5 Reasons Why I Always Say I’ll Never Watch The Grammys Again
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a sucker for the “big three” awards shows — the Oscars, the Emmys, and the Grammys. Even as a kid, I loved the competitive aspect of the awards, and I’m still attracted to the notion of different industries gathering to honor the best in their respective fields.
I’ve had a love-hate relationship with the Grammy Awards over the years. As a music guy, I love seeing my favorite artists compete, and enjoy trying to predict the winners. At the same time, there’s plenty to hate about the Grammys, and it’s usually enough for me to declare every year that I’ll never watch them again.
But, fool that I am, I watched the show again this year. Of course I was watching because I wanted to see Adele claim some hardware, which she did.
I also got to see tons of truly bizarre moments, like a DJ wearing a light-up mouse helmet, Nicki Minaj certainly offending both Catholics and lovers of good music, and some hipster who calls himself Bon Iver stealing the Best New Artist trophy from The Band Perry, who genuinely deserved the award.
This year’s Grammy broadcast managed to demonstrate everything that’s wrong with the awards show every year. Here are five reasons why I always say I’ll never watch the Grammys again.
5. CBS Shamelessly Uses The Awards To Promote Their Shows
Grammy host LL Cool J
For most of the past four decades, the Grammys have made their broadcast home on CBS, the masters of self-promotion. It never fails that CBS will feature stars of some of its shows as presenters, regardless of their connection to the awards show itself. Watch the show each year, and I guarantee that at least one presenter’s presence will baffle millions of viewers.
Patricia Arquette? Her connection to the Grammys: her sister was allegedly the inspiration for 1982’s Record of the Year, “Rosanna” by Toto. Yet she presented on the Grammys only because her series Medium was on CBS at the time.
Jennifer Love Hewitt? CBS probably tapped her to present an award because of all her hit singles like…never mind, I can’t think of any. The Ghost Whisperer was another CBS show, and she was the star.
That guy from The Mentalist? Nope, I’ve got nothing, except — you guessed it — another star of another show on CBS.
This year, after a few years of a host-free format, CBS made an intriguing choice for host — LL Cool J. He’s a pioneer in the hip-hop field, did a fine job hosting the show, but I can’t help but think that the network chose him largely because he appears on NCIS: Los Angeles every week.
Other CBS stars like Pauley Perrette, Taraji P. Henson, and Neil Patrick Harris appeared on the Grammys as well, and though all three have musical backgrounds, chances are they wouldn’t have appeared on the show if it had aired on another network.
It’s a shame that a network would use what should be a prestigious awards show as a platform for plugging their programming, but CBS has been doing it for years. I fully expect it to continue this year.
Related: Check out Jonathan Sanders’ 5 Things I Learned While Live-Blogging the Grammys
Prestige and honor? I love how the Simpsons skewered that aspect when Homer won an album for best Barbershop album, and then couldn’t even give his award away. “Oh, it’s a GRAMMY …”
The only reason to watch the Grammys is the same reason for watching NASCAR. The crash and burn, baby, the crash and burn.
I think the Grammys are good at picking nominees and winners compared to the Oscars. If you look at past Grammy winners and nominees, they actually makes sense and the music still holds up today and are actually important works that have had a long time impact on the music scene. Somehow the Grammys are good at weeding out the hyped acts. On the other hand if I look at past Oscar winners, It’s mostly a big WTF, why did this win?
If you follow the link above to the “Best Spoken Word Album” and check out the past winners, you find a lot of Democrat politicians (Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Obama twice, Jimmy Carter, and general leftists like Al Franken, Jon Stewart, Michael J. Fox, Maya Angelou). I dare you to find someone from the center-to-right of the aisle. Another award that is a giveaway to friends of Hollywood.
Wait… William Shatner didnt take it every year? Blasphemy!!!
I stopped watching the Grammys, the Emmys, the whole bunch of them years ago. Just a bunch of left wingers getting up and patting each others back.
Exactly. A total bore-fest. Yawn.
Blogging and/or sleep is a far better use for my time.
I never understood why we bothered paying attention to the Oscars and Emmys. You would think that watching the movies and shows that would be award enough for actors. But, apparently we have to make sure that their fragile little egos are stroked even more by presenting them awards and a grandiose ceremony that treats them like royalty.
Then of course, we throw a parade for people who win at playing a child’s game, but don’t throw one for men and women coming home from battle.
I don’t watch these award shows at all. THe awardees are not people I care to even acknowledge let alone celebrate. Their accomplishments are really little better than nothing.
I think we should have an award show for decorated soldiers–now that would be significant.
I think it was interesting that someone that just stands up there and sings, and doesn’t rely on an elaborately staged production with dancers, pyrotecnics, costumes, etc, won the most awards. And did it without offending anyone, to boot!
Quit watching Grammys years ago as the majority of contemporary “artists” stink. No memorable tunes, no clever lyrics, performers who look the same and perform the same tasteless moves. Bleech!
The grammar of music is not present in these productions;it’s all theater.Not much real music;rather lack luster performances;not very good writing…not much to talk about…..unless your a sexy thing.
Set the Wayback Machine to 1989. Jethro Tull wins Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance.
That was all I needed to pretty much discount them for all future awards. Sort of like the Nobel Peace Prize after Arafat got it in 94.
However, there may still be some redeeming qualities. Apparently I’m more of a hermit than I realized as of late, not having heard of Adele before. (I’m not the last….there’s still one hermit hiding in Alaska’s interior). Started Youtube searching, starting with “Rolling in the Deep”. I have to admit, I’m impressed. I don’t think I’ve heard a female vocalist that strong since early Aretha Franklin or Katie Webster. I was a bit less impressed with the small selection that I checked out after that, but the strength of “Deep” showed me what she could do with a strong backing band.
One thing that bugs the heck out of me is that all the videos seem to be of her from odd angles or wearing dark clothes on a black background. I guess they still don’t think that a non-scrawny woman can be attractive. More fools them.
Maybe you need an intervention to help you stop watching. I use to watch them back when Stevie Wonder would win them all. But I stopped the year Elvis Costello did not win best new artist. Of course, over the years Costello has proven to be a duch-bag elitist. Boogie-oogie-oogie, indeed.