Grammys

I thought that the "awards" show last night was actually pretty good... FOR A CONCERT. When did the Grammys stop being about the awards and start being about who they can get to perform. I mean, sure, it was cool to see Gwen Stefani, the Black Eyed Peas, Maroon 5 and Franz Ferdinand performing on the same stage AT THE SAME TIME...

BUT

I really get irritated when people are walking down the red carpet and being informed by Joan Rivers or Star Jones or Suchin Pak or whoever that they won an award. That just doesn't seem right.

However, there are too many awards...too many lifetime achievement awards. Everyone gets one. Watched the show with my wife and brother and right before Album of the Year, he says, "I bet Ray Charles wins...he died...he's going to win." I tried to argue with him, but I really couldn't. It happened last year (is that when it was?) with Warren Zevon and I'm sure it will continue to happen in the future.

I also think that if you perform, you are guaranteed at least one award. I don't think I saw anyone last night that didn't win an award that performed. They hand out so many awards that even Britney Spears won an award. Don't know why, but she did.

Don't get me wrong...the performances were pretty cool. "Across the Universe" was interesting and the opening was one of the better openings I've seen, but I still don't understand how the Grammy's are judged. Maroon 5's Songs about Jane came out on June 25, 2002 (no, that's not a misprint...that's according to Amazon.com). Yet last night, they won BEST NEW ARTIST.

Huh?

Then you have the pompous president of the RIAA up on his podium pimping whatsthedownload.com to the masses, like their Napster, subscription-based model is going to work...YEAH RIGHT. At least they pimped iTunes in between performances...that was smart, considering that more people download their legal music from the iTunes Music Store than ALL THE OTHER STORES COMBINED. iPods rule.

At least the Oscars are only 2 weeks away! Happy Valentine's Day!