Grammy Preview

The 52^nd annual Grammy awards are handed out tonight, so let’s take a look at the nominees for the major awards that people care about. Below are my predictions for who will win, along with who should actually win. Prediction of the night: There will be plenty of opportunities for Kanye to interrupt Taylor Swift.

Album of the Year

Nominees:

Beyonce – “I Am … Sasha Fierce”

Black Eyed Peas – “The E.N.D.”

Dave Matthews Band – “Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King”

Lady Gaga – “The Fame”

Taylor Swift – “Fearless”

Who will win: This one is really tough to call. Normally, the Grammy people like to throw in one non-mainstream (usually old) artist in the nominees and it’s always a safe bet that they will come out on top (see Herbie Hancock last year). This time, all of these albums are by people who get plenty of radio airplay. While it would be nice to see Dave Matthews Band win because they lost their saxophonist, this one is more than likely to come down between Beyonce and Taylor Swift (sound familiar?). I’m going with Taylor Swift. Lady Gaga is a possibility but remains the third most likely to win, while the Black Eyed Peas and Dave Matthews Band will most likely not win.

Who should win: Although most of these albums are decent, I wouldn’t give this award to any of them. If I had to pick from these 5, I would go with Beyonce. The fact that the Black Eyed Peas are nominated for album of the year is an atrocity, as “Boom Boom Pow” and “Meet Me Halfway” are two of the worst songs I’ve ever heard in my life, and the entire album is ruined by auto-tune and lame background beats.

Should have been nominated: So many to choose from, but I’ll go with my favorite album of 2009, Silversun Pickups – Swoon.

Record of the Year

Nominees:

Beyonce – “Halo”

Black Eyed Peas – “I Gotta Feeling”

Kings of Leon – “Use Somebody”

Lady Gaga – “Poker Face”

Taylor Swift – “You Belong With Me”

Who will win: Also hard to predict. The Grammy Academy loves Beyonce, but I just get the sense that this is Taylor Swift’s year. Lady Gaga is once again a wildcard, and don’t be surprised if Kings of Leon make a splash in the big categories either.

Who should win: It’s hard not to give this one to Beyonce, because Halo is a very well written, beautiful song. “Use Somebody” is a very catchy and upbeat song that made it all over the pop charts, which is very rare for a alternative rock band, which is who Kings of Leon are at heart.

Should have been nominated: MGMT – Kids.

Song of the Year

Nominees:

Poker Face – Lady Gaga

Use Somebody – Kings of Leon

Pretty Wings – Maxwell

Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) – Beyonce

You Belong With Me – Taylor Swift

Who will win: The difference between song of the year and record of the year is always confusing, but song of the year is an award for the songwriters, where record of the year is more about the finished product. Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” sounds great, but isn’t the best written song. I wouldn’t be shocked if Kings of Leon or Lady Gaga won, but I think Beyonce beats Taylor in something, so I’m saying it’s this one.

Who should win: Kings of Leon

Should have been nominated: Pearl Jam – The Fixer.

Best New Artist

Nominees:

Zac Brown Band

Keri Hilson

MGMT

Silversun Pickups

The Ting Tings

Who will win: Unless the academy loosens up, this is Keri Hilson’s to lose.

Who should win: While Silversun Pickups are the better band, the year MGMT had should be rewarded.

Should have been nominated: Phoenix has been around too long to be eligible, so how about we go with Kid Cudi.

Best Pop Vocal Album

Nominees:

The E.N.D. – Black Eyed Peas

Breakthrough – Colbie Caillat

All I Ever Wanted – Kelly Clarkson

The Fray – The Fray

Funhouse – Pink

Who will win: Ugh. Black Eyed Peas

Who should win: Kelly Clarkson

Best Rock Album:

Nominees:

AC/DC – “Black Ice”

Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood – “Live From Madison Square Garden”

Green Day – “21^st Century Breakdown”

Dave Matthews Band – “Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King”

U2 – No Line on the Horizon

Who will win: Grammy people love love love U2, but I think even that won’t stop this from going to Dave Matthews Band.

