The two big numbers that emerged from Sunday night’s Grammy extravaganza: six to four. That’s the score of Beyonce vs. Taylor Swift.
But those numbers don’t matter much, especially after Swift demonstrated how much she doesn’t deserve most of her awards, at least any that have to do with performance.
She may be a good songwriter, but even on great days her voice can’t be described more generously than “average.”
The three and one-half hour marathon gave the recording academy a chance to show off what’s going on now, in a music world quaking with uncertainty and confusion, and the way things were, when huge labels and corporations, including radio stations, controlled everything and lots of people made tons of money.
When Beyonce sang a bit of Alanis Morissette’s You Oughta Know, she invoked the era right before the Napster infestation, when bands and performers would sell one million or more records in a week.
That moment alone must have set hundreds of hearts sinking in the Staples Center. Oh, the days of tyranny.
Recording academy President Neil Portnow delivered his usual scolding to consumers: stop stealing music.
But his speech is now rote and irrelevant.
Not only are the horses out of the barn, the barn isn’t even standing any more.
If any group needs to change its name to Move On, it’s the academy.
Sure, artists need to be paid for their work, but the industry needs to go full-steam, fearlessly and adventurously, into the future instead of whining about the new days and pining for the old.
It’s more than ironic that Swift was ordained the new princess of pop.
Her performance with Stevie Nicks was worse than bad karaoke. Anyone unaware of her preposterously thin amateur voice must have wondered (a) why she was rewarded for it and (b) why she got signed as a performer in the first place.
Yes, she sells records and tickets, which is all the industry cares about.
But she may be the last kind of royalty needed in a universe that needs to start looking as if it wants to work with its consumers instead of foisting fakes and frauds upon them.
The Black Eyed Peas ought to be thankful for Swift’s performance, or their high-school level exhibition would be the one most talked about—and not in a good way.
And that Jamie Foxx number with T-Pain started off as a mess and deteriorated into a debacle. Really? These are the best of the best?
And whose idea was it to invite Lil Wayne on with Eminem and Drake and then censor about one-third of what they said?
There were some fine moments Sunday night, and those came when some of the genuine, eminent talents performed: Maxwell, Jeff Beck and Mary J. Blige with Andrea Bocelli.
I’m not a big fan of either one’s music, but the Zac Brown and Dave Matthews bands both showcased some real players—”artists,” if you want to go that far. It was good to see Leon Russell get some love during the Brown Band’s jam—the kind he can’t get from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
I’m on the fence over the Green Day-meets-Glee performance of 21 Guns, but I’ve seen them in concert, and they’re one of the best live bands out there.
And though it’s hard to look past her freaky visual excesses, Lady Gaga came off as someone with more than outlandish costumes hiding behind a garish facade. She is, at least, a musician. And she can sing.
Sunday’s unofficial final score was six to four, and there will be other numbers to examine, like how many people watched.
The ratings have been flat for about five years (around 20 million viewers), save a few spurts of renewed interest here and there.
According to preliminary Nielsen numbers, viewership this year was up almost 30 percent from 2009.
However, those numbers don’t reveal anything more than how many people bothered to watch something more compelling than the NFL Pro Bowl.
And the numbers won’t account for viewers’ reactions to what they saw and heard.
If industry leaders were hoping the broadcast would showcase the best new or young talent and prompt more people to buy music in any form, they have to wonder whether the execution of that plan backfired.
Portnow ought to be challenging what’s left of the label system to sign real musicians and good songwriters it can nurture and promote, not concoct personae it can market.
Changes in production and distribution have turned the industry upside down, but that doesn’t explain why so many contemporary big-label performers can’t do what their predecessors did: write good songs and perform them, live and well.