The GRAMMYS, a Lifetime Achievement Tribute, and...The Beatles?

[sleepy]

I am totally messed up. Was thinking The GRAMMYS were tonight (1-26-14) and the Beatles tribute is being taped tomorrow.

Then I thought the GRAMMYS were in February, and the Beatles tribute is being aired the following night.

So I Googled. I was right the first time.

The Beatles tribute is being taped tomorrow, not at The Ed Sullivan Theater (where David Letterman is taped); where it all broke out of the box 50 years ago, clacks or not. No. It is being taped in Los Angeles at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Tickets were sold to the public.

The first announcement of scheduled guests were something like Justin Timberlake and other current artists, but curiously, that line-up was totally dumped, with a second announced line-up which includes Alicia Keyes, a reunion of The Eurythmics, Keith Urban, and Maroon 5.

McCartney and Starr will perform separately at tonight's GRAMMYS, according to announcements, to receive The Lifetime Achievement Awards for their work as The Beatles.

The thing to remember is, Maroon 5 also covered for The Beach Boys' GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Awards, prior to the appearance by the original band.

I was tracking the tickets, hoping maybe to go to that dog with the bland line-up, and they were still available for purchase up until last Monday when Ringo announced that he would be appearing at the event.

Now all the tickets are gone, except for those in the possession of the scalpers and at Stubhub, a 'legit' ticket resale website (Mooo). The following Stubhub link will self-destruct in approx. 5 hrs.:

http://www.stubhub.com/tribute-to-t...-angeles-convention-center-27-1-2014-4433258/

 

[sleepy]

Yeeehh. The surviving Beatles and perhaps a surprise or three come tomorrow, somewhere in L.A.
Hey, do you suppose if I cut to The Convention Center and offer to sweep the floors, then??
Else I'll just be hanging around here...

The GRAMMYS. Blah. The first hour felt like three hours to me. I'm getting old. Most of the acts, I would need them to wear a "Hello. My name is..." on their shirts.
It didn't really pick up until Ringo sung his song, and "Get Lucky", but isn't "Get Lucky" a retread of the bridge from The Police/ Roxanne? Does that sound familiar to you? There were a few other highlights. Loved the marriage bit, and The Everly Bros. tribute. Carol King was very good as well.

Royal???

Was that Paul Williams???

Ray Dolby died?

 

[sleepy]

Wasn't much of the show a lot like listening to the soundtrack from Grand Theft Auto?

 

[LeeVanCleef]

As much as I never miss the Oscars, I always miss the Grammys. It's hard to explain the difference. Both organizations are usually completely out of touch with the edge, with what isn't safe or dated. I guess the difference to me is I'd rather watch clips and awards from films that are okay than a bunch of teeny-bopper dipshits singing songs I'll never like. HA! Look at that! I'm finally a bitter old man! Too bad John's not here to celebrate! :D

 

[sleepy]

I fell asleep last night, not during the telecast, but later,
and I was wondering why the hell everything GRAMMYS is now either Emo, Hip-Hop, Adult Contemporary, Metal Rock, Metal Rock with Rap, else Country.
How would you class Katy Perry? Teen ("Roar") or Adult Contemporary, or both?

I am wondering what happened to the Soundtrack, Comedy, Modern Jazz, Traditional Jazz, Instrumentals, Gospel, Blues, and Classical categories, none of which were televised. Not even on a credits roll.
They did show a clip of Jonathan Winters for his Obituary.

 

[faralos]

for that matter what category does Macklemore fall into other than being a youtube sensation? he wins then leaves early what a dweeb
and then they have the nerve to cut out Trent Reznors perfromance?
the grammys are a self pat on the back for the recording companies nothing more imo
boring the only saving grace may have been Metallica doing ONE
Metallica Grammy Awards 2014 Grammys Live Performance HD 720p - YouTube

 

[faralos]

I still love Metallica and the song that got me into them was Anesthesia
that song did it for me and got me started on heavy metal back in the 80's
Metallica - (Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth [Live Suprise Gig, Orion Music + More 2013 HD] - YouTube

 

[sleepy]

Last night was pretty good, perhaps a bit light, and not too many surprises. It was handled very well, though I don't know how much of it will be seen in the final broadcast. It is not going to be like the press releases described it, "as modern pop acts singing the 5 Beatles songs from the Ed Sullivan gig".
That helped a lot!

