Sometimes while watching the Grammys I find myself not caring so much about who's going to win, as what's going to happen.
There are years when I tend to forget the show is about music and just tune into the strange happenings that make it onto the live broadcast. (Utah gets the show on a 1-hour delay feed.)In the past, there have been some mildly controversial scenes:
- Soundgarden's Kim Thayil made a harsh remark about the voting procedures after the band won both the Hard Rock Performance and Metal Performance Grammys in 1995.
- Punk pioneer Henry Rollins performed barefoot in a tux during that same broadcast.
- Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam quipped that the Grammy didn't mean anything to him when the band won Hard Rock Performance in 1996. "My dad would have thought it meant something, but he's dead," Vedder said.
- That same year, Alanis Morissette sang an acoustic version of her angry "You Oughta Know," complete with the "F-word" and blatant sexual references.
- Then there was Richard Dreyfuss taking the soapbox during that same show to shake his fist at the conservatives with a seemingly liberal speech about the importance of music in society.
And this year also had its moments.
While no winning artist made pretentiously defiant complaints, Wu-Tang Clan's ODB spewed his con-tempt for not winning the Rap Album award just before Shawn Colvin and John Leventhal were to make their acceptance speech for Song of the Year. Talk about bad timing.
And who can forget that absurd shirtless dancer who had "Soy Bomb" scrawled on his chest, contorting on stage during Bob Dylan's performance of "Sick of Love"?
So what was Soy Boy's state-ment?
Other than those incidents, the night was pretty predictable - except for the fact that Jamiroquai won Pop Performance By a Duo or Group with Vocal over Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones and No Doubt. What wasn't surprising was the fact that any one of the above would beat Hanson, which was also in this category.
Most people probably put their money on Shawn Colvin's "Sunny Came Home" for Record of the Year, and it was apparent that either Bob Dylan or Paul McCartney would win for Album of the Year over such artists as Radiohead, Paula Cole and Babyface. (If you missed it, Dylan won.)
Song of the Year is usually awarded to overexposed ditties that have taken over radio, car stereo systems, personal CD and tape players and concert appearances. That's why Shawn Colvin won again, although there could have been an argument for LeAnn Rimes' version of "How Do I Live."
Paula Cole cashed in on only one of her seven nominations - Best New Artist. This award has been looked at as a jinx because of the common belief that anyone who wins is destined to disappear the next year.
Yet, the majority of Best New Artist winners during this decade are still going strong: Mariah Carey (1991), Toni Braxton (1994), Sheryl Crow (1995) and LeAnn Rimes (1997).
Awards to Milli Vanilli (whose 1990 award was stripped away because of fraud), Marc Cohn (1992, for "Walking In Memphis"), Arrested Development (1993) and Hootie & the Blowfish (1996) are nothing but memories these days.
We'll have to wait until next year to measure Cole's fate.
It was a tossup between Megadeth and Tool for Metal Performance. And since Megadeth has become more "hard rock" than "metal," Tool won. This probably happened because Pantera is too extreme, Corrosion of Conformity is too bland and Korn simply lacks talent.
As for Hard Rock Performance, the Smashing Pumpkins' "The End Is the Beginning Is the End" was another safe and mediocre choice. It was on a very accessible sound-track - "Batman & Robin." While Nine Inch Nails' "Perfect Drug" also appeared on a sound-track - "Lost Highway" - both the movie and song were a bit threatening to more conservative tastes.
That could probably explain why the leftist thrash of Rage Against the Machine, the punk of the Foo Fighters and the suggestiveness of Bush kept those groups out of the spotlight.
The Grammy Awards, no matter how boring the show might be, are important for any musical artist. But sometimes those of us who are watching at home may just as well have the results posted online and be done with it - if, of course, it weren't for those brief controversial moments.
I wonder what will happen next year.