Somethin' about Amy Wine-O-House gets me every time...I had my first round of Miss 
Winehouse at one of the '06 MTV Awards, and I thought Rehab was brilliant. Not John Legend brilliant, or Michael Jackson brilliant, but Christopher Walken brilliant. Make sense? It will. I started listening to her album "Back to Black" and it took a lil while, but once it grew on me, it just worked. She was soulful and emotional and vulnerable, but it was still hilarious and thoughtful. I know I'm not the only person who looks at her and thinks "she has a weird-shaped face and there just has to be a big-ass honeycomb in that beehive hair", but her voice...and her style...ooh and her sexy british accent...ahhh I was smitten. Smitten I say!
Winehouse at one of the '06 MTV Awards, and I thought Rehab was brilliant. Not John Legend brilliant, or Michael Jackson brilliant, but Christopher Walken brilliant. Make sense? It will. I started listening to her album "Back to Black" and it took a lil while, but once it grew on me, it just worked. She was soulful and emotional and vulnerable, but it was still hilarious and thoughtful. I know I'm not the only person who looks at her and thinks "she has a weird-shaped face and there just has to be a big-ass honeycomb in that beehive hair", but her voice...and her style...ooh and her sexy british accent...ahhh I was smitten. Smitten I say!Then two weeks ago, I watched her do crack on youtube....
Needless to say, I really needed her to have a good night last night at the 2008 Grammy's, if for no other reason than to restore faith in my own ability to find the next great musical trendsetter...and last night did it. She brought energy and passion to the London stage during the show, and i remembered the unique brand of vocal performance that brought me to her in the first place...And those eyes...those eyes will suck you in if you're not careful....gorgeous eyes...i just wanna play the blinking game with her all day long...naked....
Beyond that, the grammy's were about as safe and uneventful as post-Janet-Superbowl entertainment shows can get....except for a few performances...Alicia Keys and John Mayer gave a performance of "No One" that felt like a warm cup of cocoa (Keys) with mini-marshmallows (Mayer) in the middle of the blistering cold (the rest of the show). Then there was Beyonce and Tina Turner! Beyonce and those legs! Tina and those legs! I was loving the energy, loving the homage that Beyonce played to her predecessor, loving the choreography, loving every second of it. Of course Rihanna, Jam and Lewis, they all brought it. But the highlight of my night was Kanye West.
The main reason that I look at Michael Jackson as the greatest performer of all time: his ability to take a good song, and great choreography, and transform it into a complete spectacle. He was the ultimate entertainer. Some artists are great performers, some are great vocalists, but Michael was an entertainer. And he founded a fraternity of musicians who, over the years, have followed the template of performing perfection, and have made up The League of Extraordinary Artists - Prince, Madonna, Usher, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, and more recently Chris Brown. These icons have always stood out among their peers, because quite simply, they knew how to put on a show. Last night, this league inducted their newest member....Mr. Kanye West.
The military-themed, MJ-inspired glowing jacket, followed by the glow-in-the-dark Alain Mikli Shutter Shades, the retro-jordans, the fiery neon glow of the pyramids, the bass drum pounding the Daft Punk-sampled single "Stronger"...it set the tone...the greatness, not to mention the nostalgia of the 80's. Then he gives us the neon dj's in the pyramid. Fast forward...the lights dim low...the vision of a heavenly angel floating on the stage's main screen. A dim spotlight falls on the Chicago rapper, and the camera does a 360 and you finally see the word etched in the back of his head: MAMA....the strings play the familiar chords from "Hey Mama", off the Late Registration album. He fights off tears....the audience fights off tears....I fight off tears...the timpani and the strings (no drums) play the soft chords until he brings in the first verse, not to the crowd, not to the television audience, but to his recently deceased mother, the late Donda West...In case you missed it:
"Last night, I saw you in my dreams,
Now I can't wait to go to sleep..."
Now I can't wait to go to sleep..."
Powerful.
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