Monday Bears: A Small Grammy Reflection

Last night the 52 annual Grammy Awards saw some of the biggest names in the music industry come together to reflect and perform some of the best music of the past year. Beyonce and Taylor Swift were the night's biggest winners, with Ms. Knowles taking home six awards, a record for any female recording artist. Swift, winner of four awards, took the night's highest honor, winning coveted album of the year for her sophomore release Fearless.

It's hard. It's hard being an honest and fair music critic, although I don't have an official title to say so, and take The Grammy Awards with not only a grain of salt, but just a flat out acceptance of it. As far as award shows go (and we're talking serious awards -- no Kid's (z) Choice Awards, or MTV Movie Awards or anything like that), The Grammy's must be so low on the latter of credibility that it's a comparable joke next to the Oscars and Emmy's.

Trent Reznor explained it better last night with more profound clarity:

"The Grammy's = the old guard/old media propping up their puppets trying to convince the outside world (and each other) that they're still relevant."

Much like Rolling Stone, the Grammy's always seem to try to connect with the younger demographic but inevitably falters and hands out their honors to the "old guard." Herbie Hancock winning album of the year in 2008, covering Joni Mitchell's Blue? Allison Krauss and Robert Plant beating out Radiohead for album of year in 2009? Certainly.

It's an unfortunate psycho-analytical response towards giving who what people feel they deserve. More often than not, the awards go towards those whose careers stand taller than others, regardless of whether or not their work that year was superior. And I say that year in italics because the limit of what can actually be nominated is beyond me.

So, congratulations to Swift and Knowles for their achievements, however they come to claim them. 2011 will likely spin the same results we've seen in the past several years (a'hem, decades). Here's to predictability and static constancy.

Monday Bears: Kanye

Last night the Twitter and Facebook landscape went absolutely insane with incessant post after post of last night's MTV Video Music Awards debacle involving Taylor Swift and Kanye West.

According to MTV News;

"The rapper stormed the stage just after the first award, for Best Female Video, was presented to Taylor Swift. He cut the teen singer off, grabbing the mic and protesting in support of Beyoncé."I'm sorry, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time," he proclaimed as B looked on from the crowd, stunned.His protest against Swift, however, was not well received. West stood briefly on the stage after his comments as the crowd was silent. Audience members then began to clap in support of Swift after West left the stage.According to reports from inside the house, once cameras cut away from the action, West flipped off the crowd and returned to his seat. Wale then said to the crowd, "You can't blame a man for speaking his mind." His words were met with boos, and Wale then said, "Kanye, I tried." During the next commercial break, Pink walked by the rapper and appeared to shake her head in disgust before security escorted her away."

Since the event, West has apologized to Swift on his blog per usual in all caps;

"I'M SOOOOO SORRY TO TAYLOR SWIFT AND HER FANS AND HER MOM. I SPOKE TO HER MOTHER RIGHT AFTER AND SHE SAID THE SAME THING MY MOTHER WOULD'VE SAID. SHE IS VERY TALENTED! I LIKE THE LYRICS ABOUT BEING A CHEERLEADER AND SHE'S IN THE BLEACHERS! ........................ I'M IN THE WRONG FOR GOING ON STAGE AND TAKING AWAY FROM HER MOMENT!................. BEYONCE'S VIDEO WAS THE BEST OF THIS DECADE!!!! I'M SORRY TO MY FANS IF I LET YOU GUYS DOWN!!!! I'M SORRY TO MY FRIENDS AT MTV. I WILL APOLOGIZE TO TAYLOR 2MRW. WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD!!!! EVERYBODY WANNA BOOOOO ME BUT I'M A FAN OF REAL POP CULTURE!!! NO DISRESPECT BUT WE WATCHIN' THE SHOW AT THE CRIB RIGHT NOW CAUSE ... WELL YOU KNOW!!!! I'M STILL HAPPY FOR TAYLOR!!!! BOOOYAAAWWWW!!!! YOU ARE VERY VERY TALENTED!!! I GAVE MY AWARDS TO OUTKAST WHEN THEY DESERVED IT OVER ME... THAT'S WHAT IT IS!!!!!!! I'M NOT CRAZY YALL, I'M JUST REAL. SORRY FOR THAT!!! I REALLY FEEL BAD FOR TAYLOR AND I'M SINCERELY SORRY!!! MUCH RESPECT!!!!!"

Still, the apology (because they've become essentially meaningless in modern culture, especially modern celebrity culture) made a little dent to those that were offended in the first place.

Talent show winner and recent obesity consultant Kelly Clarkson ripped into Kanye on her blog, asking him "What happened to you as a child?" and "It's absolutely fascinating how much I don't like you."

Pink, who someone decided is still relevant in this world, twittered "Kanye west is the biggest piece of shit on earth. Quote me."

And, predictably, fans were generally outraged, mostly referring to him as an "asshole" or "douche," for what he did to "poor Taylor Swift."

So what's the relevance here? I actually did not witness the event live because I'm not 13 anymore and I didn't watch the VMA's. West has caused controversy before at numerous award shows, and is well-known as a popular artist that will always try to speak his mind. Sure, this case seems to trump all of Kanye's prior outbursts (except for this), but somehow public outrage reached an ultimate last night.

Here's the thing; I don't care what he did. He pulled a dick-move, so what? I've heard people say that they took all of Kanye's songs off their Itunes, and others told him he's going to Hell. Really people, really? Hell? I'm not saying he doesn't deserve criticism for what he did, but calm down. People are acting like he killed Swift.



And for clarification's sake, West's music absolutely trumps almost every attendant at last night's VMA's, so I give him a little breathing room for things like this.