Grammys 2009: A Running Diary!

Big, big week in sports this week. The Steelers win the Super Bowl on what has to be the most peculiar non review of our time, Chris Bosh wants out of Toronto and now A-Rod tests positive? I’m entering overload here. Too much to do, so why not take a breather and watch the third best of the Big 3 awards shows: The Grammy’s. Here’s what transpired:

8:00 – There’s comedy. There’s high comedy. And then there’s Rick “The Temp” wearing a suit interviewing music celebs before the show. If they had those Blind Date thought bubbles above every celebrities head, I imagine a good bulk of them would say “Who let this dweeb in here?” or “I wish this dweeb would leave me alone” or “Wow. What a dweeb.” On with the show.

8:01 – U2 takes the stage to sing “Get Your Boots On”!!

8:05 – Not a great song, but they still know how to bring the house down. Good job by them.

8:07 – Whitney Houston? Really? Does she even know where she is? I guess it’s good to get the Whitney appearance over and done with early before the cocaine takes effect.

8:09 – Whitney is still on stage. Quick shot of Grammy show producers looking worried at each other. Also, is it just me or did it not seem like Whitney hasn’t opened her eyes in about eight years. Very confusing stuff.

8:10 – Jennifer Hudson wins the first award and rushes onto the stage wearing apparently a table cloth held onto her by duct tape. Obligatory “Thank God” speech ensues.

8:11 – The Rock is now on. Or Dwayne Johnson. Or whatever he wants to be called now. Wait, when did the name Dwayne Johnson become more marketable than “The Rock”? That would be like Mr T going by his real name “Laurence Tureaud” or any male porno star going by his real name.

8:13 – Justin Timberlake needs to be added to the “Always should host every awards show possible even if he has no affiliation with the subject of the awards” list.

8:16 – Next performance: Al Green and JT with Keith Urban and Boyz II Men. I’m pretty sure Keith Urban had never met Boyz II Men before tonight. I’m also pretty sure Boyz II Men had never heard of Keith Urban before tonight.

8:21 – Probably a good time to mention that there isn’t a host this year, which is kind of weird because outside of the MuchMusic Video Awards, these shows always have hosts. So what are we supposed to do, just have awards been given out and announced willy nilly all night? It’s not looking good.

8:24 – Finally back after an extra long commercial break. The guy from “The Mentalist” announces that Coldplay is about to take the stage. I’ll be honest, I hate Coldplay. Hopefully we get a shot of Thom Yorke with his own thought bubble saying “Aren’t they cute.”

8:25 – And now Jay-Z takes the stage with Chris Martin. They’re still doing performances featuring artists that have absolutely nothing to do with one another. I’d like to say that started with Eminem and Elton John back in 2001 but I know I’m wrong.

8:26 – Jay-Z vanishes as fast as he arrived. Its ok Jay, a tote bag is waiting for you backstage.

8:30 – Keith Urban is back. We’re thirty mintues in and Keith Urban has made two appearances. He’s working for his tote bag.

8:34 – Ok so here’s where we stand. 34 minutes of Grammy Awards show, four performances, a six minute commercial break, one actual award given out, and a post-crack Whitney sighting. Not too shabby!

8:36 – Sheryl Crow and LeAnn Rimes are about to announce the Grammy for Country Music song of the year to a group I’ve never heard of. You can bank on it…..and a group called Sugarland wins. LeAnn looks comfortable as she hands them their award. Ms Crow looks as if she knows as much about this group as me. Glad I’m not alone.

8:38 – Are you serious? They have a contest where ordinary people make videos of themselves singing “I Kissed A Girl” and people like ME can vote for MY favourite????

8:40 – Is anyone else bothered when the Breathe Right guy refers to himself as “an inventor”? You invented ONE THING! That’d be like me referring to myself as a porn star because I starred in a low budget, one off, self made solo video back in 2000. If I had that is. (Too much has been said)

8:43 – Al Green is back with someone called Duffy. And it’s not Hilary Duffy. I’m not sure I like this “new” Duffy. We had a perfectly good old Duffy. My head hurts.

8:45 – Coldplay is the only Song of the Year nominee who has already performed. If you’re doing your homework, you know Coldplay will win……..and there it is!!! They arrive onstage looking like a poor man’s “Sergeant Peppers” from the Beatles Album. Ok good, it was intentional because the band mentioned it. God I hate Coldplay.

8:48 – Kid Rock takes the stage. Is there anyone alive who can pinpoint the exact moment when Kid Rock turned into a credible artist and shed the title of “Guy who more than likely gave Pamela Anderson Hepatitis”?

