Below you’ll find my complete live blog for the 55th Grammys. Start at the bottom and work your way to the top. This wordpress Liveblog plugin works beautifully but still needs more customization options. I’d love to be able to flip to post order and all that jazz.
What the ease of this plugin means is that I can start blogging about shows like Drag Race again. The next-day image editing, screen capture, and posting is a many hour affair and I just don’t have that time in the day anymore. But being able to recap, comment, and critique while it airs this easily? Much more reasonable. I can grab images on my phone (until I get my screen capture card in the coming weeks) and even add them in after. Very excited.
And on a horribly spammy final note (way to fail, CBS), this live blog is over. Love the plugin. It means I can start blogging Drag Race and other shows again.
Aww hell no. They’re preempting the end of Chuck D’s performance for sponsor ads.
This is the first time since Taylor Swift performed that the whole stage is being used. I don’t get it.
Travis Barker is an insane drummer. How did Blink 182 ever get him? And how did they stop him from making every single moment all about him?
So excited to see Chuck D perform again. We all know the sound mixer doesn’t want us to hear him again.
LL Cool J is about to lick his lips like LL.
I miss Missy Elliott.
Janelle Monae’s Cover Girl commercial is now the second best performance of the night behind the In Memoriam tribute and ahead of Mumford & Sons. Congrats. Your certificate will be in the mail by the end of the week.
And the home audience will never know the incredibly dirty joke the lead singer just made about Adele’s wardrobe tonight.
Holy crap. The Best (nominated) Album actually won.
Team Mumford & Sons. It’s the only album that actually makes sense to me in the category. Obviously FUN. is winning.
Album of the Year? It’s not even tomorrow yet.
This performance is bizarre. I don’t get why Frank Ocean needs a projection screen in front of his keyboard. I don’t understand why he can’t play keyboard with both hands. I don’t get why he can’t open eyes. And I certainly don’t understand why he would be running in an ugly yellow suit. Is he chasing down the renegade stylist who put that awful costume on him?
Small miracles. It’s not that awful shrieking falsetto Frank Ocean song that last’s 20 minutes long. “Thinking About You” is such a buzz kill.
Juanes into Frank Ocean. Makes perfect sense…
Juanes has a lovely voice and a gentle touch on the guitar. Very nice.
Latin Pop represented on the Grammys telecast? What is this, Ricky Martin in 1999?
Mavis Staples got taken by the spirit at the end. She brought it to church. Yes, ma’am. Get it.
Elton John as the In Memoriam performer. Good choice. Apparently everyone is in the tribute who can actually sing and play from the audience.
Oh, good. It’s the annual applause competition to determine which dead celebrities are the most important and beloved.
Justin Timberlake is not an amazing artist or musician. It looks like he’s wearing Mary Jane’s with WHITE SOCKS and BLACK PANTS. No. Bad Justin.
Ryan Seacrest is a chairman of the Grammys? Can guarantee you they will not show Ryan next to the head chair. Those shiny tuxedo shoes aren’t sized for Ryan’s usual thick lifts.
Digging the jazz. Too bad they don’t bother to introduce these musicians.
Gotye won. Wasn’t expecting that. Congrats to Gotye and Kimbra on their last appearance on US television.
Record of the Year is the actual recording. That should mean Lonely Boy, Stronger, or We Will Never Ever Get Back Together winning. What it actually means is another award for FUN. or Frank Ocean.
Prince gets a standing ovation for being Prince. Good for him.
Carrie Underwood’s dress is a projection screen.
Carrie Underwood. Now there’s someone who can sing live. Pity about the total lack of personality once you hand her a mic.
Hunter Hayes is performing live. He’s mugging like a competition dancer, melismaing like an Idol semi-finalist, his piano is covered in chalk graffiti, and he’s still better live than Talor Swift.
Ugh. I wanted to finally find out what Alabama Shakes was. Boo to FUN.
Katy Perry isn’t bitter about not being nominated for Best New Artist at all after her label promised her. Team Anyone but FUN.
I’m telling you right now, the original violin and bass players were much stronger at their instruments than the mid-song replacements. Same with the back-up vocalist/tambourine and drummer. Couldn’t judge either piano player.
So, does Jack White actually perform with the all female backing band or was that just for show until his actual band came onstage? They’re just kind of awkwardly swaying in a blackout right now and I feel bad for them.
