It was a very Vegas night at the Grammys, a glut of garish performances punctuated by a few token award presentations. The 50th annual ceremony took place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, but the atmosphere was all about the Strip. Let's just say that the night was not very rock 'n' roll, at least until late in the evening when Amy Winehouse sloppily, nervously, and absolutely compellingly delivered two songs via satellite from London.
Winehouse knew all eyes were on her, as they tend to be on celebrity train wrecks. With her addiction problems and legal issues, it has been the year of Amy, when it wasn't the year of Britney. And so she milked her moment on the stage, shimmying in her cocktail dress and singing from a place where sheepish meets sly. During "You Know I'm No Good," she slipped in a mention of her incarcerated husband, Blake Fielder-Civil. And she sang her signature song, "Rehab," with a few ironic smiles and finished it with a physical lurch. When she won record of the year, she and her massive head of Elvira hair were quite overcome.
Until that moment, the night was too slick and overdone. The Grammys are known for yoking together different artists, and the event started with a doozy, as Alicia Keys sang a duet of "Learnin' the Blues" with a video image of Frank Sinatra. Keys looked spectacular, in a green gown with mile-long eyelashes, and Sinatra looked pretty good for being, like, 100 years old, but still. No matter how classy these sampling-the-dead performances are supposed to be, they feel a little kitschy. And a lot creepy.
The abrasive white lights were blinking throughout the Time's first performance together in 15 years, and they continued as Rihanna came out to do just a tad of "Umbrella" with, of course, dancing umbrellas, ellas, ellas. The production, like that of "Before He Cheats" with Carrie Underwood in thigh-high boots, was so cheesy it made you crave a blackjack table.
The gaudy Vegas vibe reeled out of control when Cirque du Soleil forced us to envision the Beatles' "A Day in the Life" as a kind of freaky nightmare, with a lady on a rope and a VW Bug coming apart. Some classic songs are best left to our imaginations - although Ringo Starr and George Martin, who came to the stage to accept best soundtrack compilation for "Love," seemed to like it. They probably don't mind the royalties, either.
Tina Turner came out in a silver jumpsuit - a very tight and dazzlingly shiny suit - to sing a quickie medley of "What's Love Got to Do With It" and "Better Be Good to Me." Frankly, she looked too tinselly. She then sang the pants off Beyoncé in a duet of "Proud Mary." (Literally - Beyoncé was all bared legs.) Like so much nightclub entertainment, their little "Proud Mary" dance together was a little too choreographed, too rehearsed.
It's as though the Grammy producers were afraid to let the energy wane and open up for a single moment. The event felt as if it were taking place somewhere between Caesar's Palace and The Mirage, particularly when Cher came out to introduce Beyoncé and Turner in a dress that looked like some kind of flattened chandelier. By turning almost every performance into a fast-paced medley, performers such as Aretha Franklin got buried in the mix. The mash-up of Little Richard, John Fogerty, and Jerry Lee Lewis was more like a crash-up. Likewise, Kid Rock and Keely Smith.
Even Kanye West, who delivered a screaming version of "Stronger," channeled the neon Strip with electric glasses and jacket against a dark stage. Fortunately, West followed up with a really beautiful version of "Hey Mama," sung to his late mother, Donda. Looking down at the ground, the word "Mama" shaved into his hair, he evoked some real feeling in one of the night's few focused moments.
When West accepted the statue for best rap album, he once again paid homage to his mother, shaming the wrap-up music people into silence by saying, "It would be in good taste to stop the music."
When you watch an E! red carpet show, Grammy night is kind of like Oscar or Emmy night. The dresses twirl, the flattery flies, Debbie Matenopoulos makes you cringe. The biggest difference? Pop stars wear their sunglasses, and they don't fear color.
While Nelly Furtado, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Rihanna rocked bold blues, Fergie was mellow yellow and Natasha Bedingfield felt "very flowy," she said, in purple. Meanwhile, Keys seemed to own the carpet with the most regal looking Mohawk ever.
Praising Winehouse on the red carpet, Cyndi Lauper said, "This is rock and roll. We should not be conservative, we should not be safe." No hypocrite, Lauper sported a forest of bleached-blond anarchy atop her head.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. For more on TV, visit boston.com/ae/tv/blog/.
