Grammy Awards: Awesome, Sad and Interesting

CLEVELAND - I decided to watch the Grammy Awards start to finish for the first time in many years last night due to my interest in the show's planned Michael Jackson tribute. When it was all said and done, I felt highly entertained and hopelessly sad.

But it was certainly time well spent.

As always, I was delighted at the outrageous and high eccentricities of Lady Gaga. Her costumes are intricate creations which epitomize her singularity. Of course, the get-ups make many people label her a whack job, but I love the fact that she marches to the beat of her own drum.

Just like Pink, only far more out of the box.

Pink has been impressing me a lot for the past couple years. Last night, she performed a trademark hanging-from-the-ceiling routine while singing her songs...but since she was clad in what appeared to be strategically placed white belts all over her otherwise "nude" body, the visual was far more enticing to me. Especially as she hung dripping wet upside down.

The Black Eyed Peas performed two great songs that really caught my ear, which was enough to give me a new appreciation of another out of the box star, will.i.am. Fergie was awesome as well.

Taylor Swift, the delightful young megastar was a big winner also, something that has become something of a habit for the singing sensation. What I always enjoy most about Swift is her genuine enthusiasm and appreciation for winning awards. She's humble and very grounded...in spite of the huge success she's been having.

Beyonce was another enormous winner and her costumes were very enticing as always. She's another humble superstar and exudes a very likeable charm.

The anticipated Michael Jackson tribute went off flawlessly as several elite musicians took to the stage and performed his environmentally conscious "Earth Song" while recorded MJ vocals assisted them. Smokey Robinson, Usher, Celine Dion, Jennifer Hudson and Carrie Underwood did an awesome job worthy of his iconic legacy. It was also grand seeing Lionel Richie announce the group and talk briefly of he and Michael's friendship. After the tribute, which featured an MJ short film broadcast in 3-D, his two oldest children took to the stage and accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award for him. Their words, so moving, mature and ultimately depressing earned a standing ovation and more than a few tears.

Especially from me.

I loved Bon Jovi performing as well as Green Day. Guitarist Slash tore it up as did Jamie Foxx and T-Pain in their "Blame it on the Alcohol" rendition. I also enjoyed a performance by the underappreciated Mary J. Blige.

In spite of major sound censoring, the evening's final performance was excellent. Eminem and Lil Wayne were joined onstage by Travis Barker for "Drop the World", then Drake for the hit "Forever." It was a rousing and tenacious effort that punctuated an evening filled with mixed emotions.

Maybe I'll watch next year too.

Jackson's 4 Awards Are An Appreciation Too Late

CLEVELAND - First off, I am absolutely thrilled that the great Michael Jackson won four awards at the 37th annual American Music Awards last night. But I am outraged that it took the man's death to occur for him to get properly appreciated.

That's disgusting.

Everyone knows that I adore and love Michael and always have, but this isn't a "fan rant" on my part. I'm just very upset that, prior to last night, Michael hadn't won an AMA in 20 freakin' years! Yes, he has now won a record 23 AMA's, but the four he posthumously won last night seemed to be too little too late in appreciation of the relentlessly vilified Jackson. Even the man who accepted his awards on his behalf, his brother Jermaine was a questionable choice. Jermaine is the man who so often defends and praises his legendary brother with great effusion, but he's also the guy that wrote, recorded and released a vitriolic diatribe in the form of a song against Michael in 1991.

Jerk.

Even though it is obvious that Michael's stunning death five months ago greatly influenced sentiment towards him in voting last night, it is also true that he genuinely deserved each of the awards he won. He'd been nominated for five, and won four, losing out to teen sensation Taylor Swift, who very deservedly won Artist of the Year. Swift, beauty that she is, accepted her award via satellite and was humble and thoughtful as she acknowledged Michael's iconic brilliance and lamented his loss saying, "we'll miss and love [him] forever."

Michael dominated the AMA's 25 years ago. That was the evening that he, flanked by Brooke Shields and Emmanuel Lewis won a record 8 awards for his steamrolling Thriller album. His fame and popularity were at an all-time high at that time, and he was still the world's most dominant and iconic entertainer when he won five years later. In the two decades since that last win in 1989, he became an oft-maligned, heavily criticized and mocked pariah. Dogged by two different child molestation allegations a decade apart and a rapidly changing visage, Jackson's superlative legacy absorbed massive destruction. As a result, he became a laughingstock to idiots the world over, though he still retained a great measure of his enormous mystique (especially abroad) and by the spring of 2009, he had planned a stunning comeback to the world of live performing.

When he died on June 25, 2009 as a result of a prescription drug overdose, it tore my world apart but predictably, it provoked and inspired global tributes and a re-evaluation of his legend. Even his hastily assembled film, "Michael Jackson's This is It" has received extensive critical acclaim. As far as I'm concerned, the world should have shown Michael this love while he was around to appreciate it.

This praise now just seems fake.