Record “Please Read the Letter” & Album "Raising Sand" both by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss

i'm glad J. Hud won and gave a great performance. Kid Rock actually was pretty good as well which surprised me.

The only good thing about the Grammys was Dave Grohl looking like a little kid while playing drums for Sir Paul. You couldn't wipe that grin off his face.

Oh, and Katy Perry bringing back the pin-up look. Hotness.

What was the point of Boys 2 Men being on stage? I don't even think they sang back-up.

I surprisingly liked Kid Rock's performance.
Radiohead's use of the Trojan's band was awesome.
I liked MIA with the boys. Swagger like Us indeed.

As I accelerated through the show on my TIVO, I pretty much only stopped at the Taylor Swift/Miley Cirus performance, only because Taylor Swift was playing a nice Taylor 12-string guitar made out of Koa wood. But after closer inspection and comparisons, my Taylor Koa guitar [pics_below] is much nicer, so fuck that ****.

Loved the Swagger Like Us performance.

yes, but grinding while pregnant (also considering she was due yesterday) looked and seemed very weird, though she sounded good.

any place to watch the performances? lack of space and the fact that id prob fast forward 95% of it anyways. ONly really had interest in Radiohead and MIA's performances.

I never really pay any attention to the Grammys, so last night I had my brother tell me who was all up for Album of the Year. Below were my responses:

Radiohead "Solid album from one of my favorite bands, good choice..."
Coldplay "Haven't heard all of it, but I have heard good things"
Robert Plant and Allison Krauss "You can't go wrong with Robert Plant"
Lil Wayne "Shut the hell up...you can't be serious..."
Ne-Yo "Who??? Is this for the Best Album? Are you sure?"

Raising Sand was the perfect choice for the academy. It allows them to continue to indulge their middlebrow, lite-country tastes and continue to bury Allison Krauss with every award possible, while at the same time make mental ammends for completely ignoring Led Zeppelin (and every other hard rock band) during the seventies when their selections were far, far worse.

Seriously? That was the most god awful shit I've ever heard. Wow. These people get money for sounding like complete shit?

If that is lite-country and middlebrow, then give me more wimply music for the masses. It's a fantastic recording. FF through the show and found it better than usual.

As neat as the idea of some of the performances was, the Grammys are still the least relevant (read: most political) of all the major awards and award shows.

Kanye's hair is awesome now.

I enjoyed the Dave Grohl drumming as well... specially that part near the end where he goes all ANIMAL on the drums. You'll never see Ringo do THAT.


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Whitney Houston is sadly, still out of it.

My only problem with it (and this is a general issue with the Grammys), is not that it wasn't deserving of a win (or multiple ones), but just that it shouldn't have been for the year 2008. This album was released in 2007, and thus should have been up for awards last year, not this year.

technically it was released in the window needed. Anything released between october 1, 2007 and september 31, 2008 is elegible.
Raising sands according to wiki was released oct 27, 2007.

That little rule is also how slayer was able to win the metal catagory 2 years in a row, since when they rereleased christ illusion, they added a bonus track, and that track was nominated and won for best metal performance.

I'm guessing that had it not been for certain recent events, Al Green or Raphael Saadiq would have won the best R+B album. It's nice they honored Hudson, but her album wasn't that good.

Yeah, it was released in this year's eligibility period and thus was eligible for the award this year. One lead single from the album, "Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On)" was eligible for the 2008 Grammys and actually won the award for Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals (the same award that "Rich Woman" won yesterday).

I think some misunderstood my position on this album. I think it's great and have no problem with its winning (I would have been fine with Radiohead or Coldplay as well). This is actually one of the best Album of the Year selections I can remember. My point is that all too often when faced with brilliant important music that strays at all from the mainstream, the Academy will choose safer alternatives that are far inferior (the two most egregious examples being Celene Dion's Falling Into You over Odelay and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness in 1997 and Lionel Richie's Can't Slow Down over Born in the USA and Purple Rain in 1985). This year, the Grammys had no such mediocre safety net, so when they had to pick one of those five albums, even with three very worthy choices, it didn't surprise me at all that they went with the one produced by previous winner T-Bone Burnett (who scored a stunning Album of the Year upset in 2002 for O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack over a heavily favored All That You Can't Leave Behind) and one featuring Allison Krauss -- now winner of a record 26 Grammys. I'm not saying by any means it was the wrong choice, just that in the minds of Grammy voters, it was the safe one.

Decker, thanks for explaining yourself more. I agree with you. I almost didn't even record the Grammy's the other night because of how clueless the nominations usually are. And there were still plenty of them. But they certainly did a few things better this year.

Yeah, I get that it was within the "Grammys" time frame - it's just that I disagree with that time frame. But turns out that wasn't my only issue after all.

My other point of contention, that a friend reminded me of today, is that this is the second year in a row that the "Best Album" was also an album of cover songs. True, Plant did co-write one of the songs - but shouldn't this award more rightly go to an artist performing an album of all (or 95% at least) original material?

But yet again, another reason I gave up on the Grammys meaning anything of any real importance a long, long time ago. It shouldn't be about the 'safe' choice, it should be about the more deserving one. Otherwise, what's the point?

Good point. Four of the last ten albums to win AOTY were compilations of previously written material : "Raising Sand", "River" "Genius Loves Company" and "O Brother". Another, "Come Away With Me" had two or three standards on it. The voters sure like the familiar.

I think they were deserving of recognition, but let's be honest about this : If Plant ever wanted to win a Grammy, he stood the best chance by recording a vocal collaboration with Allison Krauss of standards that fell into several different genres like pop, country and folk. That's what we here in Vegas refer to as hedging one's bets.

I don't begrudge Allison Krauss; she's a tremendous talent. Still if you asked a person on the street "Who is the most Grammy-honored performer in the award's 51 year history?" Names like Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon and Frank Sinatra would come to mind. I just think it's weird they're all eclipsed by Allison Krauss (who held the record even before this year's landslide). Mostly, she's been the perpetual winner by virtue of being the only bluegrass artist most of the voters have ever heard of every year. Maybe Steve Martin will give her a run for her money in 2010...

Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray are the guitarists. They have been in Paul's touring band in recent years along with the great Abe Laboriel, Jr on drums.

I'll never complain about getting a psyched-out Dave Grohl, but yeah, Abe is awesome (if a little scary-looking).