The Grammys - or Art as the Sting in the Flesh

It's rare that a staging like the The Grammies catches my attention. And when it cought my attention during the last years I was set back by the winners, because only the wrong ones won. Or - like at the MTV.com awards (was it in 2002 or 2003?) when Tim Commerford of back then Rage Against The Machine protested against the war and was torn off stage. Contrary to that - this time criticism seemed to be not only tolerated but encouraged. Sting & Sheryl Crow as laudators starting, but it could only be better and more explicit with everyone following: Green Day win "Record of the Year for a record which is criticising the "American Idiot" in every second song, Bruce Springsteen was clearly ending his intense performance with "Bring the boys back home" getting Standing Ovations by Bono. He had to clap his hand some more times, f.e. when "The Weavers" got their Trustees Award out of the hands of Tom Hanks who didn't refrain himself from noting that they had to suffer from McCarthy aera. Mary J. Blige bursts into a version of "One" which is dedicated for peace in the Middle East - what a move, and what a performance, in which Bono scarcely can keep his laughter over Mary J. Blige's expression. Hello! That was kind of a Gospel service!

The artists are in the political ring again, liberal America has it's spine again and is standing up straight - and this has nothing to do with hypocrisy or hopping on a train which is already going - everyone of them has pushed this train, starting from the "Rock The Vote" campaign to the festival for New Orleans where Kanye West burned his tongue several times and - what exactly did he say? Don't remember. But he was honoured with three Grammys as well, well done.

Speaking about the musical side of the show, I was even more pleased: I like The Gorillaz and it was awesome how their digital images in 3D and Madonna fit together; Linkin Park and Jay-Z were great with Sir Paul McCartney - and proved a German comedian wrong who recently coined: "Yoko Ono kept John Lennon from becoming a sappy old fart like Paul McCartney is now". Green Day, Slipknot, The Black Eyed Peas, U2, Gorillaz, System Of A Down (Bring Your Own Bomb, please!!!), Chemical Brothers - all of them really deserve their Award very much, all of them are the legitimate laureates - for me there was no downer in the whole evening except of the German television who was editing moments like Slipknot out of it - here the ceremony was aired the same night (meaning almost the following morning) and tonight to a decent time, so that they had lots of occasions to edit and shorten. Nah, it was good though. Another good view is by the Newspaper, Asia.