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  • Grammy 2014 Live Blog

    grammy awardBeyonce opens the show with gyrations on and around a chair with strobes, fog,  and lights highlighting her body dressed in fishnets and sheer stuff.  Bleeped a few days, Mr. Beyonce shows in a tux and duets with her.  Blake Shelton looks slightly traumatized.

    LL Cool J gets to reprise his hosting duties as the most inoffensive host the show has seen since John Denver.  Poor James had to remind the audience he sings too.  Then he offers CBS’ obligatory shout outs to Kendrick, Daft Pump, Pink, Taylor Swift and a little something for everyone to stay tuned in.  Even Paul and Ringo were shown sitting side-by-side.

    Annak Kendrick and Pharrell show this year’s presentation speeches are again horrible.  The Grammy Kiss of Death should go to Kendrick Lamar.  I’m 1 for 1 tonight because the novelty-like Macklemore and Ryan Lewis show they’re going to smack down Kendrick in each head-to-head competition

    Lorde gets to sing Royals, the first of the five nominees lined up by this year’s producers.It’s less impressive stripped down.

    Three seconds manage to pass between another reminder of tonight’s performances before Target’s sponsorship gives way to Shakira mouthing the word to her new singles. Our sister sites will critique commercials next week during what LL Cool J just called The Big Game for copyright reasons so no more tonight.

    Hunter Hayes’ hair plays his new track Invisible.  I approve of the message since LL told us all to listen to all of the lyrics.  That is two straight Grammy performances for young Mr. Hayes, who is well on his way to a fine pop-country career.  The power ballad is formulaic without the obvious hooks.

    Juanes and Anna Farris would make beautiful babies.  Instead they give the Best Pop Duo Group/Performance award. The competition is tough. The Grammy should go to Daft Punk… and it does!   The Power Rangers ascend the stage with Pharrell and Nile Rogers as Pharrell adlibs the acceptance and is the second award winner in a row to get played off the stage.

    Steve Coogan gets a cute line off on Juicy J and intros Katy Perry as the two hit a well-staged version of Dark Horse.  Broadway is calling Ms. Katy. You would have preferred another version of Roar?

    Not risking a twerking episode on this track, Robin Thicke jailbreaks Chicago from the assisted living home and sings with a well-dressed insurance agent who may have been a friend of Alan Thicke’s.   Chicago Transit Authority, the seminal album produced by Phil Ramone (obligatory applause after his passing).  Robin isn’t a bad choice as he works well with Robert Lamm and covers for the missing Cetera vocals.

    They give way to Keith Urban, who really is a guitar gunslinger, but instead lets his smooth chest and swaying hips carry his performance with Gary Clark, Jr.   Keith nails a power chord or two, but I don’t see his left hand move past the fifth fret for at least two minutes, and then he played a little with Gary Clark, who showed Keith what the blues sound like when they’re melodic.  Best part of the night is when Urban playfully punched Gary much like The Hulk punched Thor during The Avengers.

    Now we’re backstaging with Taylor Swift and looking at a silly TwitPic stand.  Yawn.  Has the Super Bowl pre-game started yet? As 9 o’clock tolls, both televised Grammys are completely boring although better than the commercial-week version of Higher and Higher is even more bland than Rita Coolidge’s version.  Two plus hours to go?  Really?

    We break right out of commercial to John Legend, whose streak of awesome live performances continues.  His voice travels from baritone to falsetto, sustaining notes, all solo with 88 keys.  The musician-laden lower audience agrees and stands to applaud.

    Charlie Wilson and Kevin Hart, who is smiling since he has two weeks running with the number one movie smiling, present Best Rock Song.   The dinosaurs (Maccca, the Stone, Ozzy) vs Muse vs Gary Clark seemed unfair competition. No one played off Dave Grohl or Sir Paul as they wander off with Sirvana’s award.

    The immediate transition to Taylor Swift at a piano doesn’t feel right unless we’ve joined American Idol already in progress.

    Bruno Mars intros Pink & Nate Ruess.  Pink is doing her acrobatics again, which is awesome.  Singing as she does as she sways on ropes over the crowd takes multi-tasking to an extreme when 10 million people are watching.  And the harmony she has with Ruess is perfectly reproduced live. Pink rocks.

    Arianna Grande and Miguel are on stage to give Lorde the Best Pop Performance Award for Royals.  Yes, she beat out Bruno Mars, Justin Timberlake to mention just two of the artists who should have won.  To her credit, she gives perhaps the best speech of the night.

