I’m not even going to pretend that I watched the whole thing; it’s not an elitist thing, but the reality is that I don’t really tend to listen to a lot of albums that end up being nominated for Grammys, which means that I mostly watch to see older artists popping up. That’s why the highlights of what I saw were threefold:
1. The Police doing a quite acceptable job on “Roxanne.” C’mon, baby, let the world tour stop in Hampton Roads!
2. Smokey Robinson knocking “The Tracks of My Tears” out of the park. Dude’ll be 66 years old next week, but you couldn’t prove it by looking at him OR listening to him.
3. Lionel Richie singing “Hello” and making me feel like I was a teenager again.
Yeah, that’s pretty much all I can say I full-on loved…but something I legitimately disliked was the fact that when Tony Bennett won his award for Best Pop Collaboration (with Stevie Wonder), he thanked Target for being the best sponsor he’s ever had…and you could hear people booing him! Are you kidding me? The guy’s 80 years old, he’s a legend, and thanks to the sponsorship of Target, he got major publicity for his album of duets AND a prime-time special to celebrate his 80th birthday. So what if he thanked them?
