Archives for February 2015

Grammy Recap…

Sunday night marked the 57th annual Grammy Awards. I typically always enjoy these types of things; I love music and watching people perform so for me it checks all the boxes! But this year was different…I was underwhelmed to say the least. There were definitely some stand out moments: AC/DC was a nice throwback, Hozier and Annie Lennox were  amazing, Ed Sheeran sounded great with John Mayer on the guitar, and Sam Smith crushed it in the awards department. If you have no idea what I’m talking about then you’re in luck; I jotted down notes throughout the entirety of the show so I could recap all the highs and lows with you! So Grab some popcorn and a coke because this will take a minute! Here we go….

*AC/DC kicked off the show and closed their 2 song set with “Highway to Hell” which for anyone who loved the 70s and 80s was a real treat! The crowd really seemed to enjoy their performance but lets’ be honest, how could you not?!?

*Best New Artist was the first award of the night. This category had quite a few deserving nominees: Bastille, Haim, Iggy, Sam Smith and Brandy Clark. Taylor Swift had the honor of presenting the award and mentioned that she had quite a few friends in the category. She went on to remind those friends that she herself did not win Best New Artist back in 2008  so clearly it doesn’t always predict the future of ones career. It probably comes as no surprise that Sam Smith walked away with the shiny gold hardware for this category, after all, he’s had a stellar year and that voice is like butter.

*Ariana Grande was the next artist to perform on the Grammy stage. I’ll be honest, she’s not my favorite. Her personality doesn’t strike me as overly friendly and she doesn’t seem like she’s the sharpest tool in the shed…(Is that mean? probably, I’m sorry). Now, having said all of that, I do love a few of her upbeat singles as they are catchy and fun but I wasn’t a fan of the slowed down version we saw Sunday night. I felt like she was trying too hard to showcase her vocal ability and it just didn’t come off as strong as I was hoping it would. And I won’t even get into how much I loathe that ponytail she ALWAYS has…but that’s for another time – overall, she was Eh.

*Best Pop Solo performance was the second award of the night and went to Pharrell for his song “Happy”. I don’t think that was much of a surprise…at least it surely didn’t surprise me. It was a mega-successful pop song that became infectious after hearing it once. That song is upbeat, fun, and well….happy!

*Miranda Lambert was one of three country stars to perform last night. She sang her hit song “Little Red Wagon.” As a country fan it was nice to see the genre represented on such a big stage. Her performance wasn’t my favorite, but I think that’s because that song doesn’t do much for me in general. Having said that, I think she looked and sounded great!

*Best Pop Vocal Album was given to the one and only…..Sam Smith (shocker, I know) for his debut album In The Lonely Hour. His speech was short, sweet and to the point.

*Kanye West was the next artist slated to perform…he was VERY underwhelming and did an OBSCENE amount of autotune. As much as I dislike Kanye’s personality I have never had an issue with his music. I’ve enjoyed a fairly substantial amount of his work…but I definitely could have done without that performance. Madonna was up next. And to be quite frank, I thought it was beyond boring. With that being said, she has never done much for me so I’m probably not be the right person to critique her performance. Within about 25 seconds I was ready to turn my tv on mute (and I did); however, I suppose those that have been fans of the Material Girl forever and ever amen might have really enjoyed all she had going on! But for me, it was just blah.

*Best Rock Album & Best R&B Performance were handed out back to back. Beck & Beyonce’s “Drunk In Love” won in their respective categories. Beck has been on the scene since 1985 and hasn’t won a Grammy since his win for Best Alternative Music Performance in 2000 for his album Mutations. Beyonce pretty much had it in the bag as far as I was concerned. Her song “Drunk In Love” was catchy, upbeat and mega-successful….she’s the queen B, you can’t deny that.

*Ed Sheeran performed with John Mayer, Herbie Hancock and Quest Love. He sang his newer single “Thinking Out Loud” and he sounded great. John Mayer killed it on the guitar as per usual, and I must say, John looked divine in those glasses he was wearing. At the end of his performance he announced ELO and they began to sing their hit “Evil Woman.” The cameras were panning the audience and it appeared that Haim and Paul McCartney were really enjoying the ELO reunion! Adam Levine & Gewn Stefani were up next! Now I’m not a huge fan of Gwen’s (solo) music but I thought Adam Levine’s face would keep me interested enough to make it through the performance (I was wrong). They sang a ballad and I was unimpressed. I love the new Maroon 5 song “Sugar” and was hoping they would perform that, however they opted for “My Heart Is Open” which features Stefani. It was a sweet song, I just got bored about a minute into the performance; le sigh, maybe they’ll do better next time. Then came Hozier & Annie Lennox; this was by far my favorite performance of the night, his song “Take Me To Church” has been everywhere recently. I saw a lot of tweets suggesting that he sounded bad and seemed to be nervous…I didn’t get that vibe, in fact I thought he sounded fine. Did he sound just like he does on the record? No. But most performers don’t. The combination of Hozier and Annie Lennox was edgy, raspy and mysterious (aka – ridiculously amazing), they were like the cool kids in school that I’d always hoped I could be! In case you were wondering…I never turned into that cool kid. Oh well.

*Best Country Album was given to Miranda Lambert for her 5th album, Platinum;  beating out the likes of Dierks Bentley, Eric Church, Brandy Clark and Lee Ann Womak. Miranda has been racking up at various award shows over the last few years so a win last night seemed pretty obvious.

*9 performances would span the next 45 minutes of the show. Pharrell Williams would lead things off by doing a new rendition of his hit song, “Happy.” He crushed it…no shocker there. Katy Perry turned in a very serious and somber performance after a Domestic Violence monologue. There were no dancing sharks or lollipops this time around. It was a different look for Katy…and I didn’t hate it. Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga were up next. I don’t really have any words for this…it was weird and I felt awkward watching it. Moving on. Usher performed Stevie Wonder’s hit “If It’s Magic.” He looked great and sounded even better. Towards the end of the song Stevie Wonder came out and played the harmonica as they finished the song together. I definitely enjoyed their performance, good work fellas! Eric Church was up next. He was the second of 3 country performances. He’s not my favorite, so it’s on to the next. Brandy Clark & Dwight Yolkam rounded out the country performances and they crushed it. They sounded incredible and I couldn’t have been more pleased or surprised. Rihanna, Kanye & Paul McCartney took the stage next! Kanye redeemed himself after that horrific performance earlier in the night and the crowd really seemed to enjoy the trio. But I mean it’s Paul McCartney, Kanye West & Rihanna…that’s a lot of superstars on one track, it was bound to be successful. Next up was Sam Smith & Mary J. Blige who performed “Stay With Me.” It was as good as I expected it to be. I think I would have preferred Sam Smith by himself, but either way it was still good. Juanes was the last performer to round out the 45 minute music set. It was all in spanish so I obviously had ZERO idea what he was talking about. It seemed good…but again, I was clueless as to what was happening so I could be wrong.

*Album of the Year was handed out next. To much surprise, Beck won for his work with Morning Phase. As he walked up to accept his award Kanye decided to jump up on stage….again. Although this time he decided to let Beck finish his speech and decided to save the trash talk for after the show. What a class act! Newsflash Kanye; Beyonce doesn’t have to win every award she’s nominated for. Have several seats. Sidenote: if that was my husband I would legitimately walk out, how Kim deals with his nonsense is beyond me. What a joke. Ugh. Anyways, I think it was cool to see Beck win Album of the Year, clearly he didn’t anticipate winning so it really felt like an authentic moment in an otherwise typical Grammy night.

*Sia (I think) performed next. She’s weird, that’s all I can say. As a former dancer I thought the theatrical component of the performance was great but aside from that I had no idea what was happening.

*Song of the Year was handed out next. I’m sure none of you are surprised to hear that Sam Smith won for his song “Stay With Me.” I’m telling you, he racked up!

*Beck & Chris Martin performed next. It was neat. (Lol. Neat). I love Chris Martin, he can do no wrong in my eyes so that was a treat!

*Record of the Year was the last award given out during the live telecast…and you guessed it, Sam Smith won! As he accepted his award he thanked the man whom his hit song was about, classy move Sam. He definitely deserved a thank you, after all, that man got him 4 Grammys!

*There were two performances to finish off the night. Beyonce lead things off by executing a beautiful rendition of “Take My Hand, Precious Lord.” She looked stunning and sounded great. For me it was a little slow to be capping off the night, but she sounded nice nonetheless. John Legend & Common finished things off with their hit song “Glory” from the film Selma. John Legend and Common never disappoint so the performance was as good as I expected it would be! While I enjoyed the last two performances from a vocal standpoint, I wasn’t wowed. I expected to have my socks knocked off by the last performance of the night instead of feeling sad and depressed. Wah Wah. Maybe next year will be better.

Overall the Grammy’s were meh for me. Some things were great (Hozier & Annie Lennox) and some things were not (Kanye & Eric Church). And for those of you that are wondering, there are 83 Grammy awards in total that are handed out. Unfortunately only 9 of those are presented on the live telecast. As much as I love the performance aspect of the show, I would love it if they incorporated more awards into the live broadcast. I’ll keep my fingers crossed but won’t hold my breath!

-B

Cheating In Sports…Almost Everyone Does It

*Disclaimer: This post is based solely on my opinions and working knowledge of the sports industry. YES, I recognize that not EVERY team cheats; but I’m wise enough to know that most, if not all of mine probably do. So if your team plays by the rules 100% of the time, congratulations! I hope my teams follow in your team’s footsteps one day!*

In the wake of “DeflateGate” and the Falcons being investigated for piping fake crowd noise into the Georgia Dome (which we’ve pretty much already admitted to being true), I thought I would write a little something about cheating in sports. Now I know we all live in a world where we’d like to believe that our favorite team(s) play by the rules…but newsflash, they don’t.

Contrary to popular belief, the New England Patriots are not the first team to (allegedly) deflate a football to help them achieve a better grip; the USC Trojans did that very thing during the 2012 season in their game against Oregon. I recognize that it’s a form of cheating and that they shouldn’t do it, but in the grand scheme of things, is it really THAT big of a deal? In the case of the AFC Championship game, it has been reported that the New England Patriots only played with the deflated balls for the first half; the score going into halftime was 17-7…..clearly the Colts still had plenty of time to come back in that game. It has also been reported that the initial findings that showed 11 of the 12 balls being deflated a full 2 pounds under the limit may be incorrect. There have been contradictory reports surrounding how much air was actually taken out the balls but for the sake of the argument let’s assume the initial findings are correct. I would like to remind everyone that they only used the balls in question during the first half of play, so how does one explain 21 unanswered points in the 3rd quarter? I’ll tell you how, because the New England Patriots have talented athletes all over the football field. If the Colts had any intention of winning that game, they were gonna have to score more than SEVEN points. Period. We’ll all continue to watch how DeflateGate unfolds and I’m sure people will maintain that the Patriots didn’t deserve to be in the Super Bowl because they cheated, but let me ask you this: If it was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers or the St. Louis Rams, would you still be as upset? No, no you wouldn’t. What about if it was your team, would you shun them and call them cheaters? Would you insist that their Super Bowl berth be taken away because they used underinflated balls for the first half of their AFC/NFC Championship game? Be honest. No, you wouldn’t. So while everyone is upset that the Patriots (allegedly) cheated and were able to play in the Super Bowl because of it, we should all just relax and stop being bitter that it wasn’t our team that made it to the big show.

While the city of Boston (and apparently every other city in America) is reeling over DeflateGate, I’m over here bitter that the Atlanta Falcons piped fake crowd noise into the Georgia Dome. My thoughts are this: if we’re gonna cheat, I need it to be worth the consequences that will follow. I’m sure all of you know how well the Falcons did this year (haha), so clearly our noise heightening efforts were a waste of time. So not only are we cheaters (I use that term loosely because I don’t take myself too seriously) who had another terrible season, but now we have to give up a draft pick…whomp whomp, jokes on us. Oh well, we’ll move on and deal with that consequence when it comes. Go Falcons!

I couldn’t possibly write a blog about cheating in sports if I did not address the elephant in the room (pun intended). There is not a single person on this planet that could convince me that college teams do not illegally recruit, I just simply do not believe that. Well over 65% (and that’s lowballing it) of kids that play college football don’t have an alliance to any one team, so what makes Alabama, Georgia, Auburn, Florida, Texas or Ohio State (just to name a few) better than other places? It’s all about what they offer, and trust me, they offer plenty. So when college athletes get in trouble for selling their autographs and then say they feel cheated and that they feel like they should be paid to play football, I just roll my eyes. It is a PRIVILEGE to play college football, not a right. They know the rules as soon as they are recruited so it really grinds my gears when they start badmouthing the NCAA and everyone else once the consequences start rolling in. Not only do (most) college athletes get a FREE education, they have someone help them with their work, they get FREE housing, FREE meals and 1000’s of dollars worth of FREE gear for playing a revenue sport. Meanwhile, me and my peasant friends had to bust our butts academically to receive financial help for tuition, or worse, take out loans and work through school in order to pay those bills. So no, I don’t feel bad that athletes aren’t getting a check every month for playing collegiate sports, instead I feel slightly bitter that I didn’t get all those perks because I wasn’t an athlete.

I hope this post didn’t come off too snarky or harsh, I just wanted to put all this cheating talk into perspective. I am fully aware that my team bends the rules/doesn’t always abide by the rules like they should, maybe that’s where my passive attitude comes from. I just don’t want to be the pot that calls the kettle black, ya know what I mean?! I love sports and choose to take the good with the bad. There are always going to be things about the game that disappoint me but there are also a million little things that continue to draw me in and keep me coming back for more!

-B