And The Winner Is...

I watched the entire Grammy awards show last night, something I haven't done in well over a decade. I wasn't planning to, but then I heard about some of the artists scheduled to perform. I also knew that Arcade Fire was nominated for Album of the Year, and although I figured they had no chance of winning, it kind of gave me an excuse to check out the show.

I'm still taken aback that Arcade Fire won, but more because of the competition in the category than for any question about whether or not they deserved to win. The Suburbs is a rich, bittersweet, evocative, nostalgic look back at the joys and heartaches of growing up in this country, and I can only assume that it struck a chord among the academy's voters, not to mention that it's truly an album, one that bears listening to in its entirety—I would not go so far as to call it a concept album, because it isn't, but the same themes and ideas definitely recur from song to song. And even though they were the last act to perform on the show, they pretty much set the Staples Center on fire with raging versions of "Month of May" and "Ready to Start."

The show itself has changed somewhat over the years; not that many awards are given out during the broadcast itself, to allow the focus to shift to live performances, which I think is a good idea, and is probably more of what fans want to see anyway. A few highlights:

Lady Gaga's arrival at the show inside her egg-womb thingy, and her emergence from it to perform her new song "Born This Way," was typical Gaga and a brilliant piece of theatrical self-promotion. The song itself was a little too much of a clone of "Express Yourself," and this surprised me. Lady Gaga goes to a great deal of effort to present and promote herself as a true original, so even if she is this generation's Madonna, I would not expect her to mimic Madonna so closely. Bonus points for presentation, though.

Likewise I won't soon forget the sight of Cee-Lo Green done up as a giant rainbow chicken. (Just imagine the bad trips that caused among those watching the show while high.) The puppet band was cute too. Gwyneth Paltrow, not so much, and I'm not referring to her appearance but to the mere fact of her presence—it was just pandering to the Glee crowd. I felt like she was a distraction and took the emphasis away from Cee-Lo, where it belonged.

I'm totally digging Janelle Monae. I saw a clip of her performing on Late Show a while back, and I was really impressed. She isn't just talented, she has presence. She's fantastic, and I really need to get her music.

I had to mute the Justin Bieber performance. I really can't bear the sight or sound of him. By coincidence, some sort of domestic argument was happening next door (not the first time this has happened) just as he was starting to perform, so the muted TV allowed us to hear some muffled yelling and the arrival of several police cars and an ambulance outside our house.