The End is Nigh: Awards Season

We got to whet our appetite for the Oscars with last night's 3.5 hour Grammy telecast, which I suppose isn't derided for its length given that we get live musical performances rather than stultifying montages. That being said, I think there was certainly room to trim a half-hour off of the show. But I'll get to that.

Not much notable about the show per se, other than it was a very good night to be a Dixie Chick or Mary J. Blige. Speaking of the former, how did I not know that Natalie Maines is married to Adrian Pasdar? That seems like something I should know.

Anyway, things I liked about the program:

* The Police reunion was entertaining enough, and there wasn't a lute in sight.

* No host, rather voice-overs linking presenters. The Oscars does this from time to time, and I still think it's an idea worth pursuing. Though it can be awkward, as seen when Scarlett Johansson just kind of grabbed the microphone and told everyone the show was over.

* Outside of Mary J. Blige reading the phone book, acceptance speeches were, for the most part, short and coherent. The Dixie Chicks seemed to run out of things to say (ironically enough), but at least they were smart enough to make notes during the show.

* For the first time in what seems like forever, Neil Portnow, the president of NARAS, didn't demonize unpaid music downloads during his speech. Rather, he focused on what his organization was doing to promote music in public schools, a topic of importance that didn't drag the show down.

* There was a smaller stage from the main stage where some of the presenatations took place, closer to the nominees. It was a much more elegant solution than anything the Oscars came up with to shorten the walk to claim an award. I assume it's easier to set up on the blank canvas of the Staples Center than in the Kodak Theater.

* The awards crawl, while sometimes moving too fast, is a nice way to recognize all the winners. Not only does it highlight some categories I never knew existed (Hawaiian music?), but you get to see some oddities, like Jimmy Carter bagging a spoken word Grammy for Our Endangered Values. Of course, this was also the mechanism by which we learned that the Black Eyed Peas won a Grammy for "My Humps."

Less entertaining:

* Given that they do this show live every year, some of the transitions to and from commercials were rough, especially towards the end of the show.

* And given that the Staples Center has hosted the show since 2000, can we do something about the sound? It was, for my taste, too uneven for a music awards program.

* We got three songs performed in honor of Don Henley, who is not dead. We got one song for James Brown. They closed the honor roll of the dead by draping his cape over a spotlit microphone, which was nice, but I'd have rather seen three songs in memory of the Godfather of Soul and one song for the guy who gave us "All She Wants to Do is Dance." If that.

* Scarlett Johansson is recording an album? That trumps the "My Humps" thing as the least positive news of the evening.

* The "My Grammy Moment" promotion, where one unsigned singer got to perform a duet with Justin Timberlake, was a nice performance, but seemed kind of underwhelming as a concept.

* I'd have liked to have seen more singing from Chris Brown, whose performance was mostly dancing. Though it did mark a clean break between him and his co-performers, Smokey Robinson and Lionel Ritchie.

* Speaking of Smokey, he needs to lay off the Botox. I think he blinked three times during his entire song. And even then, it looked like he was blinking in slo-mo.

* Did I mention that "My Humps" won a Grammy?

* Oh, that half-hour savings. I'd have cut the Henley thing down to one song, dropped at least one promo for the "My Grammy Moment," and have let Smokey do a song without the tenuous tie-in with Ritchie and Brown. I'd have also cut the performance of "Hips Don't Lie," though I'm biased here as there are few, if any, artists I care for less than Shakira. Take out some of the promos for shows CBS is going to cancel anyways (hello, Rules of Engagement) and there you go.