Smiling like a self-satisfied distant nephew of Boy George, Sam Smith was the multi-statuette winner Sunday night at the Grammys, picking up new artist, song of the year and pop vocal album of the year in one of those one-fell-swoop things: new artist and top prize winner the same year.
You can’t fault the win too much because it was largely for a song that stunned the first time you heard it – “Stay with Me,” a plea so florid it temporarily flattens the landscape.
But what about after hearing it about five times as we did during Sunday’s lengthy telecast – every time he was nominated, every time he won, and in a duet with Mary J. Blige that played twice – once at the end for emphasis (in case anybody was still tuned in after a staggering three and a half hours).
The Blige take on it was interesting, by the way – with a casual, more easy tone, and a seductive one that might ultimately be more successful in its stated goal than Smith’s strident delivery.
After playing so many times in one night, it quickly also became the kind of earworm for which you want a quick repellant, primarily for a simple melody that – Smith realized well into the song’s success – was exactly the same one in Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.”
That song had already had a double life – first a No. 12 hit from his 25 year old “Full Moon Fever” album and then as a kind of post 9/11 classic rock anthem of resolve that Petty himself sang for that odd telethon from an un announced bunker that week.
Smith agreed to give Petty and his co-writer Jeff Lynne credit as co-writers of the song and 12.5 percent of its royalties, in the same way the Stones offered a percentage and songwriting credit to k.d. lang when they realized their 1997 song “Anybody Seen My Baby” had been unintentionally lifted from her “Constant Craving.” Earworms are insidious like that.
Petty wasn’t around for the Grammys Sunday – his “Hypnotic Eye” lost best rock album to Beck, who also won the most surprising bigger award, the overall album of the year for his subtle and carefully orchestrated “Morning Phase” (the win was so strange it prompted Kanye West to reprise his storming the stage tactic he used in 2009 against Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards – all in jest, it could seem, but later he stated that yes, Beck should give his award to Beyonce).
Like so many Grammy winners of the past, Beck’s album sounded safest among its pack (especially in the rock category). The byword for Grammy winner is for academy members picking someone they would feel comfortable hiring as a babysitter. So, Sam Smith yes; Sia no.
Sia had succeeded her quite recent art project of hiding her face (earlier in her career she was happy to fill an album cover with her smiling countenance) by hiding under an oversized Warhol wig outside; and turning to the wall when singing her “chandelier,” done on stage in an artsy performance by Maddie Ziegler, a 12-year-old “Dance Moms” grad, turned into a joke with Kristen Wiig in a second, er, wig.
If Petty wasn’t around to loom around Smith, the unsung “Won’t Back Down” co-writer Jeff Lynne was there. Indeed, it may have been another reason why he got to play with a group that had what sounded like a legally cobbled together title: “Jeff Lynne’s ELO” to play a couple of the old Electric Light Orchestra hits, one of which they were accompanied by Ed Sheeran, who didn’t seem to be a particular fan previously.
In general, there were way, way too many performances Sunday. The number of them could have been cut by two thirds and it would have seemed a more balanced awards show. Not only were very few of them the kind of performances they kept promising we’d “be talking about the next day” they hardly seemed worth putting on at all, they had so little to do with the awards at hand.
Madonna’s new album isn’t out; AC/DC’s wasn’t nominated; the big Kanye West/Rhianna/Paul McCartney trio seemed to fall flat because McCartney was entirely inaudible. West’s other song (other Song! He did two!) was terrible.
Beyonce was the supposed queen of the night but didn’t sing anything from her album, but rather the whipped up sentiment from Thomas Dorsey’s “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” of the caliber that that any good church singer would muster.
It followed a performance by John Legend and Common that will also be repeated at the Oscars – their theme from “Selma” that makes people feel good about what they’ve been ignoring for 50 years (snubs to Sam Cooke, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Marvin Gaye, etc.).
The social commentary inserted into the Grammys seemed manufactured as if to raise their grafitas. Ballads dominated the night, as if to exude a national blue mood. Even Pharrell’s “Happy” began with ominous strings and minor keys.
The recorded Obama statement against violence to women seemed to ignore that Chris Brown was among the nominees of the night. The kabuki performance that followed from Katy Perry served mostly to contrast against her Super Bowl excesses a week earlier.
While none of the winners had anything of social import to say in their exceedingly short thank you speeches, Prince did get to say, in referring to albums during his presentation – “like books and black lives, they matter.”
The Grammys, it would seem, increasingly do not.