The First Hour Of The 2014 Grammys Reviewed
Sharing is caring at the Grammys
In what has become a rock nyc tradition, I swallowed back the bile and watched the first hour of the 2014 Grammy Awards and then went to sleep secure in the thought that you can’t be too cynical when it comes to popular music on Network television.
Opening with Beyonce and her husband Jay Z’s overly affectionate take on the worst song on her current album, “Drunk And In Love” when she clearly had the vastly superior “XO” in her back pocket and waiting to go, it had nowhere . Really, do we have to be constantly reminded that for her sins Bey has to have sex with the pudgy, arrogant Hov? It wasn’t very good at all.
But at least LL Cool J liked it.
MC for the evening, LL Cool J was bad last year and worst this year. The “Mama Said Knock You Out” in Tux and smile sprouted poorly written platitudes about music bringing people together. Really, I mean, really?? It was skin crawlingly insincere bullshit of immense proportions, I wonder how all these overfed over glorified nitwit pop stars can listen to this crap without throwing up all over him. I cringed right through it.
Then Macklemore And Lewis got rushed off the stage after winning Best Newcomer. Look, I have no great love for these twits saying how this was all about the fans either, but cmon: let them speak. Especially since you gave even more time to Anna Kendrick and Pharrell Williams painful skit about their version of “Drunk And In Love” not airing.
Lorde gave the first halfway decent performance with a ridiculously unapt but very capable “Royals”. I dunno if she is a one album wonder, but I do know she is the only person who looks vaguely human on stage.
LL Cool J, who should really try not speaking, advised us to listen to the execrable Hunter Hayes “Invisible”. Yeah, repeat, no.
“Get Lucky” won best pop duo and Pharrell had to give the speech (“And I’m sure they’d thank their family…”) while the two dummy Daft Punks stood in Darth Vader masks. OK guys, we got it, enough already you’re being silly.
Steve Coogan introduced Katy Perry and Juicy J’s witching stagecraft preview of the tour “Dark Horse” . The first mash up of the night found Chicago and Robin Thicke performing “Does Anybody Know What Time It Is? ” morphing into “Blurred Lines” -not bad. Better still was Keith Urban -who has apparently had a facelift, and the great Gary Clark Jr sharing guitar solos on “Cop Car”… much better than the terrible recorded version.
And that was my hour. Though I did turn it on briefly to note John Legend boring the world to death on piano, turned it off, saw Taylor Swift taking a picture for Twitter, turned it off, caught a minute of Taylor performing “All Too Well” on piano. Why such a downer? To prove to the world she can sing after the Stevie Nicks debacle a couple of years ago.
And that was it.
A self-important, pompous waste of time, gimme back my hour.
Grade: D+
