What to expect from ‘music’s biggest night’? Not much
The Grammys are celebrating 60 years, but if you want surprises, look elsewhere
The Grammy Awards are, perhaps, the last thing anyone wants as trigger for a little mid-life soul searching and selfexamination, but here we are.
The Grammys turn 60 this Sunday, marking the occasion by moving the CBS broadcast of “music’s biggest night” — it airs on City at 7:30 p.m. — from Los Angeles to Madison Square Garden in New York for the first time since 2003.
I will mark the occasion by staring, aghast, at a television somewhere in Toronto for three hours or so while marvelling at the fact that I’ve somehow wound up watching the whole, dire spectacle consistently, year in and year out, for a full third of its existence and questioning each of the life choices that have guided me to that point.
Twenty years of forced professional “engagement” with the Grammy Awards have not softened my attitude toward a ceremony that reliably tends to reify one’s most negative ideas about the commercialization of popular music.
The Grammys are the epitome of musical conservatism, endlessly safe and predictable, even when they’re trying desperately hard — usually with a smugly delusional sense of their own daring — not to be safe and predictable.
“Maybe it’ll be different this year,” I always tell myself. It never is. But, hey, maybe it’ll be different this year.
Experience does, at least, allow me to make some educated guesses as to what will transpire on Grammy night. Hence the following predictions. This year’s Grammys will be even more insufferably and self-consciously “serious” than usual. The lighthearted irreverence of the Juno Awards and the boozed-up unpredictability of the Brit Awards have no place at the Grammys, which prefer to take a buttoneddown, black-tie approach to their appreciation of popular music and, occasionally, try to find an underlying, “progressive” theme to the proceedings.
This year, we’ll get a tribute to the victims of the mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas by country stars Maren Morris, Eric Church and the Brothers Osborne and a performance by Logic, Brampton’s Alessia Cara and Khalid of their suicide-preventionhotline hit “1-800-273-8255,” featuring, a news release from the Recording Academy says, “suicide-attempt survivors and suicide-loss survivors.”
The whole show happens against the backdrop of the entertainment industry’s revolt against systemic sexual harassment and violence and, even if a “#MeToo moment” is not yet officially a part of the program, you can bet that survivors Lady Gaga and Ke$ha — both set to perform — will make it so.
It’ll be great to make all those sleazebag suits in the room squirm, yes, but it’ll be way better if the Grammys can resist their usual self-satisfaction at “taking a stand” and don’t go on and on and on about how they’ve always stood for equality and against sexism and the like when they’ve repeatedly given noted abuser Chris Brown a highprofile spot onstage in the years since he beat Rihanna so hard she could not attend the ceremony.
He’s notably absent this year, so that’s a start. If Kendrick Lamar and U2 open the show with Dave Chappelle, it’s gonna be really weird. Yeah, seven-time nominee Lamar and U2 both turned up on each other’s records last year, so that part of it makes sense, even if no one really needs to see Bono trying to “outrelevant” Lamar onstage.
But U2 definitely needs Kendrick more than Kendrick needs U2 at this point in their respective careers, and if comedian Dave Chappelle is indeed going to be part of this number — as gossip site E! News is reporting — surely he won’t be able to bite his tongue and not point that out.
Or at least publicly register the bemusement we all feel at this partnership. Leonard Cohen could posthumously win two awards and neither victory will make a lick of sense. Yes, most observers would agree that the late Montreal poet, singer and songwriter made a spectacular exit in late 2016 with his final album, You Want it Darker. But how that achievement led to a nomination against the likes of the Foo Fighters and the late Chris Cornell for the record’s thoroughly unrockin’ title track in the “Best Rock Performance” category and another nomination for Cohen, a Canadian, in the “Best American Roots Performance” field for “Steer Your Way” will remain a Grammy mystery for the ages.
He’d almost fit better in “Best Rap/Sung Performance.” Elton John and Miley Cyrus? Not the worst proposition. Elton’s just announced his impending retirement and needs to stoke the fires for a looming, three-year “farewell” tour. Cyrus is adept at drawing attention to herself. Could be the performance everyone’s talking about on Monday morning. Especially if Elton pulls a Robin Thicke and starts, y’know, grindin’ on Miley. Screw Drake. We got Alessia Cara and Daniel Caesar in da house. Myriad theories abound about why there’s no Drake on the list of 2018 Grammy nominees, but with Toronto’s favourite hip-hop son out of the picture, Justin Bieber relegated to bit background player (if a likely background winner) in multiple nominations for Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s monster hit “Despacito” and The Weeknd’s Starboy up for just a single trophy in the Best Urban Contemporary Album category, the door is wide open for the next generation of Toronto superstars-in-waiting to take over.
The endlessly likeable Cara is up for Best New Artist, Best Pop Duo/ Group Performance with Zedd for “Stay” and, of course, Song of the Year and Best Music Video with Logic for “1-800-273-8255,” the tune she’ll help perform on Sunday’s broadcast.
Indie R&B sensation Caesar, meanwhile, vies for Best R&B Album for the excellent Freudian and Best R&B Performance with duet partner Kali Uchis for “Get You.” Both have a genuine shot at taking home some Grammy hardware. We love Lorde, but if Melodrama takes Album of the Year, y’all know the Grammys are the whitest thing ever. For starters, Kendrick Lamar’s DAMNshould own this category outright. But with Jay-Z’s 4:44, Bruno Mars’s 24K Magic and Childish Gambino’s total outlier Awaken, My Love! rounding out the nominees in this field, it will do the Grammys’ ongoing efforts to shake off a well-earned reputation for playin’ it less than “diverse” in the big categories if the only person not of colour here wins. Even if, as we will state once again for the record, young New Zealander Lorde is totally awesome, too. And definitely way better than Bruno Mars.