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!
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
I’m depending on the snark feed instead of the broadcast, and it sounds like I made the right choice.
How is it that “Empire State of Mind,” one of the best singles in the last couple of years, wasn’t even nominated?
I like it when they cut to taylor swift and she is singing beyonce and now drake. What was up with the bleeps?
Oh, Allen Klein. Forever known as the bastard that tried to swindle George Harrison, only to get taken for a ride by a judge. The Beatles should have taken Mick’s advice.
And, yay Leon!
Was disappointed that ‘Empire State Of Mind’was not up there in the nominations,is it true that there is a cut of line on singles and albums after a certain time?
katy perry is the best in the world I’m crazy about her is amazing every day makes sensational things in the world so it is recognized as the girl pop as the girl pop
se ven muy padres las fotos que estan suviendo sigan haci black me caen muy bien adios y saludos para todos y muchos besos
hi
my name is pourya im from iran its very good i want you send the beyonce picture in my email
thank you
As a songwriter, I take offense to that choice.