Grammy's Recap (Sort of?)

I’m a huge fan of award shows. I love the craziness that exists behind all that glamour. But for whatever reason, I’ve never been a huge fan of the Grammys (and I feel as though the Grammys has a particular brand of crazy). Last night, I had every intention of sitting down and watching the show to better discuss the winners, deserving or not, on this blog. I honestly couldn’t do it, which I explain further in this blog post.

I had arrived home to realize that the show was actually airing live on the west coast, and had missed the first half hour or so. Then, after being distracted for several minutes, I saw Beyoncé on the screen looking like my personal lord and savior. But before I could even settle in to the performance, I got a text message from a mom asking me to meet at my uncle’s house to celebrate my grandfather’s birthday. So I said goodbye to Beyoncé and made a mental note to watch it later.

Once I met up with my family, the group turned the TV on in time to see Adele (whom my grandfather affectionately calls his “girl”) honor the late George Michael. Then I heard her mess the damn thing up. As a choir kid, I know what it’s like to start on the wrong note (“ALTOS, I CAN’T HEAR YOU”) and that’s unfortunately what she did. Realizing she’d never recover if she didn’t fix the problem, she stopped and restarted Fastlove. Only the likes of Adele, and Beyoncé (but we know she doesn’t make mistakes), would really have the star power to be able to ask for such a thing.

I can’t hate on the mistake because I know how much it sucks to mess up (and she still sounded phenomenal because ADELE). If only I had that kind of power, I could have fixed all those times my voice and mental state failed me.

Then after several minutes of not paying any attention to the TV, my uncle called the family’s attention to Metallica and Lady Gaga. And, lord, was that a damn mess. Not because of the artists. No, they were great, or at least would have been if someone had done their job. Someone clearly didn’t do their tech job properly and definitely lost their job later that night. James Hetfield’s microphone was literally OFF for half of the performance. How the hell does an award show celebrating MUSIC and MUSICIANS fuck that up? But then again, they’ve had sound issues in the past, so it’s not anything new.

And that’s when I realized that the Grammys are such a disappointment for the music industry. Even the likes of Beyoncé couldn’t save the night, especially since she deserved more than her share of awards. I never even bothered to go back and watch her performance. That’s how much I didn’t care. I don’t care about who won because some Grammy voters don’t necessarily vote for those who deserve the accolades as per the academy’s definition. Nor are the nominees even really a fair representation of the wealth of musicians who could and should be nominated.

I heard a lot of other things about the show, like Bruno Mars’ tribute to Prince, and the late David Bowie winning several awards for Blackstar, but I’m not actually interested in watching it. In the same way that I’m not willing to watch paint dry. I’d rather just spend the time listening to music and celebrating it on my own.