Those timpani mallets are going to punch through the snare and tom heads on that stand up drum kit.
And now Jack white is performing some of his creepy, incomprehensible solo music. Who knew Meg White was keeping him in check all those years with The White Stripes?
The Lumineers are performing. I honestly had no idea who they were until this moment. So they did that other really annoying anthem song that won’t leave the airwaves. Thank goodness FUN. is winning that category for the more identifiable (but significantly worse) anthem.
Rihanna is now dressed like Rihanna. I can see her undercarriage tattoo. Order is restored to the universe.
Sting deserves a lot better than playing second fiddle to Bruno Mars.
Bruno Mars’ best song has NOTHING to do with Bob Marley. And he still can’t sing live. He’s worse than Chester from Linkin Park. He couldn’t carry a tune with the assistance of a fire brigade.
LL Cool J’s position reveals that no one has cleaned up the Taylor Swift rose petals from two hours ago. Think of the poor people with allergies like me.
And Kelly gives the Grammy to her friends in the Zac Brown Band. Not my favorite country act but I can’t deny their talent.
Country Album time. Team Miranda Lambert or Hunter Hayes.
Kelly’s voice sounds great tonight. Her current vocal coach/teacher is doing wonders to rebuild her voice after years of abuse stemming from her stint on Idol.
Kelly Clarkson is paying tribute to Patti Page and Carole King. Apparently they’re both more important to music than Dick Clark.
Go head now, Dr. John. Get down with your Voodoo self.
Dear Grammys,
The Black Keys are a duo. The stage is also filled with talented performers. Perhaps you can show someone–anyone–beyond the Grammy-award winning producer/singer/guitarist/songwriter of the group? No? Worth a shot.
The Black Keys were a blues band? Mind blown. Ain’t none of that in their current stuff. So of course they’re performing blues tonight to prove me wrong. Of course.
“I would like to thank the swap meet for his hat.” Jay-Z knows how to read. RuPaul should get him to judge Season 6 of Drag Race.
And Jay-Z and Kanye win this category again with more awful autotuning.
Rap/Sung Collaboration is one of my favorite categories. Team Nas/Winehouse.
Ne-Yo better watch out. That do anything to get a hit disease is going to get all over him standing that close to Carly Rae Jepsen.
The was the longest 3 minutes of my life.
Rihanna is “singing” live. Bless her heart. Even her piano player is lip syncing. Your hands have to be on the keys to make noise. They weren’t when the piano was playing during the overhead shot.
And Kelly Clarkson wins. Victory!
Best Pop Vocal Album. Team Kelly Clarkson. Don’t care for the other nominated albums at all. Florence & The Machine winning wouldn’t be a crime.
And the award for most awkward transition between totally unrelated songs goes to Maroon 5 and Alicia Keys. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery of your award.
Alicia Keys and Maroon 5 are performing together. Alicia Keys is doing the song I most want to parody in a very crude way and Maroon 5 are doing some kind of morose midtempo ballad.
Rock Performance should go to anyone but Coldplay. Personally, I’m team Alabama Shakes in this category. I’ll accept Black Keys winning for Lonely Boy because of how great that song sounds in the Warm Bodies marketing.
Dan Auerbach (of The Black Keys) won Producer of the Year, Non-Classical. No word on who won Producer of the Year, Classical because herp derp classical.
And Frank Ocean takes it because the Grammys just don’t care.
If Chris Brown wins Urban Contemporary I’m gonna lose my mind. His album is mediocre RB. And this category is just a terrible retread of the more fitting Urban/Alternative. Team Miguel.
Kelly Rowland is showing fleshy bits. Get the censors. We need enough black bars to cover up the illusion netting.
How come Justin Timberlake gets the whole stage to work with and poor Mumford & Sons had a giant puddle of FUN. run-off to play on?
The second new Justin Timberlake song is actually worse than the first. Please, somebody write JT a new screenplay.
Jay Z has come out of retirement to sell out. Somebody has to pay for Blue Ivy’s exclusive private daycare.
Ugh. Here I was thinking Beyonce and Ellen were introducing a worthwhile musician. Justin Timberlake. Woof.
I wouldn’t be mad if Ellen Degeneres hosted every awards show ever. Her timing is great. Haters gonna hate.
