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Tag: Stevie Wonder

  • 51st Grammy Awards Play By Play – I May Need A Caffeine IV

    Money Mike and Paul live blogged the Grammy Awards earlier today. I’m on the West Coast so I get to watch the show on the dreaded tape delay. And just to make sure we have that West Coast point of view on the show, I’m going to give you the play by play as well.

    The last few years that I’ve blogged this show, I’ve mentioned the need for coffee. Last year I made it all the way through without coffee. I’m going for two years in a row. But I may need toothpicks to hold my eye lids open by the end of this thing.

    What’s this story that’s out about Chris Brown and Rihanna in a domestic dispute? I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but if any of this is true, it just shows that he has more in common with Papa Joe Jackson than Michael Jackson.

    • U2 opens up the show and I think Fat Albert should sue for gimmick infringement. Hey, hey, hey.
    • Whitty Houton is the first presenter for Best R&B Album and she has those boobs pushed up just about as far as they can go.
    • Jennifer Hudson won the award for her very bland debut album. I think people forgot that And I’m Telling You… was actually on the Dreamgirls album first.
    • There’s no better hype man than the Rock. I was waiting for him to say, “Uh huh, yeah!”
    • I wonder if in 1992, Boyz II Men would’ve thought they’d be relegated to singing back up for Rev Al Green and Justin Timberlake in 2009? Well, maybe Wanya.
    • The only thing I got out of that Chris Martin/Jay-Z duet is that both of them dudes need haircuts. Since when was fuzzy in?
    • There was a Diddy sighting! I think he said, “Uh huh yeah!”
    • Carrie Underwood is performing Last Name and for some reason, she didn’t know his last name. Uh, sweetie, his last name was Romo.
    • I think she’s also decided to get even skinnier for this performance as a last second dig at Jessica Simpson. Word to Jess – don’t wear high waist jeans.
    • LeAnn Rimes’s cheeks are so sunken in, she could be the third Olsen twin.
    • I wonder if when Al Green saw Duffy while waiting to present with her said, “So that’s what Duffy looks like.”
    Duffy at Hovefestivalen 2008
    Duffy at Hovefestivalen 2008
    • Viva La Vida won for Song Of The Year, which is deserving even though I liked nearly every other song on the list better. They were all pretty decent songs.
    • Hey, Kid Rock’s here. Wait, I thought he was directing Ice Cube movies. Whoops! That’s Fred Durst. Sorry.
    • Taylor Swift! Miley Cyrus! Together for the first time! When Average Happens!
    • Miley slanted her eyes for the song, but only because she was trying to hit some notes and had to squint.
    • Even though the song was entirely bland, Jennifer Hudson pulled through. With all that she’s been through, she definitely has a ton of charisma and is going to stick around. That Dreamgirls thing was no fluke y’all. She’s the real deal.
    • Wait, was that Stevie Wonder with the Jonas Brothers? So my favorite artist of all time with my kids’ favorite band? Only in America.
    • I think if the hip hop heads knew how much I was enjoying this, I’d get my card taken away.
    • Ok, I didn’t enjoy the Jonas’ doing Stevie’s Superstition as much as I enjoyed him doing Burnin’ Up.
    • Also, what’s the over/under on how many times Stevie’s performed this song at the Grammys or American Music Awards? 25?

    • Speaking of over/unders – where do we set how many more albums Katy Perry records that anyone ever listens to? One?
    • Since when did Kanye West get the same haircut as Apollo Creed from Rocky III? If the back was a little juicy, I’d have said the dude from Full Force.
    • Is it me or does Estelle look like Venus Williams? I bet she hits a helluva forehead. I mean forehand.
    • I want to apologize to Kenny Chesney for fast forwarding through his performance. I’m trying to catch up to live TV. I’ll get you next time Ken.
    • Diddy, Herbie Hancock, and Natalie Cole are together on screen to present for Record Of The Year. Hancock doesn’t look too happy. I think Diddy just told him he was going to remix Rock It.
    • Alison Krauss’ cleavage and Robert Plant won for I’ve Never Heard This Song In My Life.
    • I’m very uncertain about the Swagga Like Us performance. I think I need like an entire book to state my thoughts. From M.I.A. performing with that basketball underneath her sheer outfit to the black and white look, to T.I. eating the mic, to Jay-Z looking old enough to be everyone’s dad except for Kanye. I’m just really confused right now.
    • “Should I give up, or should I just keep chasing pavements?” That is the question.
    • Gwen Paltrow is much better spokeswoman for the no food and diuretics diet than Whitty Houton.
    • I’m unsure how I feel about Jamie Foxx, Smokedog Robinson, and Ne-Yo being a part of the Four Tops. Would any of the Four Tops have made a song with Adina Howard called T-Shirt & Panties?
    • I know, I haven’t written anything in the last 20 minutes. John Mayer, B.B. King, Neil Diamond, and Gary Sinese. They do all the crazy stuff early in the show.
    • The only way Robin Thicke gets on the Grammys is as a hook singer? Well, it is a helluva hook.
    • Jeez Lil’ Wayne is short. I guess that’s just not a clever name.
    • Who is that sitting next to T.I.? Wait, that’s the light skinded chick from Xscape. Is that one of his baby mamas?
      Xscape publicity shot
      Xscape publicity shot
    • I bet you the last thing you thought you’d see in a 2009 Grammy Awards post was a picture of Xscape.
    • Alison Krauss’ corset and Robert Plant just won Album Of The Year.
    • Wait, this is it? They’re not going an hour over like usual? Well, they just said Stevie Wonder is going to end the show. Steve might go for a half hour himself if they let him.
    • By the way, my favorite album and performer of the year, Ne-Yo was shut out of the big categories. I think they docked him for having that terrible thin mustache.
    • If I was too harsh, I apologize, and you can blame Money Mike. It’s his site. Ha!

