The Grammys Go Daft

Discovery (Daft Punk album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The 56th Grammy Awards (also known as the CBS Music Awards) ran for nearly three hours and forty-five minutes Sunday night, and in those three hours and forty-five minutes we saw legends and new stars take the stage to perform and sometimes accept trophies.  This year may have been the benchmark for weirdness.

Daft Punk, a French duo with white space helmets who don't say a word, won two of the biggest prizes with "Get Lucky" (a collaboration with Pharrell Williams and others) winning Record of the Year, and "Random Access Memories" collecting Album of the Year.  It fell to Williams to translate for the audience the duo's sincere thanks for those gold-plated ancient-looking gramophones, while the rest of us wondered if the Grammy Awards have finally jumped the shark.

Lorde picked up two trophies for "Royals", including Song of the Year.  We don't know if she has had much experience performing, being 17 years old and all, but her moves during her rendition of the song could be summed up in two words:  Elaine Benes.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, who dominated the record charts this past year with "Thrift Shop", were rewarded with being chosen Best New Artist.  They returned the favor by performing "Same Love", an ode to gay marriage, while some couples of several races and sexes tied the knot (symbolically, we suppose) in the audience.  How nice of CBS to schedule this performance outside of prime time. 

Among other things, LL Cool J was once again host of the Grammys.  If it weren't for the fact that he appears on CBS' "NCIS Los Angeles", he wouldn't be hosting as much as he has.

Beyonce and Jay Z performed the opening number "Drunk In Love", if only to demonstrate for the rest of us why they're music's power couple.

Robin Thicke and Chicago shared the stage, eventually getting to his nominated single "Blurred Lines".  If Thicke had any hope of someday replacing Peter Cetera as lead singer, his audition did not go well.

There were several Taylor Swift sightings during the telecast, including the song she performed.  Come on, now.  Do we really need to know what Swift thinks of the proceedings?  Maybe she'll write a song about it.

To redeem the whole thing, out came two surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, and two surviving Highwaymen Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson performing in separate segments.  So did Carole King in teaming with Sara Bareilles on "Brave", which is a much better song than some of the ones that did win.

Gorillaz, your agent is calling.