![]() ![]() ![]() Unlike many things in life, this one can’t be blamed on Ed to his (minimal) credit, Sheeran seemed genuinely willing to let Wadge do normal, reasonable awards-show things like say words on camera, unlike the producers, who decided the world would really rather see a mediocre Eagles tribute.ĥ. Amy Wadge, a songwriter on Ed Sheeran’s "Thinking Out Loud"-the winner of Song of the Year, an award for songwriters-getting cut off. The post-Grammy sales bump is real, and in the cutthroat world of rising pop artists, they need all the help they can get last night's ceremony provided little.Ĥ. And the Grammys’ emphasis on megamix-style mashups results in people like Andra Day, a rising R&B artist of the traditional sort, and Ellie Goulding, in surprisingly good vocal form, being tossed into jerry-rigged mashups-the sort of duets dreamt up by people who don’t think either artist can stand alone (which is patently untrue). To seal the comparison, Seacrest himself came out shortly after.) These artists all have current music out, some of it good, Grammy-nominated, or both. Meghan Trainor is the less talented vocalist, the Carmen Rasmusen of the lot, who definitely doesn’t win. Demi is the talented vocalist who comes in second and also doesn’t win. (Specifically: Legend is the talented R&B guy who comes in third and doesn’t win. They tend instead to be performers in those tributes, such as last’s night Demi Lovato/Meghan Trainor/John Legend/Tyrese/Luke Bryan lowlight, which was reminiscent of the endless consolation performances in an "American Idol" finale. Due to a long history of the rock canon being male-dominated, female artists seldom receive the kind of tributes that (still-living) acts like Lionel Richie enjoy. (The cuts to the audience’s bored, captive faces were an extra bit of cruelty to a kid who probably just had the coolest moment of his life, and who probably streams a ton of music.)ģ. This year, it cut into a spot by 12-year-old Indonesian piano prodigy Joey Alexander, giving it the feel of a demented telethon in which anvils would fall on the kid’s fingers and keys for every minute without a donation. (Adele’s explanation: " The piano mics fell onto the piano strings… Shit happens.") If Adele can’t get the world’s most failproof tech job, what hope does anyone else have? Also, one would think that a phenomenal Adele performance might inspire more record sales than the latest iteration of the Grammys’ other performance tradition: the increasingly earnest, increasingly exhausted "please buy music, we’ve got content to feed" speech. Sole patron saint of record sales Adele-who triumphed over very real vocal trauma with a, let’s say, successful album-undercut by a botched sound job that bordered on sabotage. It would have been a better end to the night than beef and uh, Pitbull.Ģ. It seemed plausible! It would be the least messy Tidal release of the year. After the show, a ton of people on Twitter (disclaimer: author included) were trolled by an official-looking but fake Tidal announcement about a supposed new Beyoncé album. But you could certainly call her perfunctory appearance presenting Record of the Year sort of undercutting, particularly in context. Beyoncé, being Beyoncé, would never go off script. Beyoncé, who released the most vital (and actually feminist) single of the year so far, once again ending up in the thankless slot of cleaning up after Taylor/Kanye drama. Here, then, is a list of things that happened during the Grammys that were worse for women than anything Taylor Swift acknowledged.ġ. In theory, her "Grammy moment"-to use the show’s favorite phrase-was punctuated by a worthy sentiment in context, it became tabloid fodder for a feud, and was positioned in a way that served Swift personally more than her audience, a claim often lobbed at her particular brand of feminism. "I want to say to all the young women out there-there are going to be people along the way who will to try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame," she said. It was probably also inevitable that Swift's acceptance speech would Make a Statement About Feminism, defined therein as the political movement of not supporting Taylor Swift. So it was inevitable that To Pimp a Butterfly, the most deserving entry in the Album of the Year category, would lose out to 1989, a good pop LP that would have been deserving in another year, but one whose resonance stemmed more from it being a Polaroid of the year in Taylor and her squad, than its music alone. They are also, historically, an exercise in being wrong about rap. =-=-=-The Grammys are an exercise in pomp and inevitability. ![]()
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