Let’s face it. The music industry is struggling to innovate the business compared to movies, video games and other forms of modern entertainment. However, where innovation may be lacking, tradition is largely present as proven by music’s biggest night: the Grammys. This year’s award ceremony, on Sunday Feb. 10, marked the 55th anniversary of the event. Sadly, 2013 will not go down in history as the year the Grammys were exceptional.
Unfortunately, the pre-show consisted of hours of overblown fashion statements and interviews that got tedious towards the end. Also, perhaps it would be more effective to use reverse psychology when addressing attendees about the dress code, especially for artists like J – Lo, the self proclaimed “good girl,” who proceeded to wear a provocative cape.
Katy Perry flaunted her own skin exposure in her elven princess gown while Florence Welch from “Florence and the Machine” dressed up in a dinosaur costume. The pre-show hosts did not forget to add a pointless effect when they made stars stick their hands out for the “mani cam,” a device designed to feature manicures and embarrass everybody.
When the actual show began, viewers were treated to host LL Cool J who not only acted like he never used Twitter in his life but also proceeded to lick his lips an obnoxious amount of times. All that aside, he did a good job backed by his 25 years of experience in the industry.
The nice thing about the Grammys over events like the Oscars and the Golden Globes are the music performances it includes. Some highlights included the new band fun. who was rained upon in a performance of “Carry On.” Fun. won a fair amount of awards themselves including Best New Artist and Song of the Year. Some other standouts included Mumford & Sons, the British banjo players who won Album of the Year and the Bob Marley tribute, somewhat irrelevantly opened by Bruno Mars and his hit “Locked Out of Heaven.”
Another interesting performance consisted of the duo including Wiz Khalifa and Miguel whose wardrobe choice made their performance stand out a great deal more than it would have.
Still, not all musicians gave what could be considered successful impressions. Somebody really needs to teach Miranda Lambert how to dance, and somebody desperately needs to help Frank Ocean out with his pitchy live-singing voice. Ocean took home an award for the Best Urban Contemporary Album which most agreed was well deserved. All except for the ever so likeable Chris Brown.
Still, at least we were not tortured with a Bieber performance and a bunch of screaming 13-year-olds like at the Teen’s Choice Awards.
And on that note, at least T-Swizzle is starting to move away from that sort of an audience herself, even if it takes an immature opening rendition of her hit “We are never getting back together” featuring a poor British accent mocking her most recent ex and a cool interpretation of “Alice in Wonderland”.
The Grammys this year were not exactly great, but they provided for an interesting, and often humorous experience nonetheless. Rest assured, however, music will always be sticking around and seemingly so will the Grammys, for the better or for the worse.
