Grammy Nomination Special: Random Thoughts

While "Sound Effects" was frantically sifting through the full nominee list of 110 categories last night, we're grateful to Michael Saunders for stepping up to the live-blog plate.

Here are a few thoughts that floated around the brain pan that didn't fit into today's more straightforward recap and analysis in the Globe.

The Smokey Robinson Approval Cam Was it just "SE" or did it seem like the producers cut to the Motown legend during every performance? Smokey seemed particularly impressed with Christina Aguilera. Maybe they just kept cutting to him because they, like "SE," were astonished by how youthful Robinson looks. Maybe the tears of a clown are actually a well-kept anti-aging secret?

Do those planes really fly? Is M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" actually eligible for "Song of the Year"? Don't get "SE" wrong, we dug the tune as much as the next person, when it came out...last summer. And thought it was great that it found mainstream success via "Pineapple Express." But we wondered how it made the cut since "Kala," the album from whence the song sprang, was released in Aug. 2007, outside the eligibility period of Sept. 30, 2007 to Oct. 1, 2008. The answer? The song itself was released as a single in Feb. 2008.

Thanks Corinne Bailey Rae! That's probably what Duffy, Estelle, and Adele should be doing today. Norah Jones may have opened the doors to the Starbucks light brigade, but Rae's tasteful coffee shop soul, not to mention Amy Winehouse's vintage stylings, helped raise the British profile.

Jonas Brothers Bend Space-Time Continuum? Anyone who tuned into NBC's "Christmas at Rockefeller Center" at 8 and then the Grammy show at 9 might've been impressed by the time travel skills of newly minted best new artist contenders the JoBros.

Where My Ladies At? Once again the Recording Academy felt like there weren't enough women to field a Best Female Rock Vocal category. And the Best Solo Rock Vocal category has only male nominees. Really? There wasn't one woman who cut one song who was worthy of inclusion? The nominees - Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Paul McCartney, John Mayer, and Neil Young- are no slouches, of course, but still.

Here's where the academy could've proven how it really is about rewarding creativity and quality by actually looking around to find some female rock singers worthy of celebration like Nicole Atkins, Jenny Lewis, or Joan Osborne. They could've rounded it out with veteran hands like Sheryl Crow and Melissa Etheridge who both released albums or singles within the eligibility period that offered, at the very least, one worthy track for contention. Sigh.