    Ozzy shows up to present an award.  Close-captioning?  Check.  They intro Ringo.   He’s got Peter Frampton on guitar and other Ringo All-Star band members plus others showing respect.  You know who isn’t there?  Paul McCartney.  Ringo is wearing a sparkly mock black suit with red polka dots or sniper laser sights.   Respect to Ringo, but the hyped “reunion” isn’t on tonight’s show.

    Jamie Foxx tells people to give it up for Ringo.  Then he does five bad jokes and gives the expected Grammy to Hova and JT for Holy Grail.   Angelina Jolie and Malificcent are longer than any performance in a paid spot for the upcoming movie.

    Back from commercial, LL Cool J gives some love to the 30th anniversary of Def Jam.

    Imagine Dragons won an untelevised Grammy, which is nice and are joined by Kendrick, who is going to continue to play second fiddle tonight, but the crowd loves it.  Even Bey and Jay are bouncing up and down.  Every year has a Grammy performance worth noting for posterity.  This is 2014’s.

    Who follows that?  Kaycee Musgraves and her novelty lyrics, joined by a five piece country band draped in Christmas tree lights.

    We are still averaging two awards per hour at the award show.

    Julia Roberts shows up to intro the almost 50th anniversary of The Beatles performance on American TV with a long commercial for the Grammy two hour special in two weeks.  Finally, Ringo and Macca take the stage together.  Yoko and Sean Lennon joined the audience in sort of bobbing to the music.

    Gloria Estefan and Marc Anthony acknowledge Pharrell as Producer of the Year and then award Best Pop Vocal Album to Bruno Mars’ Unorthodox Jukebox.  As this generation’s hitmaking Macca, that’s appropriate.

    Jeremy Renner intros Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson, who won a lifetime achievement award earlier.   Just like the Fab Two earlier, much respect for these guys and their friends Merle Haggard and Blake Shelton, a young piker in their midst.  The crowd helps them get through some of country’s most endearing hits created by the three older guys.  Keeping the country vibe going, Martina McBride and Zac Brown pay special tribute to George Jones and Ray Price before announcing Best Country Album. Kacey Musgraves smokes the heavily favored Taylor Swift and Blake Shelton.

    Pharrell gets his moment of glory as he sings lead with Stevie Wonder and Niles Rogers on either side.  They sing Get Lucky with the natural mashup of Freak Out.  This is the other special moment of the night.

    Cyndi Lauper intros Sara Barielles and Carole King.  You’ve seen the Elton-Billy Joel concert?  This one is the authentic singer-songwriter version with two people who extend way beyond the single and harmonize to make the other sound better. Another strong performance moment for the night.   Sara is overjoyed enough to jump up and down in place after as they give Song of the Year to a surprised Lorde for Royals.

    Jared Leto does a nice job of honoring Lou Reed.  Classical pianist star Lang Lang performs One with Metallica as fire and lasers swirl around the stage.  For the first time tonight I’ve said the words, “I would buy that”.

    After the brilliance of hearing a classical genius with a metal guitar, we listen to Steve Tyler serenade Smokey Robinson off-key.  They’re here for Record of the Year, which smartly goes to Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky”.  Niles Rogers gives more love to Smokey as the robots defer to their vocalist.

    Queen Latifah gives Same Love the lovely intro it deserves.  Then the magic gets weird and wonderful as Queen Latifah marries 33 couples.  Madonna shows up with a walking stick and a slow version of Open Your Heart.  She looks and sounds horrible, but what a moment.

    A long memoriam video package gives way to Miranda Lambert and Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong paying tribute to The Everly Brothers with a pretty duet of When Will I Be Loved?

    Alicia Keys led Yoko Ono (which explained her presence) and Olivia Harrison, George’s widow.  Daft Punk scoops up Album of the Year.  This time Paul Williams gets to speak, eloquent as always and the three dozen couples married minutes earlier.

    LL Cool J gives the stage up to NIN, Queens of the Stone Age, Dave Grohl and Lindsey Buckingham.  It’s an eclectic pairing and Grohl seems to get a workout behind the drum kit.  What it lacks in imagination is still better in comparison to last year’s ragged ending.

    In all, half the performances were pretty damn good, but n0t the half that might have been expected.  The group wedding was a pretty great television moment and for every nod to contemporary music (see Daft Punk), the show continually moved back to the world watched by safe VH-1, soccer moms.

  • #49 album of 2013 – Lousy with Sylvanbriar by Of Montreal

    #49 album of 2013 – Lousy with Sylvanbriar by Of Montreal

    Artist: Of Montreal

    Album: Lousy with Sylvanbriar

    Last year, when writing about Of Montreal‘s 2012 album Paralytic Stalks, I gave the outline of their career progression, and how they’d come to pile so many layers of disco, funk, and modern orchestral music onto a framework of Sgt. Pepper pop stylings. I thought Paralytic Stalks was their masterpiece; neither the critical nor the marketplace consensus agreed with me, so anyway, that’s not what they’re doing now.

