Best Performance at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards

maxwell's gonna run away with this obv

blame it & BEP were pretty enjoyable i thought as well

everything else was pretty much balls

my twitter was blowing up with ppl objecting to the name Lady Antebellum

thought pink drenched in water flying singing live made it good to be alive in 2010, never saw that routine before

blame it was a mess and BEP were fuckin' boring

im not a huge blame it fan but i loled at foxx's entrance so that got my vote.

tayler's reimagining of you belong with me was fun too

aw man, gaga performance was dope

first grammy duet/collabo in a while that actually felt truly inspired

Yup, that's what I voted for.

-man, I feel old when I hear people talking about how great Lady Gaga is. Her cartoon perfomances just don't do it for me. at all.
-I like "Blame It" but the perfomance seemed kind of muddled, would have been better if it were just Foxx and T-Pain.
-I like Taylor Swift, but she really didn't bring it tonight. It was painful to watch.
-I'm on the west coast, so I haven't seen Maxwell/Roberta Flack yet

-Beyonce owned the night, afaic. She sounded/looked inspired.

ok, just saw Maxwell/Roberta Flack. very nice.

i love that wayne was wearing a shirt that said "listen to lil wayne"

wayne sounded very on point tonight, too. not sure about the new direction he's going in, though. lol at all the censoring

Taylor Swift & Stevie Nicks - "Today Was a Fairytale"/"Rhiannon"/"You Belong with Me"

I didn't see the show yet, but how could this not be awesome??

It's awesome if you're Taylor Swift and can sing.

voted "Blame It" reflexively but really I loved that Pink kinda unexpectedly played one of my favorite deep cuts off her album

Maxwell, but "Blame It" was a fun mess. Gaga's melodramatic cartoon take of Elton's "Your Song" did not impress me at all.

yeah seriously -- of all the campy uptempo EJ songs she could've had fun with, she takes a dump on "Your Song"?

These were all varying levels of dope IMO (I missed Gaga):

Green Day with the cast of American Idiot - "21 Guns"
Beyoncé - "If I Were a Boy"/"You Oughta Know"
Pink - "Glitter in the Air"
Black Eyed Peas - "Imma Be"/"I Gotta Feeling"
Lady Antebellum - "Need You Now"
Zac Brown Band & Leon Russell - "America the Beautiful"/"Dixie Lullaby"/"Chicken Fried"
Celine Dion, Jennifer Hudson, Smokey Robinson, Carrie Underwood & Usher - "Earth Song" (Michael Jackson tribu
Bon Jovi & Jennifer Nettles - "We Weren't Born to Follow"/"Who Says You Can't Go Home"/"Livin'
Maxwell & Roberta Flack - "Pretty Wings"/"Where Is the Love"
Jeff Beck & Imelda May - "How High the Moon" (Les Paul tribute)

Wayne and Eminem were actually good but I was so annoyed that rake was going to come out that I couldn't actually enjoy it. I left the room when Taylor came on and ppl should really not scream "Bridge over Troubled Waters".

likely will be voting Pink

Didn't get the TV on in time to see the first two, though I should check out Gaga/Elton on youtube probably. Left the room a few seconds into Maxwell, assuming I'd be as bored by it as I always am by him, but my wife liked it, so who knows. Thought Pink was really disappointing and really dull -- for some dumb reason, I imagined her actually swinging from trapeezes, not just doing some dumb Cirque De Soleil crap. (Boring song, too, near as I can tell. And I generally like her.) Taylor's non-singing during "Rhiannon" made me cringe, and I'm a big fan. (The rest of her thing was fine.) Hated "Bridge Over Troubled Water." Like "Earth Song" a lot (it still sounds dark and goth) but didn't have 3D glasses; thought the union-lay-off stuff in "Livin On A Prayer" was really timely (especially since I was doing my taxes while watching) and Nettles's duet was great; liked "Blame It" more than I ever have before at first but then it turned into the usual mess; liked Drake/Eminem/Wayne a lot but could only hear half the words; thought the girl singing with Jeff Beck was really cute. Voting Zac Brown and Leon Russell, for the cool jamming, and because it's the one that ultimately surprised me the most. Plus ugly guys need love too.

And oh yeah, Beyonce's Alanis cover surprised me, but otherwise her rock-singer wannabee hair-wagging just seemed ridiculous to me (and not in an especially fun way.) Best things about "Blame It" were the opera stuff at the start and Slash's "Novemeber Rain" solo, obviously.

she did a lot of actual acrobatic swinging stuff for the "Sober" performance at the VMAs a few months ago -- don't know why she kept that theme for a much more subdued performance/song choice this time around but again i like the song. (xpost)

And ha, all I could think of during the Dave Matthews song (which didn't seem completely horrible) was "wow, they really do kind of sound like Vampire Weekend, don't they?"