      • Photo of Duffy by NRK_P3 and shared via creative commons
      Photo of Xscape by wikipedia

  • Mike & Paul Are Live Blogging the Grammys

    So Mike and I are watching the Grammys together (well, cyber-together at least) tonight and blogging as we go.  And away we go…

    U2 open up the show with their new single “Get On Your Boots”… a very chaotic performance of a song that I’m not entirely sold on yet.  I’m totally not sold on Bono’s new dance moves either.  Or Larry Mullen’s goth black hair.

    Oh my gawd, Whitney Houston is making Britney Spears look well-adjusted.   Her poor voice…  ugh, she’s hard to look at.

    Go Jennifer Hudson.  I didn’t have a clear favorite in the best R&B album category (Al Green would have been my personal pick, but his is the only one of the nominees I’ve really heard).  But I’m glad that Jennifer got this.

    Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson… newly minted karaoke star (I think his brief rendition of “Just the Way You Are” was better than Billy Joel).  Opens with a corny anagram.   Not promising.

    Boyz II Men, Keith Urban, Al Green and Justin…   I’m digging the deeper-voiced Al Green.  Still sexy.  I’m loving this whole number – it’s unadulterated joy.  U2 is distant memory.

    So, as we hit the first commercial break, we learn the following: Whitney is off the crack but still crack-ish, U2’s new single sounds almost exactly like “Vertigo”, and about 700 babies were conceived during the Al Green performance. We can now move on…

    Is this show going to be a big giant plug for CBS? What does Simon Baker have to do with music?

    When did Chris Martin become a solo artist? Oops…never mind…here’s the rest of the band.

    Someone should tell Chris that no one wants to see his treasure trail. Someone should also tell him to take dance lessons. Then someone should tell Jay-Z to get a haircut.

    Sorry, folks. Carrie Underwood is totally anonymous to me. She might as well be Faith Hill. Something tells me, however, that Faith would take exception to that.

    Here’s a country award, which goes to Sugarland. Paul, have you listened to these guys before? I have nothing to say, except the guy in the group is kinda hot.

    Paul here:   Mike, I love Sugarland…  their cover of “Life in a Northern Town” was one of the highlights of my year last year.    I’m with you on Carrie Underwood.  “Last Name” sounds like it’s about 3 years old now – actually when it started, I thought she was playing that… other song she did, like 3 years ago.  What the hell was it? (Mike: “Before He Cheats”)   But Carrie Underwood’s guitarist looked to Carrie Underwood’s 80s hair metal doppelganger, and the two of them standing side by side as they wailed at the end was sort of interesting.  (The Sugarland guy IS hot)

    Coldplay was sort of fun to watch… like U2 circa 1982.

    Congratulations Gene Autry and Brenda Lee… but Grammy’s got better things to do.   Moving on…

    Al Green and Duffy harmonizing a capella at the microphone.  Al Green should release a new record every year just so that he can be on the Grammys some more.

    It’s hard to argue with Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” winning Song of the Year.   Chris Martin proving refreshingly taciturn.

    Did Kid Rock finish his community service yet?  Does singing “Amen” count for it?  I hate “Sweet Home Alabama”, but I love Kid Rock’s song about it (“All Summer Long”), and I wish he just would have stuck with it instead of doing this trio of “American Idol” style snippets.  It just never got off the ground for me, where a good all-star rave-up of “All Summer Long” would have been awesome.

    Mike!  Look!  Sugarland are going to play later on.  Prepare your bib.

    Mike’s back. I’ll just borrow the bib that Jennifer Hudson is wearing.

    WTF is Miley Cyrus doing on the Grammy Awards? Although it seems as though she’s already mastered the “O” face.