8:52 – Ok, I’m not really a fan of either Taylor Swift or Miley Cyrus (I did like “See You Again” however) but someone please tell me why it’s been announced (3 times now) that they’re singing together for the first time ever, as if the Grammy people had been trying for a decade to reunite the guys from Savage Garden. Is it that big a deal? Is there a Miley-Taylor feud we don’t know about? Is Taylor Swift really Asian? There has to be a connection. And I’m going to find it damn it!

8:56 – Back from commercial as the female announcer (remember, there’s no host) announcing to everyone “Performing together for the very first time: Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus!” I can think of three other instances I would rather see hyped as much as this. How about “Performing together for the very first time: Prince and Michael Jackson” or “Performing together for the very first time: Axl Rose and The Rolling Stones” or how about this one, “Performing together for the very first time: Hilary Duff and Evan Stone”. (Google Evan Stone, you’ll see what I mean)

9:00 – Pop Collaboration with Vocals is next up. Basically they had four real songs and then threw in the Maroon 5 & Rihanna song to make it the necessary five…..Possible nominee for “Most fake Enthusiasm of the night”, when Swift goes bananas announcing Robert Plant and Alison Krauss winning for something called “Rich Woman”. I know I should know the answer, but that’s the sequel to the song Gwen came out with a few years ago right?

9:03 – Jennifer Hudson takes the stage. Definitely not a fan of her; she just seems to over do her singing and not in a good way like Pre-Crack Whitney. And it’s too bad, because the world really needs another Pre-Crack Whitney. We really do.

9:08 – I’m not sure which is a worse idea: The fact that the Grammy’s are encouraging yahoo’s to make Katy Perry videos themselves and for people like me to vote on my favourite or Global deciding it was time they made a sitcom about a black beauty parlour. “Da Kink In My Hair” debuts this week. Really? There was nothing else they could call it? Obviously Tyler Perry wasn’t available.

9:13 – Oh boy, it’s Stevie Wonder with the Jonas Brothers. 100% sure that if Lil Stevie Wonder could see, the first thing he would want to know is “Why the %$&# am I performing with these little punks??” Meanwhile, somewhere Taylor Hanson is weeping.

9:18 – I’m also almost 100% sure that Blink 182 was invited because Travis Barker broke his arm in a plane crash. So there you go, if your band broke up and nobody cared, you’re a plane crash and broken arm away from a spot on the Grammy’s! This leads to a funny moment where they announce that Blink 182 is back together again and nobody applauds.

9:19 – Coldplay wins another award, this time for Rock Album which boggles the mind because although Coldplay is a lot of things, they are not rock! Look at the other nominees: Metallica, Kings of Leon, hell even Kid Rock has “rock” in his name! How have they not created a separate category for bands like Coldplay, Radiohead and others who although they look like a rock band are not rock? This once again proves that if a band is white and plays guitars without twang, they qualify for Rock Album of the Year. If the band is black, it’s R&B and if they have twang, it’s country. Glad all is right in the music world again.

9:24 – Hang on, “Da Kink In My Hair” isn’t a new show? It actually warranted a second season? Fair enough. I will now smash a vase over my head.

9:27 – Katy Perry arrives to sing “I Kissed a Girl”, a song which isn’t on the Mount Rushmore of “Songs to play to get drunk girls excited and dancing because they just can’t help dance to this song” but could be in the next few years. So far, the Mount Rushmore consists of “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”, “Wannabe” and “I’ve Had The Time Of My Life” from Dirty Dancing as well as a fourth song that I’ll leave up to you because every Mount Rushmore needs something personal on it. Also, Katy Perry is a strange looking girl. Just putting that out there.

9:31 – Kanye West looks like Cameo tonight. Also, just putting that out there.

9:34 – Hmm, the nominees for Best New Artist involve the Jonas Brothers and four artists I’ve never heard of. I don’t know who will win, but I do know that the Bros have no chance…..and a cute, pale, plump girl named Adele wins. Nothin’ wrong with that eh?

9:35 – They throw us to commercial by showing us Kenny Chesney who kind of looks like Billy Corgan in a cowboy hat, Robert Plant in video form looking like what Chad Kroeger might look like in twenty years, and what they’re calling a Hip Hop Summit. I don’t know about you, but I’m on the edge of my seat.

9:39 – Hang on, when did Morgan Freeman get his ears pierced??

9:41 – Billy, er, Kenny Chesney performs “Better as a Memory” (I looked it up ok?). Is it too much to ask to have Toby Keith come onstage brandishing a six pack and throwing them one by one to the audience while Kenny looks on in absolute shock? I long for the unpredictable-ness of the Brit Awards.