The one VW song I've heard has more energy in it than the entirety of the DMB catalog, which is one of my biggest gripes with DMB.

okay i finally broke down and listened to a vampire weekend song. i like it okay. way more than any dmb song i've ever heard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e0u11rgd9Q

I don't hate VW! I even liked their first album! But the new one definitely has a few songs that Dave tramples all over, energy-wise.

totally want vampire weekend to cover my fave 80's song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeqCqxhxLtc

i think they could do it justice.

voted Maxwell & Roberta, Lady Antebellum was nearby for me I thought they were awesome

i love that wayne was wearing a shirt that said "listen to lil wayne"

concur - does anybody know whether the black sabbath version of this shirt was the original? I have one of those, I've seen a "listen to bob marley" one & now the wayne one

okay i'm officially a vampire weekend fan. watched some more videos. they totally would have been on my hit parade in 1983 or whenever. right next to the bluebells and blue zoo and the woodentops.

the race and class stuff on the vampire thread is funny. if they were british nobody would even blink. they would just be british!

another vampire b-side idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOWbmWi_Wzw

Oh yeah, Lady Antebellum were good; forgot them. They are just so... unassuming. Easy to take for granted. But their drunk-dialing anthem rules, obviously. And they sounded very sparkly last night, I thought.

Scott, there is a song on the new VW album that sounds a lot like Haircut 100! You might like it! (If you like Haircut 100, anyway.)

as cute as they are though, they are still no roddy frame. *sigh* we'll never see the likes of walk out to winter again will we? (god, or something even half as godly as oblivious) maybe someday! hope springs eternal.

cool! i'm gonna buy the album. i just have to find a record store around here. do they have cool 12 inch singles with cool b-sides too?

i think eminem might have actually been my fave thing last night. every once in a while he reminds me why people used to like him so much. the rush of words can be thrilling.

most everything else was a snooze though.

the rush of words can be thrilling

Totally agree; I just couldn't tell what many of the words were.

Thirded. I'm typically on the other side of the fence re: Eminem fandom, but he was great last night.

the grammies were fun! gaga, pink, foxx & maxwell all brought it imo, and i'm really disappointed i've waited this long to listen to "need you now", becuase it's kind of incredible

Just saw Em, and, wow, you guys are right.

Thought Eminem was pretty good too, but didn't want to say anything until someone else broke the Old Dude Weighs In On Hiphop ice.

da da da da need you now ~*guitar wails*~

Was I the only one who thought it was awkward at the end of their set when Wayne and Drake hugged each other, and Eminem -- who had just outshined them both -- looked like kind of a third wheel? I felt sorry for him!

i'm sure he went backstage and had a group hug with Slaughterhouse

wayne hugs one of the perks of cash money label membership

i think eminem might have actually been my fave thing last night. every once in a while he reminds me why people used to like him so much. the rush of words can be thrilling.

this is pretty much what listening to the new Wayne album is like

crap, eminem, crap, nicki minaj, crap, anger

i'm really disappointed i've waited this long to listen to "need you now", becuase it's kind of incredible

it really is!!

Yeah, I didn't feel that bad for Eminem. He sounded good, but I used to actually like the content of his raps and I have no idea what he was going on about last night. I suppose I should listen to that song. It sort of gave me a new appreciation for Drake, though. I felt happy for Jay-Z and Mos Def getting to chat up at the podium by Placido Domingo. Now there was a third wheel!

xp

"Need You Now" reminded me of "Hysteria." Voted for Maxwell cos of his horn charts and his low voice, even though his falsetto wasn't really working for him. Taylor made me cringe, Pink's song was boring and I felt bad for people's nice clothes getting wet. "Speechless" was probably a close second to Maxwell.

I felt happy for Jay-Z and Mos Def getting to chat up at the podium by Placido Domingo. Now there was a third wheel!
I'm sure Placido was distracted what with having to run back after the show to the Los Angeles Opera to straighten things out and then hop on the redeye to get back to NYC in time to conduct and/or sing Simon Boccanegra, kind of like Phil Collins at Live Aid.

That Lady Antebellum performance was the first time in a looooooooooooooong time where I've gone "oh hey, maybe I don't actually hate country music".

