2022 Grammys overcorrected for blandness in trying to be the anti-Oscars - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

TMC · 04-04-2022, 10:51 PM

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/a...est-worst.html

"Last week’s Oscars left a bad taste in everyone’s mouths, and even before The Slap Heard Round the World, there was already some chatter that the show’s jokes at the expense of nominees had been a little too acidic," says Lindsay Zoladz. "In light of all the controversy, it wasn’t surprising the Grammys wanted to present themselves as a kind of anti-Oscars, and the host Trevor Noah wasted no time, proclaiming in his opening monologue, 'We’re going to be dancing, we’re going to be singing, we’re going to be keeping people’s names out of our mouths' — about as polite a reference to Will Smith’s Oscars outburst as a person could muster. But as the show went on, Noah’s bland, gee-whiz tone felt more and more like an unfortunate overcorrection, blunting the edges of his jokes such that they hardly had an impact at all. In introducing Jared Leto, Noah even breezed right by the lowest hanging fruit in the 2022 joke book: Making fun of the accents in House of Gucci! No one was asking him to take meanspirited swipes, but a well-placed zinger here or there would have given the show some needed spice."

ALSO:

The 3-1/2 hour ceremony was a tedious, pedestrian affair: "Like most mainstream honors, the Grammys seemed in search of meaning," says Lovia Gyarkye.. "With the exception of a few performances, the live telecast felt like another attempt at the onerous task of re-establishing relevancy, an exercise that pulls the awards further from its purpose of highlighting recording artistry and toward a more amorphous goal of — what? Courting younger generations? Capturing the zeitgeist? Proving the Recording Academy is listening and learning? It’s unclear. But the show’s choices revealed that its commitment to any issue beyond its continued existence is, at best, superficial. Trevor Noah, the evening’s host, acknowledged this bleak reality best in his opening monologue: 'This is a concert where we give out awards.'" Referring to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky pre-recorded message, Gyarkye also called out the Recording Academy's "cheap and vampiric approach to putting on a show."
Grammys ceremony was too front-loaded: "It’d be tough to maintain three-and-a-half hours’ worth of livewire energy for any live show, but particularly one where the bill is stacked with the would-be headliners going on first," says Andrew Unterberger, adding: Ultimately, it was probably unrealistic to expect the sort of unplugged nature of the 2021 broadcast to mark a way forward for the Grammys, rather than a single-year aberration — nor was it practical to expect another repeat of last year’s compelling array of timely big winners. For the Recording Academy, which already had to delay the awards for two months due to omicron-variant scares, business as usual is likely good enough for these Grammys, which still packed their fair share of stunning performances and rewarding wins. But with ratings that have long been declining as the show’s runtime keeps expanding, it feels pretty risky to ask fans to embrace a three-and-a-half-hour awards show that gets its biggest stars out of the way early, and ends with Jon Batiste accepting the marquee award and acclaimed country duo Brothers Osborne playing over the end credits. The Grammys may officially be Big again, but that doesn’t mean they’re too big to fail."
Mercifully, there was barely any content on The Slap: "Enough said. Seriously," says Rolling Stone. "We never need to read another word of commentary about the true meaning of the Slap, let alone hear a hacky joke about it at another awards show. We counted just two brief, innocuous references to the incident during the televised Grammys broadcast — way less than we could have reasonably expected. Thank you, Trevor Noah and everyone in the MGM Grand, for sparing us."
Hip-hop was underrepresented: "The two Nas’—Lil and Escobar—were the only rap acts to perform throughout the entire three-and-a-half-hour show, which felt…strange…given hip-hop’s dominance in music culture," says Grant Rindner, pointing out that Kanye West had been slated to perform before his performance was canceled.
The Grammys pre-show was actually interesting: "The premiere — what the Grammys call their preshow — is usually a perfunctory run-through of the dozens of awards that don’t get shown on TV, with a few random performances interspersed," says Justin Curto and Alex Suskind. "It can get pretty sleepy, especially by the third hour. But for once, this year’s felt dynamic. The host, LeVar Burton, brought genuine enthusiasm for the performers and some good jokes (including an early one about how Kunta Kinte cleans up). There were some fun and moving speeches, from TJ Osborne reflecting on winning a Grammy after coming out as gay to Kalani Pe’a charming the audience while representing Hawaiian music. And the performances would have fit right in on the main show, especially Jimmie Allen’s emotional tribute to his late father in 'Down Home' and Allison Russell’s stunning 'Nightflyer.'"
BTS ended up winning even though they didn't win a Grammy: "2022 marked the second straight year that the Grammys has given the biggest K-pop band a nomination and invited them to perform—and presumably bring along their massive fan base—and it also marked the second straight year that BTS went home empty-handed. While the organizers of the ceremony aren’t—or at least shouldn’t be—responsible for what the voting body decides, at a certain point, it becomes insulting. I can’t frame it any better than Elle magazine did in a headline earlier Sunday: 'BTS Deserves a Grammy, but Do the Grammys Deserve BTS?' While the answer to that is open to debate, what’s not is BTS’s performance on Sunday, which was an early-show highlight, if not the evening’s best performance, full stop. While some acts took the Las Vegas setting in the wrong direction—take Nas’s soft launch for a residency somewhere on the strip, for example—the Bangtan Boys went full Ocean’s 11 in their stage time, reenacting a museum heist and pirouetting among laser beams as they performed their megahit 'Butter.' (And that’s before acknowledging V’s flirtations with Olivia Rodrigo at the beginning.)"
Jon Batiste wins album of the year, the night's top prize, along with four other Grammys
Olivia Rodrigo wins three Grammys, including Best New Artist
Questlove joked about the Oscar slap at the Grammys
The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical wins a Grammy for Best Musical Theatre Album
Premiere show host LeVar Burton warned the audience to "keep your hands to yourselves"
Ranking Grammys performances from worst to best: Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber were the worst, BTS, H.E.R. and Lil Nas X were among the best

Grammys near last year's lowest-ever viewership

About 8.93 million tuned in for Sunday's ceremony from Las Vegas, according to early numbers, up 130,000 from the 2021 Grammys' all-time low of 8.8 million. The final figure last year was 9.2 million viewers.

Las Vegas gets an overwhelming thumbs down as Grammys location

The MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas was the best option for this year's ceremony due to the Omicron variant delaying the original location and date, Los Angeles' Crypto.com Arena on Jan. 31. "While many attendees acknowledged the difficult circumstances in which Grammy organizers found themselves, they were unsparing in detailing the drawbacks of Vegas, which, while an entertainment town through and through, seemed to lack the sparkle and glamor one would expect to find on music’s biggest night," reports Variety's Shirley Halperin and Jem Aswad, adding: "Making matters worse, the Grammys joined a busy early-spring weekend filled with traditionally boisterous Vegas revelers — including belated spring breakers — and the arena is located inside a sprawling complex that combines a hotel, an enormous casino, a shopping mall and more, making for a surreal scene outside the arena before the show, as people in casual or swimming apparel combined with the glittering Grammy attendees; the scene outside the venue before the show was crowded and not a little chaotic."

What's up with In Memoriam trend of focusing on live performers at the expense of the people who died?

Last week, the Oscars were criticized for spending a lot of time focusing on a gospel choir while the In Memoriam tribute played in the background. This week, the Grammy Awards, despite special tributes to Taylor Hawkins and Stephen Sondheim, did something similar. "The annual In Memoriam montage, which began with a Hawkins tribute and then was aptly soundtracked by a Stephen Sondheim medley sung by a quartet of showtune ringers, was unfortunately marred by the way it was shot," says Carl Wilson. "The camera was pulled back to show the performers, which often made it difficult to see the roster of deceased music luminaries rolling out on the big screens. The Oscars did the same last week; it wasn’t quite as bad here, but this directorial trend needs to stop."

Zoneboy · 04-04-2022, 11:40 PM

The NY Times link requires a log-in. I didn't bother with any of the others.

JO Sweet Heart · 04-05-2022, 04:39 PM

All that I want to know is where can I find a list of what got submitted for nomination consideration? I want to know because at least three collaborations from Alison Krauss could've been nominated, but they were not. Knowing if they got submitted or not may be the only way that can explain their absence. "Too Much Heaven" with Barry Gibb, "Amazing Grace" with Andrea Bocelli, and "Can't Let Go" with Robert Plant are the songs.

God bless you and Alison and everyone in her musical circle always!!!

Holly (a fan of Alison since 1994)

P.S. That duet with Barry Gibb most definitely should've been nominated. It is flawless.

TMC · 04-06-2022, 03:56 AM

Jon Batiste being on TV nightly as The Late Show bandleader may have given him the edge to win this year's top Grammy award

Batiste surprisingly won Album of the Year on Sunday night with his album We Are -- surprising because it wasn't tipped to win after peaking at No. 86 on the Billboard 200. So why did he win? According to Spencer Kornhaber, "the jazz pianist was a traditionalist choice to win Album of the Year—but a traditionalist choice for an evolving institution." Batiste being on TV also helped, says Kornhaber. "To understand why so many Academy members judged the 35-year-old Batiste’s album to be year-defining, consider his career," says Kornhaber "As the bandleader on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, he has been on television, night after night, since 2015—which means he is one of the most visible working musicians in America. Other widely consumed projects, such as his soundtrack for the Pixar film Soul, have built him the kind of renown that is less explosive than that of a pop phenom, but is still significant and pervasive. The songs of We Are—vivid, exploratory pop soul—are musically impressive, broadly accessible, and rich with social consciousness. His colorful, go-for-broke Grammys performance of his single 'Freedom' demonstrated the showmanship of someone who welcomes a cross-generational, cross-genre audience—someone easy to like, and impossible to root against."

