A Closer Look with John Beaudin: 2009 Grammys – All Live? My Ass!
February 15, 2009 – Just because someone tells you something doesn’t make it true. We’ve learned that, right? It’s especially true on TV. I remember Kelsey Grammer laughing at his own network, NBC, in 2004 as both his series, ‘Fraiser,’ and ‘Friends’ were winding down with big finales. The peacock network were proclaiming Friends as, "the best comedy ever," to which Grammer said, "I don't blame them for saying that, although we all know it's not true." Sure, ‘Friends’ was at the top alright, but only for people whose Chia pets talked back. Really, it’s all smoke and mirrors. TV has become a habitual liar. If Rob Blagojevich divorced the toaster and Casey Anthony was too busy rotting in hell, he could marry his TV – after all ‘like attracts like’ and you gotta watch what you stick in a toaster.

TV tried to make us believe that Beyonce actually washed her hair with L’oreal. Does she even touch her own hair? A couple of weeks ago I thought Jennifer Hudson, the nice comeback kid that she is was telling the truth. She, in a side-winding way, lied about singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl. Maybe she justified it since everyone else lied as well.

The Grammy’s, never one to be trumped by a little football game, proclaimed this year that everything was  “All Live.” To prove their point U2 kicked off the show with Bono sporting more eye liner than Avril Lavigne building a Perez Hilton Voodoo doll. Unless Helen Keller was the sound person, he was lip synching.

If anyone needed to record anything beforehand it was Whitney Houston. What the hell was she talking about? The only two words I understood were “Clive Davis” and even though most who attended Davis’ pre-Grammy bash said that Whitney, though not in her previous crescendo crackin’ form’ (no pun intended) she still sounded pretty good. I applaud the former Mrs. Bobby Brown for cleaning up her act but she was still wearing her crazy on the outside.

Jennifer Hudson redirected us back to reality as she accepted her Grammy for best R&B album, thanking her family, “In heaven and here today.” It was hard not to choke back the tears. Though her self titled album was about 13 tracks short of a great effort, the collective thought seemed to be “give the poor girl something.” The CD did one thing – it showed she had the potential to be a great artist someday.

Then came the first fall-out of the Chris Brown “Women Make Great Pinata’s” variety show – Justin Timberlake who replaced Brown at the Grammy’s. Brown was busy “leaving the scene” so the Grammy folks decided curly-top-Timberlake could slither his way on stage and maybe no one would notice his lack of talent would be accentuated when paired next to legend Al Green. It was more painful than being stapled to Heidi Montag and Spence Pratt. Timberlake however seemed to be singing live. If he was lip-synching one would assume he’d use a vocal track that didn’t make him sound like Macaulay Culkin’s musical tribute to Skeletor.

Though Timberlake seemed to turn into the incredible shrinking man on stage the talk of the Grammy’s was Stevie Wonder. His performance with the Jonas Brothers almost erased my long term memory. For a second I thought ‘Songs in the Key of Life’ was an Aleister Crowley instructional sing-a-long for humourless blind ignition specialists. Screw my long term memory, for a week I’ve been trying to re-align my brain and chuck out the short term stuff. What was Stevie thinking? Did the Grammy folks even tell him who he’d be sharing the stage with? The brothers looked like a bunch of jumping ADD brats who ran out of Ritalin. I was embarrassed for Wonder. God, get that memory out of my head. Stevie and the teenagers were singing live however, how else would you explain Nick forgetting the words to ‘Superstition.’

So who else seemed to be lip-synching in the “all live” show? Interestingly, Katy Perry’s Britney-inspired disjointed dancing seemed to be choreographed by Stevie Wonder or maybe someone slipped her some acid just before the show. She seemed completely confused on stage. If she performed live then I’m Davy Crockett. Also, what gender-confused designer made her banana girl dress. At least she didn’t let us down with the cleavage.

The excellent Bo Diddley tribute with John Mayer, B.B. King, Buddy Guy and Keith Urban was certainly live but nothing could have saved us from Jennifer Nettles of  Sugarland, live or taped, that twang can’t be stopped. It will kill, oh yes it will.

Carrie Underwood sounded live though a little shaky at first and speaking of shaking, M.I.A. was lucky ‘shaken baby syndrome’ only applies to infants on the outside cause she was bouncing more than Jonas Brothers and what was with the pregnant Dalmatian costume?

Thanks to Joe Satriani, Coldplay won a few for ‘Viva La Vida’ and I’m not sure why drummer Will Champion apologizes to Paul McCartney for “plainly ripping off the Sgt Peppers Jackets” when they should have redirected the message to the Wiggles. I am still waiting for a cease and desist order from Dorothy the dinosaur.

The Grammy for worse lip-synching awards had to go Kanye’s partner Estelle, were the pair even singing the same song?

The pay-off at the show had to be Paul McCartney’s short Beatles tribute with “I Saw her Standing There.” Dave Grohl on drums also brought it up a notch. It got better with Radiohead performing for the first time at the Grammy’s backed by the University of Southern California marching band. If you were not a Radiohead fan before this might have closed the deal. The band also won the Grammy for Alternative Music Album.

In the end Robert Plant & Alison Krauss won 5 Grammy Awards. That ultimately was enough to make the evening worth while. – By John Beaudin