I sort of hated the middle section of the Zac Brown Band performance where they were super jam-band-y but the opening gospel bit and the ending bluegrass stomp were fantastic.

middle section of the Zac Brown Band performance where they were super jam-band-y

first time in a looooooooooooooong time where I've gone "oh hey, maybe I don't actually hate jam band music".

hey gtfo guys that bitch was singing live FLYING OVER YOU HOES fuckin GLISTENING

rush of words

hey did you guys see the bet ciphers last year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRAoj4-MtCw

shit was backpack crack

check for the first two also

i can't tell why cbs needed to use such censor sledgehammer on this.

i like to think that the 42 year old human in charge of censoring was just like "ahhhh screw this" and held the button down while finishing off a can of diet coke

http://www.spirit-of-rock.com/les%20goupes/W/Weird%20Al%20Yankovic/In%203D/In%203D.jpg

Weird Al lost the comedy album aware to Colbert last night (although he probably shouldn't have even been nominated for an EP of internet leaks called, imaginatively, Internet Leaks)

aware=award

i thought the gaga perf was good but not great

Re Weird Al: Just a digital EP too, right? Was wondering if that might be a Grammy first -- a largely theoretical EP (really just five previously digitally released tracks) that doesn't even exist in physical form being nominated in an "album" category.

I just thought of Weird Al because the concept of the Michael Jackson movie seemed a lot like "Nature Trail From Hell- In 3D!"

Btw, Award that pissed me off most (inasmuch as it's possible anymore to get pissed off by these things) was Kings Of Leon taking Record Of The Year for their run-of-the-mill "rock song." Getting the idea they're the new Foo Fighters -- completley generic, dime-a-dozen "rock band" getting industry/press respect for being, like, "nice guys" or something. Though obviously some people here something there I don't.

some people where?

(sorry)

xp Still thought it was kind of entertaining that they accepted the award drunk though.

Foo Fighters are pretty fixed in the pop culture firmament and have funny videos, celeb frontman -- KOL at this point are just the Killers after their first album (xpost)

re: pink lipsync - i dont think so, lady can really sing, and what with her whole acrobatic circus tour shes had to learn how to do it while flipping around and whatever.

<<Still thought it was kind of entertaining that they accepted the award drunk though.>>

they stole that schtick from conan. (and yes i know he was faking. i assume they were faking too.)

they were totally not faking

When Green Day got their award I lolled and was all "see, the difference between a rookie band and a veteran band is the vets wait until after getting the award to become drunk asses"

lady can really sing, and what with her whole acrobatic circus tour shes had to learn how to do it while flipping around and whatever

that's totally possible. but it's also possible that, even though she really can sing, she's lip-syncing or at least partially lip-syncing those moments in her acrobatic circus tour. it seemed to me last night that her sound and her tone didn't change at all when she started spinning, and she was spinning fairly fast, and she wasn't breathing heavy, and i'm just not sure that's humanly possible no matter how much you practice. but maybe i'm wrong.

Thought the same as fcc, but what do I know.

Anyway, came to say I take back what I said about Les Paul tribute. Obviously as somebody pointed out elsewhere, they were trying to recreate the original recording as closely as possible. Thus, paradoxically, by a slavish recreation of this museum piece they brought it up to date and made it possible for modern audiences to enjoy it.

she was lip-syncing too! the les paul tribute woman. i swear she was. jeff beck was live and the rest was canned. which seemed weird to me for some reason.

Narada Michael Walden wasn't live?

In any case, here is the original, more or less
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0ffdwBUL78

Just got an email from Levon Helm that he won his second consecutive grammy and the first ever Best Americana Album. I wonder why that wasn't on the broadcast. No doubt they said we already have Leon Russell and Oh! I Always Get Those Two Mixed Up!

I only watched a bit of the show, but I tracked down Lady Gaga and Elton John on YouTube and thought it was absolutely hilarious (in a good way). I wish they'd segued into "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" instead of "Your Song" (which didn't even seem to be "Your Song" for most of it...was it yoked together with some other Elton song?), but you can't have everything. I especially loved the corny "Sir Elton John" stuff at the end--hello, George Michael! I guess Elton is officially the guy who gets trotted out whenever somebody new and controversial needs an old-guy imprimatur (cf. Axl Rose, Eminem).

I heard Taylor Swift's people are already in talks with Sir Elton's people.

she was lip-syncing too! the les paul tribute woman. i swear she was. jeff beck was live and the rest was canned. which seemed weird to me for some reason.

jeff beck sets down guitar midsong and a reel to reel rises from underneath the stage

jeff beck sets down guitar midsong and Reel 2 Real rises from underneath the stage

Okay, just finally got around to watching Gaga (and Elton)...wow. (Is it too late to change my vote?)

That Lady Antebellum performance was the first time in a looooooooooooooong time where I've gone "oh hey, maybe I don't actually hate country music".

I thought the Lady Antebellum was not bad - though it reminded me more of Fleetwood Mac than of country - but I guess Fleetwood Mac had some country in them too.

more like modern country has a lot of classic rock in it

Voted Beyonce. Saw a few of the performances and some of them were really cool, but Beyonce at this point, and in that dress, could just walk across the stage and she'd still get my vote. She's a living goddess.

where is my damn beyoncecrotchgrab.gif? someone get on this pronto

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - The head of Taylor Swift's record label is fired up and ready to defend his superstar from people who are criticizing her Grammy-night performance.

"She is the voice of this generation. She speaks directly to (her fans), and they speak directly back to her," said Big Machine Records CEO Scott Borchetta in a phone interview. "This is not 'American Idol.' This is not a competition of getting up and seeing who can sing the highest note. This is about a true artist and writer and communicator. It's not about that technically perfect performance."

Borchetta first responded to the backlash in The Tennessean. Asked by The Associated Press why he felt the need to defend Swift, he said because the criticism was "just over the top."

"It's that classic thing that critics do of building something up and then wanting to tear it down," he said.

Swift rehearsed her performance and duet with Stevie Nicks two different times at the Staples Center in Los Angeles in front of a crowd of people. Critics were nicer then. Entertainment Weekly wrote of the rehearsal, "The two women's voices complimented each other nicely on the harmonies of 'Rhiannon ...'"

But on Sunday night's Grammy show, Borchetta said Swift had a technical issue that made her worry about her performance. (Attempts to reach The Recording Academy for comment went unanswered.)

"We had a volume problem in the ear. So, she was concerned that she wasn't able to hear everything in the mix," Borchetta said. "That's just part of live TV. ... So you're going to have difficulties on occasion. Unfortunately, on one of the biggest stages, we did have a technical issue. She couldn't hear herself like she had in rehearsal."

As quickly as you could say "Fearless," bloggers and media outlets, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, pounced on Swift's performance. The chatter at times overshadowed the four Grammys she won - including album of the year.

Borchetta said he doesn't need critics to give the 20-year-old the benefit of the doubt: "What we have is so much bigger than that. Am I going to ask them to turn their heads, no, I don't need them to."

It's doubtful her fans will abandon Swift anytime soon, judging by the congratulations and positive comments on her Facebook and MySpace pages, or that those with tickets to the second leg of her sold-out "Fearless" tour will throw them away because she had a bad night.

And with that, Borchetta has a message to all of her critics.

"If you haven't seen her live performance, you're welcome to come out as my guest to a Taylor Swift show and experience the whole thing, because it's amazing. You can see her in her element. There's a reason tickets are selling like they are."

Swift's "Fearless" album has sold over 5 million copies and was last year's top-selling album. She is the youngest artist to ever win the Grammys' top prize of album of the year. She will resume the "Fearless" tour March 4 in Tampa, Fla.

This is not a competition of getting up and seeing who can sing the highest note.

^^^ this fucking guy

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Don't really get the Pink love and why is Beyonce not much higher, do you guys think she was on autopilot or something? She was fantastic!

okay whoever voted for green day needs to leave

yeah we all have a bad case of Beyonce Perfection Fatigue, we're fucking bored of her and it can't be her fault

nice interesting spread of votes here, although i'm disappointed by the winner -- seemed to me like an especially dull old-legend-endorses-hot-new-artist ritual w/ no particularly good song picks or performances and some dumber than usual Gaga theatrics

okay whoever voted for green day needs to leave

LOL WHINEY

And with that, Borchetta has a message to all of her critics.

"If you haven't seen her live performance, you're welcome to come out as my guest to a Taylor Swift show and experience the whole thing, because it's amazing.

Does that mean he'll give me free tickets if I pretend like I cared that she sang out of tune? Moline, here I come!

Swift is the Palin of pop music. Elitists who are into singing in tune just don't get her.

*throws up hands*

^^ i hate that such a canny soundbyte just came out of one of the biggest defensive indie dickbags from all the recent year-end threads

xpost

like if Alfred doesn't show up with an equally catchy quip in 5 minutes the Swift boat veterans are doomed

play nice boys

"Swift boat veterans" :D

MGMT and Silversun Pickups were both too good to win Best New Artist, so instead they gave it to jam-band country-rock. Good decision.