04-04-2022, 10:51 PM	#1
TMC Member Forum Idol Join Date: Jan 09, 2001 Posts: 125,263	2022 Grammys overcorrected for blandness in trying to be the anti-Oscars https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/a...est-worst.html "Last week’s Oscars left a bad taste in everyone’s mouths, and even before The Slap Heard Round the World, there was already some chatter that the show’s jokes at the expense of nominees had been a little too acidic," says Lindsay Zoladz. "In light of all the controversy, it wasn’t surprising the Grammys wanted to present themselves as a kind of anti-Oscars, and the host Trevor Noah wasted no time, proclaiming in his opening monologue, 'We’re going to be dancing, we’re going to be singing, we’re going to be keeping people’s names out of our mouths' — about as polite a reference to Will Smith’s Oscars outburst as a person could muster. But as the show went on, Noah’s bland, gee-whiz tone felt more and more like an unfortunate overcorrection, blunting the edges of his jokes such that they hardly had an impact at all. In introducing Jared Leto, Noah even breezed right by the lowest hanging fruit in the 2022 joke book: Making fun of the accents in House of Gucci! No one was asking him to take meanspirited swipes, but a well-placed zinger here or there would have given the show some needed spice." ALSO: The 3-1/2 hour ceremony was a tedious, pedestrian affair: "Like most mainstream honors, the Grammys seemed in search of meaning," says Lovia Gyarkye.. "With the exception of a few performances, the live telecast felt like another attempt at the onerous task of re-establishing relevancy, an exercise that pulls the awards further from its purpose of highlighting recording artistry and toward a more amorphous goal of — what? Courting younger generations? Capturing the zeitgeist? Proving the Recording Academy is listening and learning? It’s unclear. But the show’s choices revealed that its commitment to any issue beyond its continued existence is, at best, superficial. Trevor Noah, the evening’s host, acknowledged this bleak reality best in his opening monologue: 'This is a concert where we give out awards.'" Referring to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky pre-recorded message, Gyarkye also called out the Recording Academy's "cheap and vampiric approach to putting on a show." Grammys ceremony was too front-loaded: "It’d be tough to maintain three-and-a-half hours’ worth of livewire energy for any live show, but particularly one where the bill is stacked with the would-be headliners going on first," says Andrew Unterberger, adding: Ultimately, it was probably unrealistic to expect the sort of unplugged nature of the 2021 broadcast to mark a way forward for the Grammys, rather than a single-year aberration — nor was it practical to expect another repeat of last year’s compelling array of timely big winners. For the Recording Academy, which already had to delay the awards for two months due to omicron-variant scares, business as usual is likely good enough for these Grammys, which still packed their fair share of stunning performances and rewarding wins. But with ratings that have long been declining as the show’s runtime keeps expanding, it feels pretty risky to ask fans to embrace a three-and-a-half-hour awards show that gets its biggest stars out of the way early, and ends with Jon Batiste accepting the marquee award and acclaimed country duo Brothers Osborne playing over the end credits. The Grammys may officially be Big again, but that doesn’t mean they’re too big to fail." Mercifully, there was barely any content on The Slap: "Enough said. Seriously," says Rolling Stone. "We never need to read another word of commentary about the true meaning of the Slap, let alone hear a hacky joke about it at another awards show. We counted just two brief, innocuous references to the incident during the televised Grammys broadcast — way less than we could have reasonably expected. Thank you, Trevor Noah and everyone in the MGM Grand, for sparing us." Hip-hop was underrepresented: "The two Nas’—Lil and Escobar—were the only rap acts to perform throughout the entire three-and-a-half-hour show, which felt…strange…given hip-hop’s dominance in music culture," says Grant Rindner, pointing out that Kanye West had been slated to perform before his performance was canceled. The Grammys pre-show was actually interesting: "The premiere — what the Grammys call their preshow — is usually a perfunctory run-through of the dozens of awards that don’t get shown on TV, with a few random performances interspersed," says Justin Curto and Alex Suskind. "It can get pretty sleepy, especially by the third hour. But for once, this year’s felt dynamic. The host, LeVar Burton, brought genuine enthusiasm for the performers and some good jokes (including an early one about how Kunta Kinte cleans up). There were some fun and moving speeches, from TJ Osborne reflecting on winning a Grammy after coming out as gay to Kalani Pe’a charming the audience while representing Hawaiian music. And the performances would have fit right in on the main show, especially Jimmie Allen’s emotional tribute to his late father in 'Down Home' and Allison Russell’s stunning 'Nightflyer.'" BTS ended up winning even though they didn't win a Grammy: "2022 marked the second straight year that the Grammys has given the biggest K-pop band a nomination and invited them to perform—and presumably bring along their massive fan base—and it also marked the second straight year that BTS went home empty-handed. While the organizers of the ceremony aren’t—or at least shouldn’t be—responsible for what the voting body decides, at a certain point, it becomes insulting. I can’t frame it any better than Elle magazine did in a headline earlier Sunday: 'BTS Deserves a Grammy, but Do the Grammys Deserve BTS?' While the answer to that is open to debate, what’s not is BTS’s performance on Sunday, which was an early-show highlight, if not the evening’s best performance, full stop. While some acts took the Las Vegas setting in the wrong direction—take Nas’s soft launch for a residency somewhere on the strip, for example—the Bangtan Boys went full Ocean’s 11 in their stage time, reenacting a museum heist and pirouetting among laser beams as they performed their megahit 'Butter.' (And that’s before acknowledging V’s flirtations with Olivia Rodrigo at the beginning.)" Jon Batiste wins album of the year, the night's top prize, along with four other Grammys Olivia Rodrigo wins three Grammys, including Best New Artist Questlove joked about the Oscar slap at the Grammys The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical wins a Grammy for Best Musical Theatre Album Premiere show host LeVar Burton warned the audience to "keep your hands to yourselves" Ranking Grammys performances from worst to best: Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber were the worst, BTS, H.E.R. and Lil Nas X were among the best Grammys near last year's lowest-ever viewership About 8.93 million tuned in for Sunday's ceremony from Las Vegas, according to early numbers, up 130,000 from the 2021 Grammys' all-time low of 8.8 million. The final figure last year was 9.2 million viewers. Las Vegas gets an overwhelming thumbs down as Grammys location The MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas was the best option for this year's ceremony due to the Omicron variant delaying the original location and date, Los Angeles' Crypto.com Arena on Jan. 31. "While many attendees acknowledged the difficult circumstances in which Grammy organizers found themselves, they were unsparing in detailing the drawbacks of Vegas, which, while an entertainment town through and through, seemed to lack the sparkle and glamor one would expect to find on music’s biggest night," reports Variety's Shirley Halperin and Jem Aswad, adding: "Making matters worse, the Grammys joined a busy early-spring weekend filled with traditionally boisterous Vegas revelers — including belated spring breakers — and the arena is located inside a sprawling complex that combines a hotel, an enormous casino, a shopping mall and more, making for a surreal scene outside the arena before the show, as people in casual or swimming apparel combined with the glittering Grammy attendees; the scene outside the venue before the show was crowded and not a little chaotic." What's up with In Memoriam trend of focusing on live performers at the expense of the people who died? Last week, the Oscars were criticized for spending a lot of time focusing on a gospel choir while the In Memoriam tribute played in the background. This week, the Grammy Awards, despite special tributes to Taylor Hawkins and Stephen Sondheim, did something similar. "The annual In Memoriam montage, which began with a Hawkins tribute and then was aptly soundtracked by a Stephen Sondheim medley sung by a quartet of showtune ringers, was unfortunately marred by the way it was shot," says Carl Wilson. "The camera was pulled back to show the performers, which often made it difficult to see the roster of deceased music luminaries rolling out on the big screens. The Oscars did the same last week; it wasn’t quite as bad here, but this directorial trend needs to stop."
	Last edited by TMC; 04-05-2022 at 02:01 AM.

