Dovecote

Introducing Your New Blog Host And His Or Her Passing Thoughts On The GrammysPosted by Sam on 02.01.10

Greetings, disciples of Dovecote.

With a minimal amount of moxie, I somehow convinced the higher-ups at this fine label to lend me the keys to this blog indefinitely.

To agree to such terms means only one thing: they are obviously super, super, stuck-on-the-ceiling high.

What that means for me is a space to wax unrestricted about anything I damn well please, and what that means for you is a more regularly updated, 100% more interesting-to-read Dovecote blog. I know, like you need another RSS feed to munch on, but hopefully our feigned whimsy can compete for your attention amongst the pin-the-tail-on-the-hipster Tumblr meme masses you so adore. At the very least, it will give us something new to read.

Since I don't really know what else to talk about today and because it was such a veritable goldmine of loaded-with-bullshit musical moments and because, hey, we're a record label, and we should be somewhat aware of this stuff, I'm going to christen this odyssey with some thoughts on last night's Grammys. If you're going to keep reading, DEEP BREATH.

I actually managed to sit through both the two-hour red carpet clusterfuck on E! and the THREE-AND-A-HALF hour televised ceremony, facilitated by an inhuman amount of Peroni and an heretofore undiscovered passion for watching the record industry scratch its own balls.

The red carpet didn't reveal anything new–Ryan Seacrest is still four feet tall, Russell Brand is still immeasurably unfunny, Common is still more interesting to hear in interviews than he is on his own records, we still don't know who those two guys in The Black Eyed Peas are or what it is that they do (weed carriers with cool haircuts and Star Wars costumes?), T-Pain is still repping for the chubby neck beardos of the world, and Ke$sha still looks perpetually hammered, like the girl that comes over to your party, does too many shots, pukes all over your bathtub, and then leaves without cleaning it up. H8 that bitch.

As for the show itself? It actually started out well. The Gaga/Elton collab was one of the more interesting, least phoned-in performances of the night (surpassed only by Beyonce's unfuckwithable Alanis cover–sorry, we're softies for nineties pandering), and Stephen Colbert's opening, with a much-needed shout to 2009's indisputable avatar, Susan Boyle, was nothing if not charming.

From there, though, things just went south. Presenters were mostly relegated to CBS's nightime drama line-up, with the pairing of Mos Def and Placido Domingo providing an bizarrely awesome deviation, and the performances were either confusingly dull and unaffecting (Black Eyed Peas, Green Day), musically bad (Taylor Swift's oh-my-god-she's singing-flatter-than-a-tonedeaf-toddler duet with Steve Nicks, the Jamie Foxx/T-Pain/Doug E. Fresh/Slash/some random fat girl trainwreck), definitively boring (Dave Matthews Band, Lady Antebellum) or utterly inexplicable (the whole Michael Jackson tribute). You know shit is bad when your expected highlight (the Drake, Wayne, Eminem, and Travis Barker medley) is edited down to something wholly unrecognizable, and your actual highlight is not even musical: Leon Russell's befuddled, blank stare during the second half of his performance with the Zac Brown Band. ZOMFG DUDE YOU ARE SO OLD.

Oh, and that guy that looks like a white-haired turtle gave his usual anti-piracy spiel, lest you think this thing wasn't about who-sold-how-many.

I was drunk by the time Taylor Swift got up to give the speech she's been saying into the mirror since she was, like, nine, for her Album Of The Year win, so it wasn't the most unproductive five-and-a-half hours of my life, though its irrelevancy did depress the shit out of me. This morning, in between coffee-nursing my hangover and browsing the after-party coverage, I wondered why I keep watching this formality-like industry circle jerk every year. Still don't have an answer, though I think it has something to do with forever wishing they'll bring out Coolio for a reprise of his "Gangsta's Paradise" performance from 1996, which the Internet has failed to add to its video archive. There's always next year for more Coolio, I s'pose. In the meantime, I'll watch dude make salads.