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

As much as I never miss the Oscars, I always miss the Grammys. It's hard to explain the difference. Both organizations are usually completely out of touch with the edge, with what isn't safe or dated. I guess the difference to me is I'd rather watch clips and awards from films that are okay than a bunch of teeny-bopper dipshits singing songs I'll never like. HA! Look at that! I'm finally a bitter old man! Too bad John's not here to celebrate! :D

hahaha it's a hard pull to resist.

OTOH, at least pop music used to be fairly listenable from time to time, like the 50's, early-mid 80's, or mid 90's with alt pop. the stuff this past decade is godamn brutal. and whenever someone uses it as backing to some video it just instantly kills the video. :/

thuggishness, autotune, needlessly showing off vocal range, self-fixation, going for that 'fake-soul' sound in a bloody pop song... ugh.

 

[sleepy]

And I'm hearing the use of Power and Technique over and against the listener, against the values of relativity.There are far too many music students and riff books out there, all pushing manipulative buttons without any expression from their own hearts, save the known effective patterns of programmed brain frequencies from said books, but without the original story.
The "Big Sound" of theater and movies.

The song, "Blurred Lines". Chicago served as backup band for it at The GRAMMYS. It was nominated and did not win, rather bland, but the video for it was spiked with naked chicks. The nominated artist sung over the Chicago standards in a medley and destroyed every one of them, but Chicago backed "Blurred Lines" for the artist and did a fine job. During the medley, Bobby Lamm was the voice of saving grace, not the current artist.

Else there is Millie Cyrus.
Too much sex being abused to sell what song to begin with?

 

[LeeVanCleef]

I noticed a couple of years ago just how out of touch I was. I was checking out a mainstream magazine end-of-the-year Music top 10. Not only had I not heard any of the albums on the list, but I didn't want to. At least the alternative sites like Pitchfork and Vulture will still throw a Bon Iver or a Neko Case aldult-alternative-type bone onto their lists. Much more soothing to old ears! I guess what it comes down to is that I prefer people who are making music to people who are "laying down beats."

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

well said, sleepy. manipulation is right. and power and technique, exactly.

i think the problem is that the industry and culture tends to reward an arms race over pushing the artistic envelope anymore. such was always a factor, of course, but the race seems to get tougher and tougher to run, with too many easier opportunities to take quick-reward shortcuts.


if someone like dylan, bowie, zappa etc made it through the pop meat-blender these days it would be fairly miraculous. i mean, i guess lady gaga is shades of madonna... maybe she deserves lots of credit... but i frankly have no interest in that music to evaluate.

 

[sleepy]

And the beats are too often from the same device, and then used by somebody just to sound like the others, not to express any relative value.

I was feeling the same about that "telephone voice" vocorder effect last year, like every song "had to have it" and the frequency-pitch quantizer effect in Emo is starting to get the same way with me. That's the one that takes the singer's voice and "clicks" it to the next frequency as he/she sings the corresponding note.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

you mean autotune on that last thing?

anyway, now that you have broadband, you should be going apeshit with the streams. there's tonnes of great indy pop, world music, ambient... you name it. whatever genre you like.

i think a big reason i'm not more like you PN guys with your love of classic rock and stuff is because i'm finding so much great new stuff these days. like a second lease on musical life, or something.

 

[sleepy]

They call that effect Autotune? I was just going by what it does, quantizes the pitch/frequency to concise tones, like how note quantization in a MIDI sequencer adjusts the timing / rhythm of the notes to concise intervals within each bar (on the beat according to the specified time signature), and never knew what they called it.

 

[sleepy]

I immediately fell into my old habits. I downloaded a WinAmp. I went to the KKCR homepage, but they were discussing current affairs instead. So I've spent days listening to YouTubes. My old computer that I was using until recently, well, it has all of my YouTube bookmarks for videos that I planned to catch up on once I got back on broadband, so that is currently a lost cause, though I might be able to salvage the drives...later.