04-05-2022, 04:39 PM	#3
JO Sweet Heart Member Forum Veteran Join Date: Mar 11, 2012 Location: East Tennessee Posts: 7,845	All that I want to know is where can I find a list of what got submitted for nomination consideration? I want to know because at least three collaborations from Alison Krauss could've been nominated, but they were not. Knowing if they got submitted or not may be the only way that can explain their absence. "Too Much Heaven" with Barry Gibb, "Amazing Grace" with Andrea Bocelli, and "Can't Let Go" with Robert Plant are the songs. God bless you and Alison and everyone in her musical circle always!!! Holly (a fan of Alison since 1994) P.S. That duet with Barry Gibb most definitely should've been nominated. It is flawless.
	__________________ Go here to check out my most favorite singer, James Otto, when you can!

04-04-2022, 11:40 PM	#2
Zoneboy RIP, I'LL NEVER FORGET YOU :( Moderator Forum Superstar Join Date: Jul 13, 2003 Location: AT HOME WISHING ALL THIS WAS JUST A DREAM AND THAT I'LL WAKE UP FROM THIS NIGHTMARE. Posts: 34,348	The NY Times link requires a log-in. I didn't bother with any of the others.

04-06-2022, 03:56 AM	#4
TMC Member Forum Idol Join Date: Jan 09, 2001 Posts: 125,263	Jon Batiste being on TV nightly as The Late Show bandleader may have given him the edge to win this year's top Grammy award Batiste surprisingly won Album of the Year on Sunday night with his album We Are -- surprising because it wasn't tipped to win after peaking at No. 86 on the Billboard 200. So why did he win? According to Spencer Kornhaber, "the jazz pianist was a traditionalist choice to win Album of the Year—but a traditionalist choice for an evolving institution." Batiste being on TV also helped, says Kornhaber. "To understand why so many Academy members judged the 35-year-old Batiste’s album to be year-defining, consider his career," says Kornhaber "As the bandleader on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, he has been on television, night after night, since 2015—which means he is one of the most visible working musicians in America. Other widely consumed projects, such as his soundtrack for the Pixar film Soul, have built him the kind of renown that is less explosive than that of a pop phenom, but is still significant and pervasive. The songs of We Are—vivid, exploratory pop soul—are musically impressive, broadly accessible, and rich with social consciousness. His colorful, go-for-broke Grammys performance of his single 'Freedom' demonstrated the showmanship of someone who welcomes a cross-generational, cross-genre audience—someone easy to like, and impossible to root against."