Grammys = crushingly boring

If there's one thing the Grammys does well, it's making rock and roll seem like the planet's most pointless and boring pursuit.

The 2009 ceremony opened in Los Angeles last night with U2 - who played a terribly important rendition of their terribly important new single Get On Your Boots. They projected the lyrics onto a big screen, even though the lyrics are a load of turgid old bollocks. "The future needs a big kiss"?? Whatever you say, Bono.

Things barely improved when Justin Timberlake joined Al Green for a lacklustre Vegas lounge version of Let's Stay Together. We were also teased with twenty seconds of MIA's excellent Paper Planes before TI, Jay-Z and Lil Wayne came out and shouted a load of nonsense all over the top of it. MUSIC FAIL!

Estelle's run-through of American Boy, meanwhile, was notable only for Kanye West's haircut tribute to Bobby Brown.



There was some light in the dark, though. Coldplay got Jay-Z on stage for an awkward/brilliant rendition of Lost+, and Radiohead's Thom Yorke started Vogueing (?!) during a marching band-assisted version of 15 Step.

The best performance of the night was probably the Motown medley, featuring Jamie Foxx, Ne-Yo and Smokey Robinson. You can't really go wrong with a bit of Motown, of course, but as Stereogum noted in it's liveblog, you couldn't see the tracks of Smokey Robinson's tears "because the plastic on his face is water-repellent".

Katy Perry also turned up to do her thing - her thing being the ability to wear amazing costumes (with actual watermelon breasts) while not singing very well. She had at least spent some money on the set, which is why I'm posting her video and none of the others. So there.



All the news outlets are going on about how Robert Plant was the big winner but, for me, the most interesting winner of the night was Jimmy Sturr & His Orchestra. The gourp picked up the best polka award for the 18th time -- meaning he's won it two out of every three years since the Grammy committee invented the prize.

Keen to find out more, I went to Wikipedia, which helpfully notes that Jimmy is the "Irish son of a local bank president" and "the band has also played at many famous casinos".

Here's what you're missing:

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