Thought 1. If you want to get nominated for some kind of rap award put Rihanna in your song. The common thread between Eminem and Drake was Rihanna. Okay so the Drake song was Rihanna featuring Drake. I thought it was the other way around. That would explain why during their performance Drake said a few words then left and then Rihanna just sang.
Don't get me wrong I enjoy the Eminem song. It was also pretty cool to see Dr. Dre again. He can still rap, and almost 20 years since the Chronic he's starting to look a little bit like Forest Witaker, but that's pretty cool. I mean the late 80's and early 90's was kind of when rap really started to get going, so now that it's pioneer artists are getting up in age it will be interesting to see how the rap topics will evolve.
I was also surprised to see The Roots nominated for best Rap album of the year. Well not surprised since the Roots are pretty awesome and they had already won a Grammy for "You Got Me," I just didn't know that they were nominated. The Roots are probably one of my favorite bands ever. I saw them twice live. Once was at the Chicago Tibetian Freedom Concert, and the other time was at Moby's area one festival at Pine Knob in Detroit.
I got ultimate concert souvenir there. The story starts like this. My buddy and I went to that concert. Originally our tickets were for the lawn area. That kind of sucked because it was way too sunny and I wanted to get up close. So I pulled out my credit card and went to the ticket booth and asked to upgrade my ticket to get a seat underneath the pavilion. We ended up three rows from the stage. It was expensive, but worth it.
So The Roots came out and play their set. They did a live techno version of "You Got Me." I nearly shit myself. They made techno beats without a D.J. At the end of the show their drummer, Questlove had drummed himself into a frenzy and decided to throw one of his drumsticks into the audience.
This other guy and I both went to catch it. I kept my eye on the drumstick and I saw that the other guy's hand had the high ground. Then it was like in slow motion. I saw his hand clasp around air and while in my hand I felt a solid cylinder of vic firth.
Later in the concert Outkast played and my friend managed to get one of Andre 3000's sweat towels.
Anyway back to the Grammys:
I thought it was interesting how blond the women nominated for best country album were. The Taylor Swift look must be popular down south.
Well everybody was pretty blond except for Lady Antebellum. They won a lot of awards. I can't say that I was that impressed with them. I like some country music. Dolly Parton rules. Johny Cash was great. Willy Nelson has to be one of the coolest senior citizens out there. But I'm pretty sure I could use that Lady Antebellum song that won so many awards as a good way to get some sleep.
B.o.b. and Bruno Mars' show was okay. Janelle Monae brought some much needed energy to their performance. I'm interested in more Janelle Monae now. When you live in Korea it can be pretty hard to stay current on what's popular in music. Unfortunately I know a lot more about Kpop than Apop these days. It's unfortunate because I listen to Kpop mostly so that I can make fun of it. (Again I'm not a Kpop hater, I like a lot of Kpop, just not most of it.)
Cee-lo performed "Forget You," with a bunch of puppets, and Gweneth Paltrow.
I was a bit surprised that Justin Bieber didn't win the best new artist. Somebody named Esperanza Spalding did. I'm not disappointed. Justin Bieber shouldn't be either. He could probably freeze the U.S. government if he ordered a million middle school girl march on Washington. I'm interested to see what Esperanza Spalding is all about now that she has crushed Justin Bieber.
Arcade Fire was kind of cool. I don't know if they had the best album of the year, but their show was pretty cool. Last year when I went to New York, "Empire State of Mind," defiantly hyped me up to go there. I'm glad that Lady Antebellum didn't win that one. I kind of got tired seeing them win stuff. The Grammy judges seemed intent on awarding bland shit this year.
Those are enough thoughts. It's Valentine's day and I have the day off. I should take a shower, clean the house, and buy my wife some flowers or something. So bye.
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