My hero is the one person in the audience who tried to start a standing ovation for Mumford & Sons. I know how you feel, brother.
Mumford & Sons are going to be the best technical musicians we see onstage tonight. The vocal placement of the keyboard player is amazing. The bassist isn’t too shabby, either.
Mumford & Sons are trying to give everyone a seizure with their lighting design. I wish I could actually see their performance. I also wish I was joking about there only being 3 feet of stage to perform on.
Johnny Depp as Chocolat as Steven Tyler introducing Mumford & Sons. Very meta.
FUN. is going to sweep everything, aren’t they? This is going to be a LONG. NIGHT.
Team Stronger. Best WRITTEN song of the nominees. You know. The actual meaning of the category.
Dear Tim McGraw,
You’re on live TV. Tilt your hat back so we can see your eyes.
Song of the Year already? I’m so confused. This is one of the big 4 and it’s being handed out before 9PM? Madness.
I actually wanted Hunter Hayes to win everything he was nominated for tonight so that everyone would actually have to write about Hunter Hayes tomorrow. Carrie Underwood is an acceptable alternative for Country Vocal Performance.
Wiz Khalifa is auditioning for the role of Emergency Broadcast Warning background.
I would like Miguel to be charged for abuse of synthesizer technology. A rolling synth drone is not music.
A Dick Clark tribute. This is a good idea.
Oh wait. It’s only a 5 second clip of LL Cool J and two sentences. Never mind.
Full clarification: the mixer is incompetent. The live vocals are not being put up enough in any performance. Miranda Lambert is no lightweight and I only heard every third word.
And now representing country music, Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley. I prefer Miranda slinging a guitar. However, if this is the country portion of the program, why was Taylor Swift trotted out onstage? Will we not have anymore insipid pop tonight?
John Mayer is coming onstage. Quick, cut to Katy Perry fawning at…all of that. Do you think he borrowed Katy’s velvet blazer for the evening?
I mean, just think. They could have given all these nominations to Neon Trees. They’re almost the same band. The only differences are Neon Trees has a better singer and a clearer artistic direction.
FUN. is one of the more irritating anomalies of the 2013 Grammy Awards. Mediocre alt pop, bland singing, and a totally incomprehensible album from technical and artistic viewpoints. I don’t get it.
I’m shocked. Neil Patrick Harris is wearing a gray suit. Again.
This is Adele’s 7th Grammy for Set Fire to the Rain. She previously won the others for doing the studio recording of the exact same performance.
Best pop performance should go to Kelly Clarkson for actually being an amazing pop PERFORMANCE but Adele is going to win a lot tonight.
Jennifer Lopez is showing fleshy bits on TV. Where’s CBS’ crook to kick her off the air and start prosecuting. And they’re showing the other Grammy dress.
So edgy. LL Cool J is responding to tweets with the #Grammys hashtag. Respond to my set dressing tweet. I work for cheap.
Ed Sheeran is actually singing The A Team in a higher key. A real tenor. Unfortunately, he’s also playing a 1/3 size kids’ guitar. I’ll call that a draw.
Those C9 bulbs hanging over the audience haphazardly are so classy. Someone gets paid to do that set dressing. I can hang string lights. Where’s my break?
Rihanna is sitting right behind Chris Brown’s charming neck tattoo of her battered face.
LL Cool J is recycling his opening monologue that he never got to use last year because Whitney Houston passed away. This is what the show could have been last year if they let the body get cold before jumping on the cha-ching bandwagon.
That one acrobat with the umbrella was so over it before the curtain came down. Looked like he wanted to chew his arm off to get out of the performance.
Trying to remember. Is We Will Never Ever Get Back Together the pop song she wrote because Jake Gyllenhaal made fun of her pop-country sound for not being whiny emo alternative? I think so. Meanwhile, who isn’t dancing on a 3 foot deep stage with really bad projections behind them right now? Team Jake.
Taylor Swift is singing live without a guitar dressed as The Mad Hatter. She can’t sing loud enough into the mic to actually be included in the mix (until the backup singers start). That, or the mixer is on our side and hiding her live vocals. Good on you, mixer. Good on you.
Watch out now. LL Cool J is going to tear the roof off later. First, he’ll take his boniva and start some gentle stretches.
Bless their hearts. CBS is already advertising their 11 o’clock news hour topic. I’ll gladly watch at 12:17 tomorrow morning.
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