timberlake, “Dead And Gone”
Jay-Z, “D.O.A. (Death Of Auto-Tune)”
Jay-Z, Rihanna & Kanye West, “Run This Town”
BEST RAP ALBUM
Common, Universal Mind Control
Eminem, Relapse
Flo Rida, R.O.O.T.S.
Mos Def, The Ecstatic
Q-Tip, The Renaissance
BEST COUNTRY SONG
Trace Adkins, “All I Ask For Anymore”
Jamey Johnson, “High Cost Of Living”
Lady Antebellum, “I Run To You”
Billy Currington, “People Are Crazy”
Taylor Swift, “White Horse”
BEST COUNTRY ALBUM
Zac Brown Band, The Foundation
George Strait, Twang
Taylor Swift, Fearless
Keith Urban, Defying Gravity
Lee Ann Womack, Call Me Crazy
StaticBlog Live Blogs the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards 7 p.m. Sunday
It’s been a ridiculously long time, but live blogging season is here again. I’ll be doing the minute-by-minute catcalling for the Grammy Awards again this year, broadcast at 7 p.m. CST Sunday on CBS. You know you want to be here for this one, just so we can make fun of Lady Gaga’s latest couture foray, made entirely of raw beef and angry dogs.
We hope.
Come for “music’s hottest night,” stay for blackhearted cynicism — Sunday on StaticBlog!
Video of the Day: Marina & the Diamonds, “Obsessions”
Marina & The Diamonds, "Obsessions" from Neon Gold Records on Vimeo.
Another great conceptual clip from Marina Diamandis. Still waiting on a U.S. release date for Family Jewels. Damn it.
Video of the Day: Broken Bells, “The High Road”
The High Road
Broken Bells | MySpace Music Videos
Broken Bells is the new project from James Mercer of The Shins and the omnipresent, all-knowing Danger Mouse. From the sound of “The High Road,” We can expect music that diverts only slightly from the general modus operandi of The Shins, only with a more streamlined, subtlely electronic sheen. Broken Bells’ debut comes out March 9 on Sony.
Norman Music Festival Announces Dirty Projectors as Headliner
The Dirty Projectors will be the headliners for the third annual Norman Music Festival April 24-25 in downtown Norman. Spokesman Quentin Bomgardner made the announcement Tuesday through the festival’s Web site.
Bomgardner said the group is one of the most innovative working today, citing the group’s exploration of diverse styles and surprising source material since their days as a lo-fi project for bandleader Dave Longstreth.
“Their rise since that time has been steady and striking, and included such fascinating and captivating projects as the 2007 release “Rise Above” — an album of Black Flag songs re-imagined from memory. Who does that sort of thing? Well … Dave Longstreth and the Dirty Projectors, that’s who.”
The Dirty Projectors in 2009 released “Bitte Orca,” a widely acclaimed album that showcased accessible melodies and bright instrumentation. Vampire Weekend lead singer (and former Dirty Projector) Ezra Koenig described “Bitte Orca” as “2009′s ‘Physical Graffiti,’” referencing Led Zeppelin’s musically diverse 1975 double album.
The festival expands to a two-day format this year, and is free to the public. For more information, go to normanmusicfestival.com.
Stillness Is The Move
dirty projectors | MySpace Music Videos
Video of the Day: Beach House, “Silver Soul”
The Baltimore Duo’s first release for Sub Pop, Teen Dream, received a 9.0 rating from Pitchfork this morning. Now we can look forward to a review in 2012 that excoriates Beach House’s fourth album as a “compromised late-career effort.”
Video of the Day: Will Ferrell, Beck, Billy Gibbons, Ben Harper and Conan O’Brien, “Free Bird”
Horrible and wonderful at once, a nearly full-length run-through of the Skynyrd warhorse “Free Bird” supplied the coda for Coco’s “Tonight Show” on Friday night. And yes, there’s cowbell.
O’Brien ended the whole sordid mess with grace and a convincing level of fretboard rocking. As Neil Young sang in his performance earlier on the show, “Long May You Run.”
Video of the Day: Marina and the Diamonds, “I Am Not A Robot”
Marina & The Diamonds, "I Am Not A Robot" from Neon Gold Records on Vimeo.
StaticBlog continues its weekly feed of Marina and the Diamonds videos with this cautionary tale about getting your face too close to the Bedazzler. Still no domestic release date for Family Jewels, although it does hit UK stores on Feb. 16, and will be available as an import from Amazon.
Chin Up at NBC, Part V: Conan O’Brien and NBC Reach the Deal
This morning, NBC officially announced a $45 million settlement with Conan O’Brien, facilitating his departure from “The Tonight Show,” reinstating Jay Leno as of March 1, and allowing O’Brien to return to the air on another network as early as Sept. 1, 2010.
From the Associated Press:
Under the deal, which came seven months after O’Brien took the reins from Leno, O’Brien will get more than $33 million, NBC said. The rest will go to his 200-strong staff in severance, the network said in an announcement on the “Today” show.
His final show will be Friday, with Tom Hanks scheduled to appear as well as Will Ferrell — the first guest O’Brien welcomed as “Tonight” host last June — and musical guest Neil Young.
“In the end, Conan was appreciative of the steps NBC made to take care of his staff and crew, and decided to supplement the severance they were getting out of his own pocket,” his manager, Gavin Polone, told The Wall Street Journal. “Now he just wants to get back on the air as quickly as possible.”
As has been widely reported, O’Brien has not been offically (or, shall we say, publicly) offered a deal with Fox or any other potential suitors such as Comedy Central, but watch this space closely, because something dramatic is likely to happen in the next weeks, possibly next week — aw hell, it could happen today for all we know.
For those of you with memories that extend back to the 1992 late-night war chronicled in Bill Carter’s “The Late Shift,” David Letterman made an announcement surrounded by CBS executives as soon as NBC released him from his contract. Here’s what I suspect will happen: O’Brien will continue on with his shows tonight and tomorrow (and trust me, pay close attention to what Neil Young plays on Friday). Then on Monday morning, O’Brien and his new bosses will hold a press conference announcing his new show.
As Chase requested, here is Letterman’s scathing comment on the situation from Tuesday:
NBC will reap the whirlwind for its handling of this debacle. The network has given O’Brien a great deal, but now NBC is remarried to Leno, who returns to “The Tonight Show” as tarnished goods. Leno will likely score strong numbers when he reboots his “Tonight” in March, just because so many people will be curious, but much of his former audience now resides with Letterman and his good-guy image has been replaced by that of a giant-jawed Machiavellian. He might never reach his former heights. I personally do not think he will. But NBC owns him. It’s the Pottery Barn rule, chumps.
For the final word on this mess, for now, let’s leave it to Howard Stern. Appearing on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” on Dec. 14, 2006, Stern predicted what happened in the last two weeks with almost frightening accuracy:
