Grammys 2015: Things That Happened

posted in: Music News

The 2015 Grammy Awards happened last night. Established: awards shows are generally silly, and we all hopefully know that going in, so we’re all really there for the spectacle and maybe to root for our favorite music, because a little personal vindication of taste – or tastication (™) – never hurt anyone.

The good part of last night’s telecast was that there was a lot of music packed in, and a lot less yapping by presenters. Acceptance speeches were also subject to the yap-ban, so even the big winners only got a minute or two to say thanks. This is still probably for the best, and most of the winners handled it with aplomb.

Sam Smith was a big winner, taking home four awards. We all joked early and often about the recent revelation that Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne were awarded songwriting credit and royalties for Smith’s smash “Stay With Me” and everyone had a good laugh.

AC/DC kicked things off and, yes, used a teleprompter for their lyrics, but artists have been doing this for decades, and they are quite old, so give them a break. Also, the sneaky snapshot of the teleprompter also reveals that they were rocking so hard that the genteel Grammy attendees had to plug their ears.

Madonna came out in a totally age-appropriate outfit and had backup singers dressed like The Three Amigos, which was a choice, for sure. Not one of her better songs, though.

A couple of the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots were on hand to help present an award and it might surprise you to learn that it was stilted and uncomfortable.

The night was heavy on country music. Country music still sells and the Best Country Album award was given on the telecast, while Best Rap and Best Rock awards were not. Interesting. Miranda Lambert and Eric Church both performed, the latter with a very confusing background video that tried to include everything, like MLK and Charlie Hedbo and some other real-world events. It was the “We Didn’t Start The Fire” of incongruous awards show videos. Brandy Clark and Dwight Yoakam came off a little better, performing her song “Hold My Hand.”

Annie Lennox performed with Hozier, and people love Annie Lennox, but then she started playing mouth trumpet. That was odd.

Pharrell reimagined the first part of his hit “Happy,” breaking it down to a minor key while disembodied voices said confusing things between his lyrics, all while he was dressed as a bellboy.

Ed Sheeran played with John Mayer on guitar, then played with ELO as they did “Mr. Blue Sky.” This was a highlight, because it’s a jaunty little tune that people love, and watching Taylor Swift in the audience trying to dance to it during the breakdown part was funny.

Our old friend Juanes, one of the biggest Latin artists of the last 10 years, got a nice little slot. Literally, he was on a very little stage in the middle of the crowd, but it worked for him. He’s got a tight band and they delivered with no theatrics.

Sia, in contrast, went full theatrics, as she does, with her now-familiar dance interpretation of “Chandelier,” this time with a surprise cameo from Kristen Wiig dancing with 12-year-old Maddie Ziegler.

Sam Smith hit the stage again to perform “Stay With Me” with Mary J. Blige. Most watchers expected her to eat him alive with the sheer power of her soulfulness, but it was actually just a nice-sounding duet.

Rihanna, Kanye West, and Paul McCartney got together to perform Rihanna’s new single “FourFiveSeconds.” The crowd loved it and we were all reminded of that time that the Internet didn’t know who McCartney was, or at least trolled older folks and the major news aggregation outlets into faux outrage at the silly youths of today for not knowing their music history. FYI, he was in The Beatles and Wings.

Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett performed the classic standard “Cheek to Cheek.” It’s great that she’s so musically versatile, but with this good natured lounge singer shtick, it’s going to be hard for some of us to accept it if she tries to slip back into jarring performance art mode for the next record.

Beck won the big prize, Album of the Year, and by now you’ve heard that Kanye West went up like he was going to protest, recalling his stunt years ago with Taylor Swift, but then laughed it off. Sure, have a laugh Kanye, you’ve really grown up, we all thought. Then he reminded us that he’s still kind of a dick by saying that Beck should have given the award to Beyonce, because she’s a true artist whose music transports us all to another time and place or something. It certainly couldn’t be that music is subjective and that not everyone thinks Beyonce is the greatest of all time…of all time, could it Kanye? Morning Phase is hardly Beck’s best record, but, Jesus, just shut up man.

Other things happened, too, but man it was long and exhausting.