    Robert Plant & Alison Krauss win Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. I called that one. I wonder what they would have said if Chris Brown had won. “We’re sorry, but Chris Brown beat up some chick and couldn’t make it to the show tonight”.

    Jenny Hud is back in a much better looking dress. Damn, that girl has some pipes on her.

    Paul here:    There is just a lot of really, really bad white boy dancing going on tonight.  And Stevie Wonder seriously deserves better than to be upstaged by the Jonas Brothers…  who need to learn to shut up while Stevie’s singing.  And who need to spend a little time with the lyric sheet before they take on a song like “Superstition”.   What did Simon Cowell say about “forgetting the words” this week?    This performance just leaves me feeling a little…  well, okay yeah, pissed off.

    Oooooh, Blink 182 – together again!   Oooooh, Coldplay wins again!  Chris Martin – not as taciturn.  Effusive, in fact.  But still sincere, and far more likable than I’d imagined he would be.

    A couple other things:  Taylor Swift looks like a gelfling.  There.  I’ve said it.   And she and Miley don’t blend.

    Jennifer Hudson is my hero tonight.  Simple.  Elegant.  Classy.  The one person with the most legitimate excuse for drama, and she comes off both powerful and humble.  And damn, she can sing.  She didn’t need the choir.  In fact, I wish they would have left the choir home.

    Mike’s back. Paul…what’s a gelfing?

    I vote for Craig Ferguson to host next year.

    Dear Katy Perry. P!nk called.She wants her schtick back.

    I kissed a boy and I liked it. Do I get to perform on the Grammy Awards?

    Kanye West appears, apparently having stolen Michael Jackson’s look circa 1981.

    mj81

    Oh that Kanye. He so crazy!!!

    The Jonas Brothers lost Best New Artist because Adele ate them. Oh, and then she dissed them!!!!!! I love Adele!!

    Latifah’s introducing Jay, Kanye, Wayne and T.I….this should be good.

    The sound is awful. These guys are rappers-shouldn’t some body be kicking the sound man’s ass?

    Didn’t someone perform “I Saw Her Standing There” on the Grammys just a couple of years ago? (answer: yes. Dave Matthews and several others did…I think it might have been a Beatles tribute performance)

    My friend Marc: “Doesn’t Michael Jackson still own this song?”. Why, yes, he does!

    Paul here:  Adele not only ate the Jonas Brothers – she liked them.  I’m really into Katy Perry right now, but she sounded a little out of breath.   Also, I’m just really so excited that Cathy Dennis has done so well for herself as a songwriter.

    Mike, you’re right.  The sound during the “hip hop summit” was godawful (actually, the sound throughout the show has been pretty sucky), and the whole thing ended up sounding like nothing but a shouting match – and maybe that’s sorta what it was supposed to be, but then that’s kind of an aberration of the word “summit”.  That said:  holy pregnant M.I.A. belly!

    Gelflings:

    gelflings1

    Don’t tell me you’ve never seen “The Dark Crystal”…

    Actually, I thought Kanye looked like one of the guys from Ready For the World.

    rftw

    Is someone aiming a laser-pointer at Sugarland?  God, I love this woman’s voice.

    I keep expecting Adele to start singing “Situation”.

    I was sure that Morgan Freeman was introducing Neil Diamond.  Imagine my disappointment.  I still haven’t entirely forgiven Kenny Chesney for the summer that I couldn’t go into a karaoke bar without hearing a really drunken version of “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy”.   Also, I have a hard time picturing Kenny and Morgan hanging out together.  What do they talk about?   Any ideas, Mike?

    Paul, are you trying to lead me into a joke that I don’t want to make? Actually, when I saw Morgan Freeman, I remembered how happy I was that “The Electric Company” is back on TV.

    The USC Marching Band is joining Radiohead on stage. Somewhere, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks are sitting somewhere saying “but didn’t we…?”

    Gwyneth Paltrow has two babies and still doesn’t have titties.

    Thom Yorke and Chris Martin obviously graduated from the same dancing school.

    Holy Quick Commercials Batman! It’s back to you, Paul.

    (and I keep wanting to say “But Paul, I think I told you. I’m a lover, not a fighter”).

    OK, I’ll admit: I really like that T.I./Timberlake song

    Do we really need Neil Diamond singing “Sweet Caroline”?

    God, I just felt like I was at a Sox game.

    Here’s the deceased folks tribute. Nothing snarky to say here.

    BB King and co. are going off on the guitar tribute to Bo Diddley. Good stuff.

    (OK, I think we’ve officially lost count of who goes where).

    Yet another CBS crossover with Gary Sinise performing. Next, the cast of “How I Met Your Mother”.

    OK…why isn’t Robin Thicke as popular as Justin Timberlake?

    Damn it, I need to go down to N.O. one year. Mardi Gras, here I come?