And that YouTube has 'modernized' the user menus to the point that I can't find everything that I bookmarked while there. Else the YouTube bookmarks use a client-side cookie to store those "Watch Later" saves.
In which case, those are on the old computer...

 

[sleepy]

Hey, just curious.
Does this link play for you?

http://www.musicchoice.com/#channel/36/mc-70s

It belongs to my ISP, but is usually only available with cable TV service.

 

[Coil_Smoke]

Hey, just curious.
Does this link play for you?

http://www.musicchoice.com/#channel/36/mc-70s

It belongs to my ISP, but is usually only available with cable TV service.

Chose COMCAST from the drop down>>>Al Stewart is playing "Time Passages" Crisp sounding, The bass is a tad nasal...But nice. I do have Comcast TV/Internet. I think this sounds better than the digital out from the cable box. This computer has a base model Sound Blaster PCI card.

 

[sleepy]

I got my 'puter connected to a 2nd hand-but good home theater system.
Hope I'm not disturbing anyone. I like the 8 bit sounds of old games on it.

What we were talking about the other day, the broad music playlists of the 70's seem to be present here. They are playing Billy Preston / Outta Space right now and just finished with Elvis, and now they're playing, "Magic" by Pilot, a nice "Beatles" sub song. But of course, they're all old. The other, newer music channels, available from the pull-down at the top right corner, are of course much narrower in their playlists.
Only the oldies are broader, according to their era I think.

I was wondering if anyone without a subscription is getting the sounds?

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Nope, doesn't work for me. But, hey... I'll be fine! There are so many different internet radio stations out there that it's crazy! Here's a link to what, so far, is the best classic rock station I've found. I'd put it up against any cable/satellite music offering.

http://www.stlouisclassicrock.com/

 

[sleepy]

For sure, it's programmed. I was able to access the page without a login, but of course I'm using their ISP, so perhaps that is an automatic function of the connection.
Kind of like, when you connect the cable box without authorization, the ISP sends a "Whoops. You are not subscribed" page and locks your computer to it, but this is in reverse.

And geez. I'm coming up with new ideas for stereo reproduction and the bloody neighbors are all over me to get the process. When in town, Protect Thyself...

 

[sleepy]

Jim Croce and Robin Trower on the radio are rare birds in Los Angeles these days.
Not like it used to be.

 

[GSGregg]

I was feeling the same about that "telephone voice" vocorder effect last year, like every song "had to have it" and the frequency-pitch quantizer effect in Emo is starting to get the same way with me. That's the one that takes the singer's voice and "clicks" it to the next frequency as he/she sings (approximates) the corresponding note.

you mean autotune on that last thing?

Autotune was invented by a valve-trombonist who won a slide-job on a gameshow.

On a lighter note, I miss the Oscars, Grammies, Cleos, Bozos and whatever else relies on "the envelope, please".....INTENTIONALLY!

My keen senses detected a new thread to which I hadn't contributed or subscrobed (my typing is bound to impruve), so here I am---maybe.

 

[LeeVanCleef]

Welcome to the party, Greg! We were wondering when you'd show up! :) The one awards show I always keep up on is the Razzies. They usually do a pretty good about taking the piss out of Hollywood!

@sleepy: Pretty amazing station, eh? I'm with you... when's the last time you heard Robin Trower on the radio? Probably early '80s for me.

For sure, it's programmed. I was able to access the page without a login, but of course I'm using their ISP, so perhaps that is an automatic function of the connection.

What happened when I went there is that it asked me for my cable/satellite provider. There was Cox, the one I had in Wichita, but, alas, not the company I have in Wisconsin! My girlfriend's parents have DirecTv, which offers SonicTap. They seem a little repeat-heavy, but they have some pretty decent channels. One, called 8-Track, does a great job of finding the hidden nuggets from the classic rock era.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

this is pretty much the only awards show i've ever been able to stomach: