Even the tattooed rockers applauded for Paul Simon and Art Garfunkle after the duo opened the 45th Grammy Awards with The Sounds of Silence. A compelling performance, just their still sweet vocals over Paul’s acoustic guitar. Nearly 40 years since this song came out but it will never get old. Dustin Hoffman, though, will and has.
Conversely, No Doubt are not really good at all and their popularity simply escapes me. Gwen is hot (but flat, the Sweet One said her shirt was more like a band-aid!) but that can’t explain it. So of course they won the Grammy for Best Pop Song by a Duo or Group with Vocals immediately after I wrote the last two sentences.
Norah Jones kind of grows on you. Not really my thing but at least I can understand the appeal. And her dad is Ravi Shankar (I think, though her official bio doesn’t mention the word father), so she has the genes. Is this like a trend, performing then winning the next award? Is Faith Hill nominated in the next category?
Who is Vanessa Carleton and why is she playing now? John Mayer sounds like he swallowed Dave Matthews and burped out Matthews’ yodelish vocal quality; I certainly don’t find him any more interesting than DMB. The real deal, James Taylor, is up now and a treat dueting with cellist Yo-Yo Ma on Sweet Baby James: “Deep greens and blues for the colors I choose, can’t you let me go down in my dreams? Oh rockabye Sweet Baby James.” Mayer got the Best Male Pop Vocal award over James, stupid voters.
Eminem for Best Rap Vocal makes sense, he’s one of the few rappers I can stomach. Then again I’m not the target demographic for rap (or No Doubt) anyway.
We need to go into the bedroom and watch the rest now. Explain to me why CBS is not showing this program live on the West Coast?
Dixie Chicks–ain’t it cool the way the video water turned all kinds of purple?–and of course they won the Best Country Album right after. What would Lindsay Buckingham think (WWLBT)?
Why does throwing in a little dissonence make Coldplay’s music ambitious? Avril Lavigne, meet Alanis Morrisette, note that you have one more decent selling record to go before fading into the woodwork. And that mosh pit, please, how put on was that?
In listing the awards given off-air, Bruce Springsteen won the best rock song, best male rock vocal performance, and rock album awards for The Rising and the title song. Oh yeah. The performance of the song shows just how much like an army the E Street Band is nowadays. Army, get it?
Eminem, I liked that song. Really pounding, really creative. NSync, enjoyed the tribute to the BeeGees. But Aretha, what’s up with the dress? You and Harvey Fierstein should have a conversation on choosing what to wear to an awards show! The Joe Strummer tribute was wild and raucus, like Strummer, with Springsteen Steve Van Zandt, Dave Grohl, and Elvis Costello blasting away in front of No Doubt’s bassist and drummer. Would have really liked a second song from these guys (and another from Simon & Garfunkle as well)–could have easily skipped that dude from the Academy and Mayor Bloomberg.
Last but certainly outrageous, how did Norah Jones beat out Springsteen and Eminem for Album of the Year? Pap jazz against real rock and roll, who votes on this?
BillSaysThis 