    Hip-hop is holding it down this year, folks.

    It’s Rap music’s Talentless Twins: T-Pain and will.i.ain’t

    Lil Wayne, to no one’s suprise, wins Rap Album of the Year and delivers a fairly succinct speech. As much of a critic of modern-day rap music as I am, I gotta say that we redeemed ourselves nicely this year.

    Zoe Deschanel sings?

    Plant and Krauss are performing…unless Plant jumps into “The Crunge”, I’ll only be sort of playing attention.

    They also win Album of the Year-entirely predictable…

    And the ceremony is over! Paul, any closing thoughts?

    I actually liked that Robert Plant was so into talking about the process of creating “Raising Sand” in all of his acceptance speeches, but as usual, I hate Grammy’s pick for Album of the Year.  “Raising Sand” is a fine record, but I don’t think it was the definitive “Album of the Year”.   It should have gone to either Lil Wayne or Coldplay.

    Thanks Mike for riding this out with me.   It’s been fun!

  • The Sunday Seven 2/1/08: Make Sure You’re Sure

    Congrats to the Steelers for winning what was one of the most exciting Super Bowls in recent memory. That Springsteen guy wasn’t bad either. Let’s throw the iPod on shuffle and see if any Boss comes up:

    01: The Grand Finale by The D.O.C. feat. NWA (1989): A car crash ruined what The D.O.C.’s once promising career, shattering his vocal cords and turning his booming baritone into a rasp. While the Doc has gone on to success as a ghostwriter for the Death Row camp (and one of a laundry list of Erykah Badu baby daddies), his debut No One Can Do it Better remains one of the best debuts in hip-hop history. Ice Cube, MC Ren and Eazy-E all join The D.O.C. on this track, a classic all-time posse cut…over a live band, to boot!

    02: Make Sure You’re Sure by Stevie Wonder (1991): Can someone tell Stevie that he needs to do a standards album? This jazzy piano ballad is one of the highlights of the “Jungle Fever” soundtrack. Considering Stevie’s personal release schedule, though, it’s unlikely we’ll see any new music from him until 2016. I love me some Spike Lee, but I have never seen “Jungle Fever” (although considering my own personal dating tastes, maybe I should). I’ll rent it someday.

    03: The Happy Song (Dum Dum) by Otis Redding (ca. 1966): It’s hard to believe Otis Redding was only 27 when he died, not because he made so much music in his few short years as a musician, but because he SOUNDED so much older. The man had the soul of someone 10 if not 20 years older, as evidenced by the fact that he sings the shit out of a song that’s pretty inconsequential lyrically like this one.

    04: Daddy Called Me Niga ‘Cause I Liked to Rhyme by Young Black Teenagers (1990): YBT, contrary to their name, consisted of five white kids. Discovered and produced by The Bomb Squad, they released two pretty decent albums. The subject matter of this song is apparent from the title. Strangely, there wasn’t much of an outcry in the media when these guys came out. Can you imagine the ruckus this would cause if it were released now? Talk about progression (yes, I’m being sarcastic). Most of the YBT returned to civilian life after their 15 minutes were up, but their DJ, Skribble, wound up becoming a fixture on MTV for a while, and his latest mix CD debuted in the Top 20 on the Billboard charts earlier this year.

    There’s no video for “Daddy…”, but if you want some YBT flavor, here’s a video for you. This was the jam back in ’93.


    05: Good Thing by Fine Young Cannibals (1989): This good-natured Motown rip was a huge hit in 1989. Two things I always wondered about FYC: 1) what planet did Roland Gift come from? (he looked like a bloody alien) and 2) how come their huge album “The Raw & the Cooked” (which contains this song) never got followed up? Such are the mysteries of the music world. Anyone remember the skit from “In Living Color” called “Old Train”, where one of the Wayanses as Don Cornelius mangles the name “Fine Young Cannibals”? Finally, did Barry Gibb ever call Roland Gift and tell him he wanted his voice back?

    06: She Needs My Love by The-Dream (2007): Some producers are better off not making their own records. I’m still on the fence about The-Dream, who’s written and produced songs for Usher, Mary J. Blige, Britney, Celine Dion and Rihanna’s “Umbrella”, among others. Dream’s no great singing talent, but the 80s-tastic production (similar to modern-day Timbaland) redeems this and many of the songs on his album “Love/Hate”. This song would be just as good as an instrumental.

    07: Sleep All Day by Jason Mraz (2003): Mr. A-Z’s a little too precious for my tastes sometimes, but this remains one of my favorites from him, maybe because sleeping all day is one of my favorite things to do. This song is actually the perfect soundtrack for a mid-afternoon summer nap. I can picture the hammock now…

    As usual, I’m taking submissions from anyone who would like to participate in a Sunday Seven someday (say that five times fast). Enjoy your week!!