    On Lousy with Sylvanbriar, Of Montreal haven’t merely backed up a step or three to where they were better loved. They’ve made … well, something Lousy with Sylvanbriarinstrumentally like an Eagles album, or maybe The Band in their more country-ish, non-epic modes. Languid rock riffs, acoustic guitar, pedal-steel, sometimes old-fashioned rock organ in the background. I don’t approve, exactly — it’s too close for my comfort to what the Decemberists did in 2011 with the King is Dead, quitting what had been their own excellent progression towards the riffs and energy and willfully mockable ambitions of Aqualung-era Jethro Tull. Also, steel guitar makes me shudder. But! Lousy with Sylvanbriar succeeds in setting Kevin Barnes’s songwriting in a context he hadn’t risked before: it puts his words, his melodies, and the band’s vocal harmonies more upfront than they’ve ever been. They prove worthy of the spotlight.

    As a melodist, he’s fairly Beatles-classicist, by which I mean you could arrive at most of them by writing a familiar catchy melody (or chord progression), then grabbing one or two notes (or chords) per extended phrase and yanking them somewhere else that’s not obvious at all, but works. His vocals are clear and articulate, but nonetheless give off — in this country-ish context — a weird drawling vibe of laziness, as if Barnes couldn’t possibly deign to care what notes they tread on next. It’s a vibe that disguises both the stranger-than-average wanderings of his verses (which normally fit inside half an octave, but not in the same way anyone else’s would), and the occasional choruses where he’s leaping improbable routes across an octave or more. The harmony vox from Rebecca Cash can be sweet, but when they’re both joined by the voice of drummer Clayton Rylchik, they invariably sound strange, distorted, disorienting.

    It is the lyrics that remain Lousy with Sylvanbriar‘s most distinctive feature. Of Montreal songs are always literate and precise, but have rarely been nice: Kevin Barnes displays positive feelings only about his favorite drugs and sex acts, while his relationship songs have tended to be some mix of demanding, spiteful, and desperate. Paralytic Stalks put the emphasis on “desperate”; Lousy with Sylvanbriar is *mean*. Now, even in grade school, when I did other sorts of things that I remember and cringe at, I was never once a bully, never once cheered a bully on. But the meanness of Lousy with Sylvanbriar … well, in its nerdishly insistent, amateur-psychoanalyst way, and its refusal to give an inch, I guess it feels like a chance to imagine for 40 minutes what sorts of pleasures being a total asshole a might bring.

    I mean, look at how I write. *If* I was going to be hateful to my friends, I’d have to find friends I hated first, but then I’d totally teach myself to say things like “You like to think you can live beyond good and evil/ amputated from humanity on some lifelong intellectual retreat./ When everything is conceptual and all is rhetorical, you can feel so Of Montrealpowerful/ but when forced to face the physical world you scurry like an insect”. Or “Well you post naked GIFs of your epileptic fits/ and keep track of your hits, and your friends don’t give a shit/ and view your fugues with amusement”. Or “Your addictions and shiftiness inherited from your father/ I know you struggle to keep them in check, but at this point why even bother?/ What friendships you have left, they’re not derived from love, they’re just some warped form of charity”. Or “Your mother hung herself in the National Theater when she was four months pregnant/ with your sister who would’ve been thirteen years old today./ Does that make you feel any less alone in the world?” Or, and the irony here is dripping, “How could you allow these people whom you don’t even respect to rape your self concept and make your inner world an ugliness?”. As opposed to letting Kevin do it.

    Each quote was from consecutive songs; I could keep going. He does. I’m not actively proud of enjoying it, but the fun of escapism is that it commits us to nothing, like deciding whose blood I’d drink if I became a vampire (which, honestly, wouldn’t you rather have a plan than not?). On my iTunes, Lousy with Sylvanbriar is followed at once by Paralytic Stalks, and I’m happier as soon as the pedal steel is gone and the flutes and booming timpanis are back, and Kevin is sounding more vocally passionate about his jibes. But they’re two different artworks, each unique, and, y’know. They’re both good.

    – Brian Block

    To see the rest of our favorites, visit our Favorite Albums of 2013 page!

  • #50 album of 2013 – Shruggy Ji by Red Baraat

    Artist: Red Baraat

    Album: Shruggy Ji

    Before I digress for two paragraphs, let me tell you that the Brooklyn-based, half-Asian-immigrant band Red Baraat claim to center their sound on “hard driving North Indian bhangra rhythms with elements of jazz, go-go, brass funk, and hip-hop”. (They also Red Baraat - Shruggy Jiwinkingly adopt the genre name “dhol-and-bass”.) I don’t know anything about bhangra or go-go, but I can’t see what they’d gain by lying, so I take this assessment as true.

    As I’m starting my 50 Favorite Albums countdown here, I wanted to make a couple of public notes about the composition of this list. I’m happy with the fifty I chose, but I could certainly have made other choices. Most notably, I could have included some better-known records near the bottom of this list. David Bowie had a 2013 record; so did Nine Inch Nails; so did Camper Van Beethoven; they’re good records. I didn’t get much out of the new OMD album, but maybe if I’d worked at it harder I’d’ve loved it, like I do their 2010 comeback History of Modern. More likely, though, I’d’ve felt the way I do about the others I just mentioned: that while they’re fine, I haven’t found any reason why I, personally, would want to listen to them when the Man Who Sold the World or the Downward Spiral or Key Lime Pie (or the gallivanting Goblin King from Labyrinth) are still waiting in my collection for a fresh dose of ardor.

    I don’t mean to be unfair. There’s a dozen-plus artists on my list here who are also operating below the level of what I feel was their peak; it’s a basic statistical principle that the more you enjoy an album, the more likely it is that you won’t enjoy any of the artist’s other albums as much, and that’s fine. Many of my old loves this year still made albums that — regression to the mean aside — don’t need from me the benefit of any doubt. But all else being equal? I’m less likely to return to my 5th-favorite Camper Van Beethoven album than to the best album of blazingly modern Central Asian folk-dance music I’ve ever heard. Even if “best” is a near-synonym to “only”.

    **********

    Genre labels aside, then: what does Shruggy Ji sound like? Lots of clattering percussion, played by three of the eight band members, including band-leader Sunny Jain. Lots of cheerful assertive brass – the trombonist, Ernest Stuart, plays with a far snazzier personality than his instrument normally allows – and trickier, more oblique tunes played by (I think) saxophonist Mike Bomwell, who’s also a superb soloist. Lyrics that are rarely in English (and never in Spanish, the only other language I can occasionally fight to a draw), but — when they are — imply the kind of depth and political instincts we first encountered in Fight for Your Right to Party. (This may, obviously, be unfair.)

    The lead vocals, loud and gliding, sing melodies that may suggest, if you’re as ignorant as I am, snake-charmer music or Islamic summonings to prayer (what’s a couple thousand miles and a religious difference between friends?). The lead vocals are supplemented with jock-like backup grunts, “I’m too sexy for my shirt”-style low murmurs, and various noises I can best duplicate by vibrating my tongue really, really fast.

    Red BaraatThe review that drew my attention to Red Baraat was, of course, favorable, but criticized the songs for all sounding alike. I’ll first say this needn’t be bad if true: I think the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks and U2’s Boy and Metallica’s And Justice for All and the Cure’s Disintegration are great records, and they’re all variety-impaired. Then I’ll say that I’m not convinced it’s true of Shruggy Ji anyway. The songs certainly mix from similar ingredients, but Halla Bol has a bouncy, dancing-under-the-influence feel that reminds me of “gypsy-punk” bands like Gogol Bordello; Burning Instinct, on the other hand, starts from gleaming precision — like a top high school marching band dressed up for a guest appearance on Miami Vice — then piles on layers of dissonance and a steadily more march-like harshness without ever breaking stride. Dama Dam Mast Qalandar feels solemn, pensive, without needing to clear away the percussion or slow down the hyperspeed sax solo. Shruggy Ji itself is a methodical slow-building juggernaut, several cycling drum lines giving it a fantastically assertive yet swaying groove as the horn section swaggers forward. Sialkot is a particularly strong drum showcase; Private Dancers, rhythmic as Morse Code, somehow manages to be funk, klezmer, and hip-hop all at the same time. Azad Azad has the sneaky propulsion of a nighttime chase scene in an old movie.

    Red Baraat is only #50 on my list, for now, because I don’t understand the words, and I don’t really understand the musical traditions either. I can easily tell (some of) the songs apart by concentrating, but no matter how varied Shruggy Ji may be, it kind of all sounds like “oh hey, here’s more Red Baraat” to me because I have only a few other even remotely similar albums. (I can triangulate, badly, from Kultur Shock, Gogol Bordello, the Klezmatics, and the Debo Band, all of whom are strange to me in their own right). In other words, it’s only #50 on my list due to *my* weaknesses; ones I’m surely capable of fixing. And since it’s kinetic and jolly and exciting — well, as long as my stamina holds — it makes me wish to do so.

    – Brian Block

    To see the rest of our favorites, visit our Favorite Albums of 2013 page!