One of last year's favorite randomness entries involved the questionable decision to subject myself to the entirety of the Grammy Awards. Well, you can never have too much of a good thing, can you? This year I'm still on antibiotics so I can't satiate myself with the liquor that got me through the 2003 presentation.
So, with no further ado, in the extended entry below I present the 2004 randomness Grammy play-by-play.
7:57 I can't believe I'm doing this again. I see the awards are scheduled to last until 11:30. This could be truly painful. Seeing Elvis in a tribute to Sting could truly be one of the most disturbing experiences of my life. If only I could drink...
8:05 Ugh. Already depressing. I wish nothing more than to have a relevant Prince Rogers Nelson in 2004. It's just not happening. He's back to singing medleys from an album that's twenty years old. I wish I knew what happened to him. Hell, I'm sure he wishes that he knew what happened. He just lost the ability to write at some point. The decision to stand next to Beyoncé was amusing, though.
8:10 The fact that R. Kelly is nominated for a Grammy and not nominated for some sort of prison shower award boggles the mind.
8:14 Roll over John Lennon and tell Tchaikovsky the news. The fat-headed. retarded fuck is singing "I Saw Her Standing There." Vince and Sting actually sound pretty good, though.
8:22 Christina is singing with a gospel choir. This is a joke, right? I'm not a believer but even I wouldn't want to be standing next to her right now. Lightening and stuff...
8:27 Um, whomever that child is she needs to stop letting Gwen Steffani choose her outfits.
8:31 Is it just me, or is Jack White looking more and more like Brandon Lee's character from The Crow? They've been at this for a while now. One would think Meg would've figured out how to keep a beat.
8:35 David Gest recently admitted to receiving 80 botox shots. Somehow I believe Steven Tyler has gotten more.
8:38 I think I could have gotten better seats than Andre 3000. Where the hell was he?
8:50 Somehow I think the low-key, suit wearing Justin isn't a accident. His comments, though, just ensured that Nipplegate continues.
8:56 Celine sings Luther. My own private hell. Patti name-checked Janet and CBS didn't use the five minute delay to edit it out. Surprising. Man, this is dragging the whole show to a crawl. Celine, Luther and Richard Marx. Even better than I imagined. For a minute it looked the world was going to be spared. The feedback was more melodic, I must say.
9:10 I don't know what's more pretentious, Madonna's increasingly absurd accent or Sting's entire person. The dress was edgy in 1979.
9:17 Don't worry, Christina. They're on a five minute delay.
9:26 My eyes are starting to glaze over at the sight and sounds of one Justin Timberlake. I have no idea how I'm going to make it through another two hours.
9:30 Yoko brings the show to yet another screeching halt. You knew there was no way that Macca would be on the same stage as Yoko, didn't you? How long can Paul keep up the bobblehead act before we all realize that he's completely insane?
9:43 Please note that Mr. Timberlake was kept on completely different level of the stage than the female singer in Black-eyed Peas.
9:46 I'm literally shocked that June just won. Wow.
9:55 Beyoncé clearly spoke to the Purple One for too long. This whole set looks like she's recreating a scene from Under The Cherry Moon.
10:02 That's great. Goth Christian rock gets upstaged by gangster rap. My two favorite genres!!
10:11 Earth, Wind & Squeal. I really want to like Robert Randolph but this song is not a good case for musicianship.
10:26 No mas. I just can't do it. It's chock-full of ads and bad music. I'll flip in and out and see if I can catch Elvis. Otherwise, it's off to bed for this boy. I tried! I'll summarize what I mange to withstand in the morning.
10:39 I'm a sucker. I will watch the rest of the show from the comfort of my sofa in the living room rather than in front of the PC. Coldplay was a very nice surprise (I think they were surprised, too) and the Warren tribute will hopefully be nice.
Posted by mikewolf at February 08, 2004 07:53 PMQuitter.
Posted by: Ken Goldstein on February 9, 2004 12:21 AMJust two comments:
1. I watched at least the last bit, and never saw the Sting tribute. They may have edited it out here, though.
2. Meg White didn't lose the beat, at least not that we noticed. White Stripes were the highlight of what I saw.
3. Bonus comment: Since when did the game become "let's match up the oddest people we can?" Snoop and Jason Alexander introducing Foo Fighters? Tony Bennett and Missy Elliott? And could Faith Hill have looked more uncomfortable at the end surrounded by the Outkast posse?
Posted by: Mark on February 9, 2004 10:03 AMThe biggest rip off of the night for me was the fact Justin Timberlake won out over Mr. Zevon.
Posted by: Brad on February 9, 2004 10:30 AMI really liked the Prince/Beyonce duet; Prince is still pretty fucking amazing to see perform live. Did anyone else see him throw down some unreal James Brown dance shit behind Beyonce as the camera went to this really distant angle? Awesome.
I also really enjoyed Robert Randolph...I was pretty much blown away.
But then, I'm just a kid. What do I know?
Posted by: Matt on February 9, 2004 12:34 PMIs that Springer, The Younger? Heya. Heya.
My few pesetas:
* Medleys so suck.
* Linda Perry behind first Pink and now Christina? She's the new divas' Phil Spector.
* Olivia and Yoko are the living Beatles.
* Was Maurice White constipated?
* Foo Fighters and Chick Corea? A definite suit suggestion.
* Best line of the night: "Stank you very much. You smelt me."
1. The White Stripes were the highlight. I just think Meg can't drum. Luckily for her Jack rawks hard.
2. Prince DOES still sound great. He just can't write. That's the frustrating part of it. Last better than mediocre song he wrote was "Papa" and that was ten years ago.
3. On the medleys, when I saw him (Prince) play in Atlanta he was only doing medleys of his Warner Bros. stuff because he didn't want them to get royalties. I don't know how that stuff works but I'm sure that's still his rationale.
4. The Zevon tribute was pretty damn lame. Just singing the "la, la, la's?" C'mon.
5. I'm clearly not up with my Parliament-Funkadelic. Didn't Bootsy leave the fold years ago?
Posted by: mrw on February 9, 2004 02:43 PM> Last better than mediocre song he wrote was "Papa" and that was ten years ago.
Posted by: deano on February 9, 2004 06:11 PMyes, deano...it is I. fear the comments section of YOUR blog. fear it.
all I could think about whenever I saw Linda Perry was just how sexy she looked with all that goddamn money she must be raking in. Holy Christ, that lady hit the jackpot.
Posted by: Matt on February 9, 2004 06:20 PMShe's very lesbian, Matt. But I'm sure she'd still appreciate your lust. ;-)
Posted by: deano on February 9, 2004 08:57 PMDang, I shoulda known to check Randomness for some righteous Grammy second-guessing. I liked most of what I saw, actually, but that was partly because I wasn't too attentive. You're too hard on Meg White, Mike. Beyonce and Prince were good together, I thought, but I was pretty focused on her. 8^P He can still play geetar -- there was a part where he mimmicked one of her vocal trills, and I wondered if he did it on the fly or if it was rehearsed. In an age of melisma-mania, Beyonce's singing struck me as nicely restrained. See my blog for other inconsequential Grammyisms, not to mention an election-year slugfest.
Springer's been married a couple of months, so isn't it time for his blog to come back?
Posted by: Vernam on February 10, 2004 08:45 PM