High-wire

Just like the Oscars (which has just announced its nominees today), the Grammy’s list is always an attempt to balance artistry and entertainment, though for the Oscars’ sake, it has been towards the latter in recent years. People tend to get bored of course if they don’t know the faces—the music, the films—that are appearing on screen. (The last year reminiscent of a semblance of true artistic independence in Oscar I think in my opinion was the year of The English Patient and Fargo.)

This year’s Grammy featured high-wire pop stars like Beyonce, Lady Gaga, The Black Eyed Peas and Taylor Swift, all performed and were big winners, (except I think for the Peas?). Beyonce excerpted Alanis Morissette’s You Oughta Know and did some head-banging herself. I did not see Gaga perform but the headdress was defining—I would’ve wanted her to win Album of the Year. The choices anyway were uninteresting (so with the other categories, except maybe for New Artist with MGMT and Zac Brown Band appearing) and that headdress flapping around while she receives the award would be a sight. There was a tribute to MJ ala 3D (done by Usher, Celine Dion, Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Hudson and Smokey Robinson), the artists look silly enough as the camera glide through them wearing these 3D glasses. What made my night though was Kings of Leon’s win over the supposed pop giants. The best speech of the night, too. “We’re drunk, but we’re happy drunks.” But who stole the show? Pink. You need to see it to believe the hype.