9:44 – Kanye doesn’t look like Cameo anymore. Something is amiss. Oh wait it’s Puff Daddy that’s why. Oh, and apparently Natalie Cole still makes music. Who knew? Record of the Year award is up.

9:45 – Wow, I was 100% sure they’d give the award to MIA for Paper Planes for no other reason than she seemed to be the “it” artist this year. Another award for Mr. Plant and Ms. Krauss. Am I the only one annoyed when artists win major awards for collaborations like these? I mean, Alison Krauss and Robert Plant aren’t a group, they’re a one-off project. It seems a little unfair because though Coldplay and MIA will have future chances to win in this category this is the ONLY time the academy will ever have the opportunity to give Robert Plant and Alison Krauss the Record of the Year award, so I should have known it was going to them. Sorry, everything seems to piss me off when there’s seven months before meaningful football again.

9:46 – E! Online just had a commercial for their website featuring the song “Untouched” by The Veronicas. I’m happy again.

9:50 – Another “Da Kink” commercial. Now I’m angry again.

9:51 – Say what you want about Queen Latifah, but I dare you to find a lady who would be more fun to go out with and drink pitcher after pitcher of beer.

9:52 – Kudos to MIA for making it and performing for a little bit while obviously pregnant. Ok, Kanye still looks like Cameo. That’s a relief. Also, LeBron needs to show up with Jay-Z at some point, just to you know, fuel the fire.

9:54 – I’m enjoying the ladder of Hip Hop on the stage. T.I. isn’t quite Lil’ Wayne (only because Wayne was up for a ton of awards tonight), Lil’ Wayne isn’t quite Kanye, and Kanye isn’t quite Jay-Z. Glad they spelled this out for me.

9:58 – Ok, Paul McCartney with Dave Grohl. THIS is a good duet. On one hand you have Sir Paul. On the other you have a guy who was in Nirvana, but then formed his own group and has been consistently popular and critically acclaimed for over a decade with said new band. If you want, this is the opposite of someone like Stevie Wonder performing with a band that in five years might be as washed up as Nelson was in 1993. (Yes, I just dropped a Nelson reference)

10:01 – Neil Diamond is up soon. Would an appearance by Will Ferrell be too much to ask? Knowing the Grammy’s, probably.

10:07 – Jack Black appears to announce Best Male Pop Vocal award and huge surprise as John Mayer wins again. I think he’s becoming the male Sheryl Crow. During his acceptance speech I was waiting for him to accidentally blurt out “Thank you, I love making music, I love being an artist, I love bagging hot celebs…er...I mean…damn” but it never happened. Too bad.

10:08 – I’m pretty sure neither Jay Mohr nor LL Cool J know who Sugarland or Adele are, although LL is probably sober enough to witness them win awards earlier in the night. Sorry Jay, you have a new sitcom on your hands. We all know where a lot of that money is going.

10:14 – Well at least the cute, pale, plump girl from England from an hour ago is back on stage again. I think it’s time I googled this one. Back in a few seconds.

10:16 – Well that’s done then. Probably a good time to mention that the only pseudo-celebs from CBS sitcoms missing from the show at this point are the four guys from The Big Bang Theory.

10:17 – I really hope they’re just building up to a commercial where the guy who never has Rogers finally gets something that the guy who always has Rogers doesn’t have, and finally beats him. And beats him. And beats him. Just a personal wish. On the plus side, we’re going on almost two months with no new commercials featuring the blonde girl.

10:21 – What?? No shot of Chris Martin looking on horrified as his own wife giddily praises Radiohead right in front of him? That’s just not fair. Either way, Radiohead takes the stage with a Marching Band. Ladies and Gentlemen: Rock in 2009!

10:25 – Heads up to the Grammy people: Look, you missed out having Will Ferrell perform with Robert Goulet, please don’t cheat us out of a performance with him and Neil Diamond. (You’re damn right it’s Neil Diamond!)

10:28 – I’ve said it before and I’ll say it until I die: KY Jelly commercials are always fun to watch, just because you know 95% of people use it for backdoor entries. And who doesn’t love giggling about that?

10:31 – This has to be the tenth time tonight we’ve had a performance by “Two people together for the first time!” It’s kind of at the point of ridiculousness now, reminiscent of Homer Simpson’s great line “I’m a white male, aged 18-49. Everyone listens to me, no matter how stupid my ideas are” while he reaches for a can that says “Nuts N Gum – together at last!” See, there WAS a point to that story. I think it’s getting late/boring.

