Brad's Grammy Review

First I watched the Golden Globes and now the Grammys!? I have officially watched more awards shows this year than I ever have before. And I actually enjoyed them. Weird.

I'll tell you how I got suckered into it last night; The show started off on a funny note (big fan of Colbert) and I was looking forward to the Michael Jackson tribute, so I just ended up sticking around. Here's a look at some of the highs and lows.

Taylor Swift - How adorable is this girl? In a time where it seems young (especially female) celebrities are trying to ‘grow up' (read: wear slutty clothes) way too fast, Swift looked beautiful in a classy dress while she sings about how ‘she wears high heels and I wear sneakers.' I hope Taylor skips the Britney phase and just keeps focusing on making fun music. Although some disagree with her wins last night, I'm glad she's being rewarded for what she's doing. Female Country Vocals, Country Album AND the big one - Album of the Year.

Beyonce - Man that woman can sing. Considering the fact that between Beyonce and her husband, Jay-Z, they have enough money to buy... well, everything that has ever been made - I'm always impressed with her drive to keep performing and making music. She sounded great.

Life Time Achievements - How many of these things did they give away last night?! Congrats to a couple of great Canadians for special honours though, Leonard Cohen and Neil Young. Very deserving indeed.

Pink - Never been a big fan of her performances, but (if she was in fact singing) she sounded better than ever last night, and it was kind of visually appealing too... I guess...

Black Eyed Peas - After the medley performance Will I Am announced that they were ‘the future.' Sigh. I guess I'll have to start living in the past...

Kings of Leon - Use Somebody is not even close to being their best song, but it won them Record of the Year. I'm glad people are taking notice of these guys finally. They've made some of the best rock albums of the last few years and I expect more to come. Plus the line Caleb Followill started their acceptance speech with ("I'm not going to lie, we're all a little drunk. But we're happy drunk, so it's ok.") is as close to sounding rock n roll without sounding like a rock n roll jerk that you can get. So I dig it.

Jamie Fox - His performance in Ray proved that he could sing - so why didn't he? He took a cue from his co-performer, T-Pain, and they had a battle of the computer effects. I know he wants to be relevant and cool to the younger demo, but come on. No good. At least Slash showed up though.

Michael Jackson Tribute - Oh wait - I left my 3D glasses in my grade 3 locker - Nooooooo! Aside from the bad visuals (weird colours that would be 3D for the 12 people who had the glasses, and Celine Dion in a short dress - which I'm glad I didn't have the glasses for) the actual music was good. The highlight was definitely Jackson's son, Prince Michael. He was very well spoken despite being clearly emotional and nervous about the whole thing.

Bon Jovi - They put on a very Bon Jovi performance. Good, but nothing out of the ordinary. Even the contest - pick the third song we play - was kind of ridiculous. I voted for ‘Stairway to Heaven' but it turned out it needed to be an actual Bon Jovi song.

Dave Mathews Band - A great performance (despite Mathews' weird, spastic dancing). It picked the show up again.

Drake, Eminem and Lil' Wayne - To begin with, I couldn't tell if Quentin Tarantino was trying to be ‘dope' or if he was mocking the fact that he was introing a hip-hop performance (sadly I think it was the first one). I did, however, really enjoy this one. Great lighting effects and camera movement, cool to see an up and coming Canadian act in any genre (Drake) perform with heavyweights (Eminem and Lil' Wayne), but the censors need to chill out with the mute button. I thought my TV was on the fritz for a while, every 5 seconds there was a few seconds of silence. Either tell the performers to pick a different song, or let them go. Especially after 11:00pm.

Overall I thought it was a good show. The acceptance speeches were quick and there was almost no poorly written and terribly delivered, two person banter. Finally!!

Here's a list of some of the big winners.

- Record of the Year Award: "Use Somebody," Kings of Leon
- Album of the Year Award: "Fearless," Taylor Swift
- Song of the Year Award: "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On it)," Beyonce Knowles
- New Artist Award: Zac Brown Band
- Pop Vocal Album Award: "The E.N.D.", The Black Eyed Peas
- Female Pop Vocal Performance Award: "Halo," Beyonce Knowles
- Male Pop Vocal Performance Award: "Make It Mine," Jason Mraz
- Rock Album Award: "21st Century Breakdown," Green Day
- Rock Song Award: "Use Somebody," Kings of Leon
- R&B Album Award: "BLACKsummers'night, "Maxwell
- R&B Song Award: "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)," Beyonce Knowles
- Rap Album Award: "Relapse," Eminem
- Rap Song Award: "Run This Town," Jay-Z, Rihanna and Kanye West
- Best Rap/Sung Collaboration Award: "Run This Town," Jay-Z, Rihanna and Kanye West
- Country Album Award: "Fearless," Taylor Swift
- Female Country Vocal Performance Award: "White Horse," Taylor Swift
- Male Country Vocal Performance Award: "Sweet Thing," Keith Urban,
- Latin Pop Album Award: "Sin Frenos," La Quinta Estacion
- Contemporary Jazz Album Award: "75," Joe Zawinul & The Zawinul Syndicate
- Classical Album Award: "Mahler: Symphony No. 8; Adagio from Symphony No. 10″
- Traditional Gospel Album Award: "Oh Happy Day," various artists
- Dance Recording Award: "Poker Face," Lady Gaga
- Electronic Dance Album Award: "The Fame," Lady Gaga
- Alternative Music Album Award: "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix," Phoenix
- Best Rock Instrumental Performance Award: "A Day In The Life," Jeff Beck
- Best Metal Performance Award: "Dissident Aggressor," Judas Priest
- Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical: "Ellipse," Imogen Heap
- Spoken Word Album Award: "Always Looking Up," Michael J. Fox
- Comedy Album Award: "A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!" Stephen Colbert
- Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media: "Slumdog Millionaire," Various Artists, A.R. Rahman, producer.