The Grammys is an awards show that honors the achievements of the members of the professional music recording industry through a voting system. The members of the Recording Academy vote on who they think is most deserving of an award in 108 categories as specified by the academy. Each year the awards are presented during a live telecast that was begun in 1971 by ABC, but has since been televised by CBS after they bought it in 1973. They were initially known as the Gramophone Awards this is because the trophy itself is a golden gramophone but later they became the Grammys.
They should always do the Grammys this way. Last night was the best Grammy show ever, by an absurd margin -- nearly four hours focused on artists doing their own songs, every performance excellent.
It was a creative and moving tribute in a year when social distancing became the norm - and the Recording Academy responded with a norm-breaking telecast of its own. Mark 2021 as the year the Grammys got their groove back.
On Sunday, the Grammys, by comparison, killed it. I had so much fun watching, and it proved that awards shows during the pandemic don't have to be a totally painful snooze.
It was a soothing distraction to be sure, but it did little to move the needle where it really counts; after all, substantial conversations around race and inclusivity aren't going anywhere.
You could also argue that the show seemed too eager to imagine that we are already at the light of the end of the COVID tunnel... But, compared to the relative fiasco that was the Globes, this felt like the "Citizen Kane" of pandemic-era awards shows.
There was still plenty to love at the 2021 Grammys, where Megan Thee Stallion and Taylor Swift took top prizes and artists performed on safely distant stages in Los Angeles and elsewhere.
It was one of the few big set-pieces on a night that ditched the Grammys' preoccupation with razzmatazz, choreography and vocal histrionics, and tried something new - musicians playing their songs. And guess what? It worked.
Maybe my brain is just pickled in a thick brine of year-long lockdown logyness, but is it possible that the Grammys award show this weekend was actually kind of ... good?