10:36 – The President of the Grammy’s looks a lot like the guy from Seinfeld who was a producer on “Scarsdale Surprise”, you know, the guy who told Kramer to fire Raquel Welch. You know him? Remember that episode? That was a good one. Thinking about it is easily more entertaining that listening to this look-alike speak.

10:40 – The President just introduced Smokey Robinson. I dig Smokey Robinson. So there. He’s about to perform with Ne-Yo, Jamie Foxx and Duke Fakir recreating the Four Tops.

10:41 – I’ve heard a lot of Ne-Yo songs over the last three years, my favourite being “Because of You” which I’m still convinced is a song about self gratification addiction being sung by him to his um…willing partner. (“I need it when I want it/I want it when I don’t/Tell myself I’ll stop everyday, knowing that I won’t.” Come on, tell me that’s not about that!)

10:43 – Neil Diamond is on deck. I’ll give huge odds that he either performs “Cherry Cherry” or “Sweet Caroline”. Any takers?

10:49 – And Neil performs “Caroline”. Looks like I won the fake bet.

10:50 – I would just like to say once and for all that the film “Beautiful Girls” needs to be credited with elevating this song from pretty good song from the 60s to iconic 20th century piece of pop art.

10:51 – Funny shot of Paul McCartney singing along and not really knowing the words. It’s okay, he can’t know everything.

10:55 – John Mayer, B.B. King, Keith Urban (again Keith??) and Buddy Guy perform “Bo Diddley”, the song that thanks to “Fritz the Cat” is best remembered as being an intermission piece used in an X rated film which as also a cartoon. Thank God.

11:00 – Wait, its 11 and this isn’t over yet…it goes till 1130??? Ok, get ready for overtime baby. Here comes the home stretch.

11:04 – I just realized we’re going on an hour without anyone winning an award, though here’s yet another plug for “Da Kink” and I may have to check this show out to see if it actually does exist.

11:06 – Gary Sinise introduces Lil’ Wayne and Robin Thicke (Alan’s kid). He also acknowledges Wayne as a “winner earlier tonight”. When did he win? Oh right, before the actual show they give out the “lesser” awards if you want to call them that. You’ll have to Wikipedia the award winners though, as I’m having trouble remembering who won earlier tonight at the actual awards show. An hour between winners will do that for you.

11:11 – T-Pain!!! THAT’S the guy in the hat that looks like he used to be a massive nerd in high school. I’m glad I got that straightened out.

11:12 – Lil’ Wayne wins for Rap Album of the Year beating out Jay-Z, T.I, Nas and Lupe Fiasco. And, yes, he just performed. I’m telling you people, it’s not a trend, it’s a sure fire thing. On the plus side, a bunch of music fans just realized that Nas is still making music.

11:15 – Maybe it’s because its 11:15 on a Sunday night, but I really want to buy those Glad Spongy Garbage Bags. I really do.

11:20 – I’m not familiar with Zooey Deschanel but apparently that’s her real name. She introduced Robert Plant and Alison Krauss who will perform a song I’m also not familiar with. Seeing as how Album of the Year is the only award left, I’d bet they’re about to win. Just a hunch.

11:25 – Green Day come out to present Album of the Year. Is there another band than Green Day who has been able to look weirder and weirder every time they attend a show like this? I mean, we’re into year fifteen of Green Day and they just keep topping themselves don’t they?

11:26 – And Mr Plant and Ms Krauss win again. The artists sitting in their seats must have known they had no chance.

11:28 – With that, we’re out.

11:30 – Overall not a bad show this year, although I would have preferred a host. Lowlights include Stevie Wonder being forced to perform with the Jonas Brothers, Jennifer Hudson, Kid Rock, no Will Ferrell singing with Neil Diamond, no Chris Martin reaction to his wife’s teary eyed intro of Radiohead, every performance being dubbed as “together for the first time!” and me being roped into watching “Da Kink” this week; maybe I’ll have a “Da Kink Diary”.

Highlights include MIA performing while pregnant (and not just a little pregnant, like REALLY pregnant), me NOT having to watch Katy Perry fan videos, the cute plump pale girl from England, Green Day continuing to look weird (and sound weird too, I mean wasn’t that awkward hearing Billy Joe sign off at the end?), Paul McCartney not knowing the words to “Sweet Caroline”, Blink 182 announcing their comeback to much fan fare, the cute plump pale girl from England, the Grammy producers continuing to slickly schedule artist performances to coincide with them winning awards, Stevie Wonder performing without the Jonas Brothers, “Cameo Kanye West” and the cute plump pale girl from England.

I miss football already.