Mashed.
Watching the Grammys has become an exercise in endurance - like watching an entire season of 24 in a weekend, only substitute "boring" for "tense". In the absence of any real moments of thrilling music the producers have settled for a series of "surprising" collaborations and mash-ups. This concept - marrying two or more seemingly disparate songs - is an interesting one, or at least it was when it was relevant three years ago. Now it just seems sort of tired. When it works, it can be great - Mary J. Blige and U2 were fun to watch together, only because Mary sings like she actually cares and is apparently in danger of having an apoplexy at any moment. But even this wasn't a true mash-up - Mary and the lads already recorded this song for her latest album, and it's essentially a duet, not a mash-up. Both performers are singing the same song. But the spirit is the same: we're seeing an R&B diva perform with the world's most successful bar band, and that's supposed to generate an "I can't believe they did that" sort of thrill.
This year,the show was missing anything genuinely exciting. Last year, at least, Joss Stone got to stand around barefoot while Melissa Etheridge returned to the public eye after a battle with the Cancer, bald and proud. It was a good moment, because of the sheer surprise of it, and the home experience was heightened by the reaction of the audience of industry-types thrilled that their girl was back and rocking. It's cliched, yes, but you really could feel it.
On the other hand, I don't think Joss Stone actually records music any more, I think she just gets plugged into awards shows to duet with yet another unlikely collaborator. And that's what happened at this year's Grammys - artist after artist were trudged out to perform together, and the result was one big collective "what-ever". It's why all the kids were watching American Idol instead. Not even the spectacle of watching Madonna, the alpha-cougar herself, perform with cartoon band Gorrilaz was enough to get them to switch channels. There's no surprise in any of this to match the thrill of discovering the world's next William Hung.
So that's the thing: no one is blown away by seeing two "contrary" artists together any more, because it's no longer revolutionary. Not because all the artists are doing it - although they are - but because all the listeners are doing it. There was a thrill to Run-DMC and Aerosmith's "Walk this Way" all those years ago because people who listed to rap in the early 80s didn't listen to hard rock, and rockers hated hip-hop, too. As a listener of one genre, you discovered something you liked in the other, and the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.
Now, though, everyone listens to everything (or "everything except for country," which is something I hear a lot in my work). We mash songs up all the time - every time we flip the radio from one genre to another (or let a mix station do that for us); or when we press "shuffle" on our iPods and let the technology do it for us. We all listen to all sorts of music and we all listen to it in whatever order we, or a randomizer, dictates. At the MTV Video Music Awards in 1997, there was still some thrill watching Sting pop out of the floor - quite literally- to duet with the then-still-named Puff Daddy on the latter's tribute "I'll be Missing You," which sampled the former's "Every Breath You Take." It was shocking - ohmigawd, is Sting actually there? - because no one who listened to Sting's music listened to Puffy's, and vice versa. If anything, there was something almost illicit about Puff's extended sample, because it was bound to piss off the Police purists. Not so anymore: hear a good hook or chorus in a rock song, and you can all but expect it will be the foundation of a rap track in the future. Hip-hop superstar Nelly duets with country superstar Tim McGraw, and neither lose credibility as their collaboration tops the charts. Run DMC actually had to crash through a wall to make it into Aerosmith's video - now, artists hold the door open for each other.
There was one neat mash-up moment, though. Jay-Z and Linkin Park were performing one of their previously pasted-together tracks - something from their Collision Course album, which I believe was designed to make the boys in Linkin Park seem even less street than they actually are. In the middle of it all, Linkin - or Park, one of them - launched into a few bars of "Yesterday," and who should waltz out but the world's least hip grandfather, Paul McCartney. The whole thing would have been somewhat pointless, had it not been for Jay-Z. Jigga was outfitted in a white suit with a John Lennon t-shirt on underneath, and when McCartney looked Jay-Z's way, you could see his eyes glance down at the shirt and stop for a moment. Lennon, dead for 25 years, still managed to be a cooler stage presence than McCartney: Jay-Z's endorsement of the one Beatle over the other made that a reality. I swear, in that moment, at least Sir Paul was surprised, and for a second, the Grammys were exciting.
This year,the show was missing anything genuinely exciting. Last year, at least, Joss Stone got to stand around barefoot while Melissa Etheridge returned to the public eye after a battle with the Cancer, bald and proud. It was a good moment, because of the sheer surprise of it, and the home experience was heightened by the reaction of the audience of industry-types thrilled that their girl was back and rocking. It's cliched, yes, but you really could feel it.
On the other hand, I don't think Joss Stone actually records music any more, I think she just gets plugged into awards shows to duet with yet another unlikely collaborator. And that's what happened at this year's Grammys - artist after artist were trudged out to perform together, and the result was one big collective "what-ever". It's why all the kids were watching American Idol instead. Not even the spectacle of watching Madonna, the alpha-cougar herself, perform with cartoon band Gorrilaz was enough to get them to switch channels. There's no surprise in any of this to match the thrill of discovering the world's next William Hung.
So that's the thing: no one is blown away by seeing two "contrary" artists together any more, because it's no longer revolutionary. Not because all the artists are doing it - although they are - but because all the listeners are doing it. There was a thrill to Run-DMC and Aerosmith's "Walk this Way" all those years ago because people who listed to rap in the early 80s didn't listen to hard rock, and rockers hated hip-hop, too. As a listener of one genre, you discovered something you liked in the other, and the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.
Now, though, everyone listens to everything (or "everything except for country," which is something I hear a lot in my work). We mash songs up all the time - every time we flip the radio from one genre to another (or let a mix station do that for us); or when we press "shuffle" on our iPods and let the technology do it for us. We all listen to all sorts of music and we all listen to it in whatever order we, or a randomizer, dictates. At the MTV Video Music Awards in 1997, there was still some thrill watching Sting pop out of the floor - quite literally- to duet with the then-still-named Puff Daddy on the latter's tribute "I'll be Missing You," which sampled the former's "Every Breath You Take." It was shocking - ohmigawd, is Sting actually there? - because no one who listened to Sting's music listened to Puffy's, and vice versa. If anything, there was something almost illicit about Puff's extended sample, because it was bound to piss off the Police purists. Not so anymore: hear a good hook or chorus in a rock song, and you can all but expect it will be the foundation of a rap track in the future. Hip-hop superstar Nelly duets with country superstar Tim McGraw, and neither lose credibility as their collaboration tops the charts. Run DMC actually had to crash through a wall to make it into Aerosmith's video - now, artists hold the door open for each other.
There was one neat mash-up moment, though. Jay-Z and Linkin Park were performing one of their previously pasted-together tracks - something from their Collision Course album, which I believe was designed to make the boys in Linkin Park seem even less street than they actually are. In the middle of it all, Linkin - or Park, one of them - launched into a few bars of "Yesterday," and who should waltz out but the world's least hip grandfather, Paul McCartney. The whole thing would have been somewhat pointless, had it not been for Jay-Z. Jigga was outfitted in a white suit with a John Lennon t-shirt on underneath, and when McCartney looked Jay-Z's way, you could see his eyes glance down at the shirt and stop for a moment. Lennon, dead for 25 years, still managed to be a cooler stage presence than McCartney: Jay-Z's endorsement of the one Beatle over the other made that a reality. I swear, in that moment, at least Sir Paul was surprised, and for a second, the Grammys were exciting.
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