T-Pain dressed as a Yeti! Pink re-purposed as a fountain! An astounding amount of tortuously slow ballads from pop stars! And a special clip from The Hills Have Eyes Wide Shut, all at the 2010 Grammy Awards.
Low: Beyonce Is Such a Tease
Look, Bey, if you’re going to come out with a personal SWAT team army, I’m going to need you to bust out something like “Diva.” “If I Were A Boy”, while pretty in a let’s-reinforce-gender-stereotypes way, is just not going to cut it. You did try and save it a bit with the verse or two of “You Oughtta Know” stuck in there, but I was too nervous about your breasts flying our of your metal bustier as you dry-humped the stage to notice the singing.
Mini-High: Beyonce Is Like, “Suck On This!”
Okay, the overall performance was a low, but I loved the grabbing of the non-existent junk.
High: Jamie Foxx Is Like, “Fuck It, Just Throw It On the Pile”
What the what!? Look, I do not like Jamie Foxx, but at least I was awake for this craziness. Opera singers? Cartoonish costumes? Slash? A dancer who may or may not be Mo’nique I still can’t tell?! That’ll do, Jamie Foxx. That’ll do.
Low: I’ve Already Been to Cirque Du Soleil, Pink
Why. Are. You. Choosing. Such. Slow. Songs. I should be able to get excited about outfits that make you look like an extra in Dune, or your admittedly impressive Spanish web skills, or your ability to shoot water from your back all over the designer-gown clad audience at the Grammys, but I can’t because I’m in a coma. Also, thank you for the extensive view of those acrobats nether regions, Grammy Awards!
Something: Erotic Nightmares, Courtesy of the Black Eyed Peas
Will.i.am in a weird mask + horrifying no-necked dancers + Fergie = mutant sex party. Once again, this one gets points simply for being fast. Also, can anyone name the other two members of the Black Eyed Peas without using Google? I know one of them is “Apple” something. Apple…jacks?
High: Drake, Lil Wayne, and Eminem
Seriously, this one was just a great performance. Of course, it might have been nice if the Grammys hadn’t censored so god damn much of it. Look, I know we have certain things we can’t say on TV, but come on: who would allow some impressionable nine-year-old to stay up until 11:30 on a Sunday night to see a performance by Eminem? Like, what are you expecting, a rousing cover of “Get Me to the Church On Time”?
You can watch an uncensored version here (which must have aired in Europe somewhere).
Things That Were Neither Here Nor There: The Rest of It.
Lady Gaga and Elton John should have been more awesome, but maybe I just need to watch it again. It was kind of sad to see Stevie Nicks relegated to hitting a tambourine and singing back up on Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me.” The Michael Jackson tribute was unfortunately bland (though see his kids speak was simply sad). And I refuse to acknowledge the existence of that band with that song about fried chicken. Not gonna do it. You can’t make me.
But let me know what you thought – I might just have a bias against slow songs.