Let us, like the great ALICIA KEYS, try to keep it positive. At least for the first couple hundred words. This was the year the GRAMMYS had to step up, and in a lot of ways they did. Shoutout to the awarding of the biggest prize at the 61st Grammy Awards to KACEY MUSGRAVES, and to a near sweep of the country and roots categories by two women, Musgraves and BRANDI CARLILE. (Please take note, country radio. Y'all are welcome to step up, too.) Shoutout to CARDI B becoming the first solo woman to win the Grammy for Best Rap Album and CHILDISH GAMBINO becoming the first rapper, period, to win the Song of the Year Grammy, a category that not even his biggest supporters thought he would or should win. It was a strange night. Childish Gambino's incendiary (and very good) "THIS IS AMERICA" also won Record of the Year, which was almost as improbable, and I await the think pieces on that. The RECORDING ACADEMY clearly wanted to say "we see you, women" and "we hear you, hip-hop," and it all but said exactly that, and it was good. America (or at least my TWITTER feed) says thank you. Carlile and H.E.R. set the STAPLES CENTER stage on fire with what seemed like career-making performances, and JANELLE MONÁE, CAMILA CABELLO (with J BALVIN, RICKY MARTIN and ARTURO SANDOVAL) and DOLLY PARTON (with a variety of guests trying to keep up with her), among others, kept that torch lit. Men onstage seemed few and far between. EMILY LAZAR became the first woman to win a Grammy for mastering. Apologies if this paragraph sounds like a list, but it's an important list, one that should be written in stone, remembered and repeated. And expanded on. A few times when women and rappers went off-script, the Grammy telecast, which was a bit of a mess as it was, suddenly became hard of hearing. Over the course of a nearly four-hour show, eight artists made acceptance speeches and the telecast rudely cut off four of them, including the two big end-of-night winners. The first victim was DRAKE, who showed up, surprisingly, to accept the award for Best Rap Song and was in the middle of a thoughtful and gracious speech about how award shows don't matter when the show inexplicably cut to commercial. Drake was the biggest star to step onto the Staples stage all night. He was allotted 75 seconds before he was gonged. Later, Best New Artist DUA LIPA made the show's only explicit reference to women stepping up and was rewarded with the night's second gong. She was immediately followed—you can't make this stuff up—by a five-and-a-half-minute segment honoring RECORDING ACADEMY president NEIL PORTNOW, the man who suggested a year ago that women need to "step up" after his own organization all but erased them from its own show. He could have stepped up himself by giving some of that time back. Or by saying "I'm sorry." Alicia Keys deserves an EMMY for holding a somewhat incoherent telecast together while proving an awards-show host can be all about love and positivity and playing JUICE WRLD and SCOTT JOPLIN songs on two pianos while not telling a single joke or making a single snarky remark and not come across as corny. Please bring her back. Maybe give her the OSCARS gig, too. And please rescue 21 SAVAGE, who was nominated for two Grammys but was absent for well-reported reasons. His collaborator POST MALONE wore a 21 Savage t-shirt while performing their nominated song without him, but covered it up with a jacket. Childish Gambino's co-producer LUDWIG GORANSSON finally uttered his name in the broadcast's fourth hour. He's one of yours, Recording Academy. Keep him in your heart, and in your telecasts... XXXTENTACION was pointedly left out of the Grammys' In Memoriam segment, as were PETE SHELLEY, VINNIE PAUL, REGGIE LUCAS, RANDY WESTON, JOSEPH JARMAN, CLYDIE KING, GLENN BRANCA and several others who deserved better. RIP to all of them... RIP also CADET, JIM DUNLOP SR. and RON HUTCHINSON... And hearts and hugs to LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM.