Who should win: Dave Matthews Band

Should have been nominated: Them Crooked Vultures – Them Crooked Vultures. Hands down best pure rock album of 2009.

Best Rock Song:

Nominees:

Pearl Jam – “The Fixer”

U2 – “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight”

Green Day – “21 Guns”

Kings of Leon – “Use Somebody”

Bruce Springsteen – “Working on a Dream”

Who will win: Could there be an upset? No. Kings of Leon make it 2 years in a row with a “Best Rock Song” Grammy.

Who should win: I have no problem with either Pearl Jam or Kings of Leon winning, and since the latter will, that’s okay with me.

Should have been nominated: Alice in Chains – Check My Brain.

Best Alternative Album:

Nominees:

David Byrne & Brian Eno – “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today”

Death Cab For Cutie – “The Open Door”

Depeche Mode – “Sounds of the Universe” (will win)

Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (should win)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz!

Should have been nominated: So Silversun Pickups get nominated for Best New Artist, but their album, “Swoon”, doesn’t get nominated in it’s genre?

Best Rap Album

Nominees:

Common – Universal Mind Control

Eminem – Relapse

Flo Rida – R.O.O.T.S.

Mos Def – The Ecstatic (should win, will win)

Q-Tip – Renaissance

Should have been nominated: P.O.S. – Never Better

Best Rap Song

Nominees:

Drake – “Best I Ever Had”

Kid Cudi – “Day ‘N Nite”

T.I. feat. Justin Timberlake – “Dead and Gone”

Jay-Z – “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)”

Jay-Z, Rihanna, Kanye West – “Run This Town”

Who will win: This should be interesting. T.I. just finished a sentence, and “Dead and Gone” is about how he’s changed. Will that be enough for the academy? Or will Kid Cudi steal the award in an upset? I’m going with Jay-Z for D.O.A.

Who should win: Kid Cudi

Should have been nominated: I always find it weird when the best album of a genre doesn’t get a best song nomination for that genre. I think Mos Def’s “Quiet Dog” will fall victim to that this year.

That's it for now, en

Gaga Ooh La La

So it’s not much of a secret that one of the biggest stars right now is Stefani Germanotta, or Lady Gaga as she is known to everyone except perhaps my dad who, no joke, thought it was a brand of women’s underwear. One thing seems to be universal, regardless of whether you enjoy her music or not, is that she is an interesting figure.

Here is an article from my Magazine Article class about the diva that I naturally found intriguing:

On a recent morning, Lady Gaga, the 23-year-old synth-pop musician, is making radio-station rounds to promote her Top 10 album The Fame in Los Angeles. Such on-air occasions are usually a time for an artist to reveal herself as personable and friendly, but Gaga doesn't let anyone get close, with her eyes hidden behind dark wraparound sunglasses and her five-foot frame encased in a sharp-shouldered lilac suit with matching zippered gloves. "The biggest misconception about me is that I am not a real person," she says before her radio spot, in a robotic, faux-English monotone. "The assumption is that my eccentricity is not who I really am, but it is." She leans in, to clarify things. "I have lost my mind," she says.
Mystery is part of the performance for Gaga, whose post-camp persona is a riff on disco-diva glam and a recession-age, downmarket, satirist-wannabe Britney Spears, and who is channeling no less than Madonna, patron saint of glitter, media manipulation, and Britspeak. Like the Divine Miss M, the Lady was also once a nice Catholic girl: In real life, she is Stefani Germanotta, who grew up in the West Seventies, an area that she refers to archly as "Manhattan's theater and opera district." (The name Gaga is a tribute to Queen's "Radio Ga Ga," bestowed by her music producer, who goes by Dada.) In 2004, she graduated from the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private girls school near the Guggenheim with a dress code of kilt skirts. "We were good girls, but we weren't nerdy like the girls at Chapin," she says. "We were the girls that guys still wanted to date junior year of high school, because we hadn't had sex or given blow jobs yet." Things are different for her now, as a bisexual adult who idolizes transvestite fashion. (A tabloid recently quoted Christina Aguilera dissing her-"I don't know if it is a man or a woman"; Gaga ate it up.) "I love sex," she says, tipping her sunglasses down a bit and leering. "You know, sense memory is a powerful thing. I can give myself an orgasm just by thinking about it."
At 19, Gaga dropped out of Tisch, told her parents she didn't need their money, and moved to Clinton Street to "become an artist," waitressing at the Cornelia Street Café, go-go dancing at burlesque bars like the Slipper Room, and performing at clubs like the Knitting Factory in a seventies-style revue with glitter-rock D.J. Lady Starlight-all while snorting her fair share of cocaine. "I wasn't a lazy drug addict," she says. "I would make demo tapes and send them around; then I would jump on my bike and pretend to be Lady Gaga's manager. I'd make $300 at work and spend it all on Xeroxes to make posters." Wrapped up in nostalgia, she drops the English accent. "Lady Starlight and I would spin vinyl in my apartment, sewing our bikinis for the show and listening to David Bowie and the New York Dolls." She laughs. "We thought, 'What could we do to make everybody so jealous?' We did it, and everybody was so jealous. And they still are." But fame has its price, and resettling from the Lower East Side to Los Angeles, as she did last year, is one of them. "What am I supposed to do, canoodle with celebrities at a nightclub, with a lemon-drop Midori in my hand? It's not the same as being in a bar that smells like urine with all your really smart New York friends."
Around noon, Lady Gaga's manager, a large man in a pink sweater-"you know you're a kindred spirit when you both arrive in pastels," she says-shepherds her into a recording studio at KIIS-FM, where 50 lucky callers are waiting for her to descend. She delicately unzips her lilac gloves, then pounds ferociously on her keyboard for an acoustic, bluesy version of her song "Poker Face," which recently hit number three on the Billboard singles chart ("When it's love, if it's not rough it isn't fun"). The hair-gelled crowd goes wild, cameraphones raised high in the air. Then Jojo, the station's spastic, redheaded D.J., attacks with a speed-round of questions. Strangest thing she's ever signed? "A dick, at a gay club." Is she ever going to record an album with Paris Hilton? "Never." Least-favorite food? "I'm a pop singer. I don't like food at all." Favorite book? "I read Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet every day." Favorite Sidekick or other type of technology? "Ugh," she says. "I'm not answering that."
"You can say 'pass' if you don't want to answer," Jojo says. "You can go pfffft."
"Oh, no," says Gaga, beginning to zip up her gloves. "I'm a lady. I don't make noises like that."


Copyright 2009 New York Magazine Holdings LLC
All Rights Reserved

Now I don’t know exactly what I find so intriguing about Lady Gaga. But I think it centers on the fact that you never know what she is going to say if you stick a microphone in front of her. It works the same way with Kanye West. If news broke tomorrow that either one of them had said something controversial, you would not even be surprised; you would just read the article to find out what exactly the figure said.

These figures are like the athletes Shaquille O’Neal or Chad Ochocinco (both of whom I find intriguing, even though I am not really a fan of either). If you Youtube either of them, you are sure to get some kicks from what they say or do.

The character trait that each of these individuals has that make them so appealing to us is the inability for the public to fully understand them. We simply must recognize them for who they are (or who they appear to be) and embrace them for it.

Me Again

What's going on loyal follower(s)? As you may have heard, I have recently developed a SECOND blog. Yes. That's right, two pages on the web run entirely by me. The apocalyse shall ensue shortly.

Anyways, the focus behind this blog is to take a look into the aspects of what is going on in the world of pop culture. With that said, a nice warm welcome to all of you in my Pop Culture in America class. I look forward to going on this new journey with you.

That's all for now.

(shameless plug for my other blog (F My Blog) which covers just about anything that is on my mind, usually sports, music, things at Loyola that bug me, and everything in between... that can all be found here http://adamromo.blogspot.com/)