Our four favourite Canadian moments from the Grammys last night
Last night’s Grammy Awards were both a triumph and kick in the cojones for Canadian music. The Arcade Fire shocked just about everyone by beating out Lady Gaga for the Album of the Year, but Drake and Justin Bieber (who scored six nominations between them) were shut out of all the trophy action. Oh well, at least the Biebs made a (questionable) splash in his white-on-white tuxedo.
Here, our favourite Canadian Grammy moments.
1. All hail the arrival of Justin Bieber’s awkward stage
As we noted earlier, Justin Bieber is growing up. That’s not necessarily good news for the teen dream who looked and sounded noticeably pubescent at last night’s broadcast. It’s not his fault, of course, but will it be his downfall? Let’s be honest, the guy is an amazing talent, but his songs are nowhere near the level of the icons to whom he’s often compared (“Baby” is no “Billy Jean”). With Bieber, it’s more about his overall appeal than his actual songs, and that appeal seemed lacking during last night’s performance. His acoustic rendition of “Baby” was clearly a strain on his newly dropped voice, and he looked like a bit of a galoot next to the still-boyish Jaden Smith.
2. Drake’s love life still anyone’s guess
Drake and Rihanna did nothing to dispel relationship chatter with their extremely touchy-feely (dare we say crotchy) performance of “What’s My Name?” Meanwhile the rapper’s other suspected shorty, Nicki Minaj, presented an award dressed in something that looked more like a feline Halloween costume than a Grammy gown (guess someone’s ready to catfight over her man, should it come to that). For his part, Drake threw a spanner into the rumour mill by walking the carpet with the indisputable number one lady in his life—his mom Sandy.
3. Barbra Streisand does not listen to indie rock
A lot of American viewers, Rosie O’Donnell among them, are wondering who The Suburbs are, and why they’ve never heard of the band that took home Album of the Year. Well, The Suburbs is—duh!—the name of that album, and Arcade Fire is the name of the band that created it. We can blame the musically ignorant for not knowing that, but we can also blame Barbara Streisand for her totally unsatisfactory envelope divulging duties. So far, we can’t find a clip of Babs flubbing the night’s biggest announcement, but if you were watching then you saw how she slipped over the name and kinda made it sound like the band was called The Suburbs. Perhaps she was distracted by Kris Kristofferson’s silver foxy-ness. We were.
4. Why it’s a good day, and a bad day, to be Esperanza Spalding
We were shocked to see this unknown bass-playing jazz singer scoop the Best New Artist award right out from under Justin Bieber—as were Bieber’s infamously feral fans who spent last night defacing Spalding’s Wikipedia page for lack of a better way to exact their revenge. For example: “Justin Bieber deserved it go die in a hole. Who the heck are you anyway?” Real mature, ladies. And by “ladies,” we mean crazed lunatics.
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Last night’s Grammy Awards were both a triumph and kick in the cojones for Canadian music. The Arcade Fire shocked just about everyone by beating out Lady Gaga for the Album of the Year, but Drake and Justin Bieber (who scored six nominations between them) were shut out of all the trophy action. Oh well, at least the Biebs made a (questionable) splash in his white-on-white tuxedo.
Here, our favourite Canadian Grammy moments.
1. All hail the arrival of Justin Bieber’s awkward stage
As we noted earlier, Justin Bieber is growing up. That’s not necessarily good news for the teen dream who looked and sounded noticeably pubescent at last night’s broadcast. It’s not his fault, of course, but will it be his downfall? Let’s be honest, the guy is an amazing talent, but his songs are nowhere near the level of the icons to whom he’s often compared (“Baby” is no “Billy Jean”). With Bieber, it’s more about his overall appeal than his actual songs, and that appeal seemed lacking during last night’s performance. His acoustic rendition of “Baby” was clearly a strain on his newly dropped voice, and he looked like a bit of a galoot next to the still-boyish Jaden Smith.
2. Drake’s love life still anyone’s guess
Drake and Rihanna did nothing to dispel relationship chatter with their extremely touchy-feely (dare we say crotchy) performance of “What’s My Name?” Meanwhile the rapper’s other suspected shorty, Nicki Minaj, presented an award dressed in something that looked more like a feline Halloween costume than a Grammy gown (guess someone’s ready to catfight over her man, should it come to that). For his part, Drake threw a spanner into the rumour mill by walking the carpet with the indisputable number one lady in his life—his mom Sandy.
3. Barbra Streisand does not listen to indie rock
A lot of American viewers, Rosie O’Donnell among them, are wondering who The Suburbs are, and why they’ve never heard of the band that took home Album of the Year. Well, The Suburbs is—duh!—the name of that album, and Arcade Fire is the name of the band that created it. We can blame the musically ignorant for not knowing that, but we can also blame Barbara Streisand for her totally unsatisfactory envelope divulging duties. So far, we can’t find a clip of Babs flubbing the night’s biggest announcement, but if you were watching then you saw how she slipped over the name and kinda made it sound like the band was called The Suburbs. Perhaps she was distracted by Kris Kristofferson’s silver foxy-ness. We were.
4. Why it’s a good day, and a bad day, to be Esperanza Spalding
We were shocked to see this unknown bass-playing jazz singer scoop the Best New Artist award right out from under Justin Bieber—as were Bieber’s infamously feral fans who spent last night defacing Spalding’s Wikipedia page for lack of a better way to exact their revenge. For example: “Justin Bieber deserved it go die in a hole. Who the heck are you anyway?” Real mature, ladies. And by “ladies,” we mean crazed lunatics.){kind=link}