When the most exciting moments of the 51st annual Grammy Awards consisted of 3 performances by artists who haven’t had a hit record in about 40 years, and the most anticipating event was everyone hoping a baby (M.I.A.) would be born on stage, one thing is certain: the Grammys are in trouble. Giving away an award every 21 minutes, this annual awards show has evolved into a poorly executed mega-concert. Sir Paul McCartney took us back to better days performing a Beatles classic, along with a great tribute to The Four Tops featuring guest members Jamie Foxx and Ne-yo, and Neil Diamond blasted Sweet Caroline getting us ready for baseball season… or is it Karaoke night? The only decent performances of the night by more relevant artists were by a relatively unknown Adele, and the non-mainstream Radiohead which had a great performance as they were joined on stage by the USC marching band. The disappointing performances were many, most notably The Rap Pack (Jay-Z, T.I., Lil’ Wayne, Kanye West, and M.I.A) was more like Howard Stern’s Whack Pack and the Jonas’ Bros. attempt at putting a stake through Stevie Wonder’s reputation.
U2 and Coldplay delivered pretty average performances, with U2′s performance being a long and distant memory by the end of the show with a performance of an unknown (new?) song by Stevie Wonder which was cut short by CBS (most likely to stop the bleeding). Robert Plant and Allison Krauss’ duet project snapped up some pretty important awards including Album of the Year ensuring that The Grammys and CBS would retain their White, 40+ demographics and disappoint just about everyone else IN THE WORLD. Here’s how the awards presented went down:
* 11:22 pm Green Day present the award for Album of the Year to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss for Raising Sand
* 11:09 pm Will.i.am and T-Pain present the award for Best Rap Album to Lil Wayne for Tha Carter III
* 10:04 pm Jack Black and Charlie Haden present the award for Best Male Pop Vocal to John Mayer for “Say”
* 9:40 pm Natalie Cole, Herbie Hancock and Sean Combs present the award for Record of the Year to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss for “Please Read the Letter”
* 9:29 pm Kanye West and Estelle present the award for Best New Artist 2009 Grammys to Adele for “Chasing Pavements”
* 9:14 pm Blink 182 announce that they are going to reunite…and then present the award for Best Rock Album 2009 Grammys to Coldplay
* 8:57 pm Miley and Taylor present the award for Best Pop Collaboration with vocals to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss for “Rich Woman”
* 8:41 pm Duffy and Al Green present the award for Song of the Year to Coldplay for “Viva la Vida”
* 8:32 pm LeAnn Rimes and Sheryl Crow present the award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group to Sugarland for “Stay”
* 8:24 pm Coldplay perform the song “Viva la Vida” which is nominated for Record of the Year.
* 8:06 pm Whitney Houston presents the Grammy for Best R&B Album to Jennifer Hudson
One of the very few shining moments from the evening was the award for Best New Artist. Here’s the video from new Grammy Award winner Adele, we’ll see if the Best New Artist curse sticks with this amazing talent.
