If you ever want to feel old, watch The Grammy Awards.
It was the usual mess of "Who is that?" and "I never heard of them", and "Will someone please tell Madonna nobody wants to see her 56 year old rump?".
Kayne West was at The Grammy Awards and you know what that means: soon The Grammy Awards became a part of a drama Kayne West plays out in his poor feeble brain.
After Beck won album of the year (yeah, I didn't know he had an album out either). West told the press that Beck needs to give his Grammy to Beyonce. Here are West's full comments.
"I just know that the Grammys, if they want real artists to keep coming back, they need to stop playing with us. We ain’t gonna play with them no more. “Flawless,” Beyoncé video. And Beck needs to respect artistry and he should have given his award to Beyoncé and at this point, we tired of it. Because what happens is when you keep on diminishing art and not respecting the craft and smacking people in the face after they deliver monumental feats of music, you’re disrespectful to inspiration. And we as musicians have to inspire people who go to work every day. And they listen to that Beyoncé album and they feel like it takes them to another place. Then they do this whole promotional event, that, you know, they’ll run the music over somebody’s speech, the artist, because they want a commercial advertising. Like no, we not playing with them no more. And by the way, I got my wife, I got my daughter, and I got my clothing line so I’m not going to do nothing to put my daughter at risk — but I am here to fight for creativity. That’s the reason why I didn’t say anything tonight. But y’all know what it meant when ‘Ye walked on the stage."
I will be happy to translate this for you. "Wah! Something I like didn't win. Wah!
As you can probably guess, I consider Kayne West to be a borderline mentally ill person who, at best, is a total narcissist. But others do not share my opinion.
Chris Richards of The Washington Post wrote an interesting if not bizarre piece about West reactions. In it he says, "And while many often hear West’s trash talk as nothing more than self-serving petulance (paging Mr. Manis), it’s always about issues greater than him." An issue greater than him: Beyonce.
Richards also says, "Don’t forget that West’s televised broadside against President George W. Bush’s mishandling of the fallout from Hurricane Katrina back in 2005 still stands as one of the most far-reaching gestures of social protest we’ve ever seen from a pop star."
Yes, let's not forgot when an entertainer accused the President of The United States of mishandling Hurricane Katrina not due to incompetence , but because the President hated people due to their skin color. It was one of the most far-reaching gestures of pure asininity we've ever seen from a pop star.
Another person who had something to say was our old pal, that Bard from Hibbing, Bob Dylan.
By the way, Bob has a new Bob album out called "Shadows In The Night" in which Bob sings songs that Frank Sinatra sang. (But not necessarily Frank Sinatra songs. Got it?).
I am a huge Bob fan and I consider Bob to be the best Bob ever. However, if you are not a Bob fan, I doubt you would like this album, even though, it is not as bad as it sounds. He enunciates his words, which if you know anything at all about Bob, that is a big deal.
The Grammys gave Bob an award for being Bob and, in return, Bob gave a ramblin, talkin' thirty minute Bob speech that was pretty much the capsule of his career. It was: brilliant, weird, funny, folksy, touching, and at times, down right mean. You can read it for yourself here: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-grammys-2015-transcript-of-bob-dylans-musicares-person-of-year-speech-20150207-story.html#page=2
He thanked Peter, Paul and Mary. He thanked Joan Baez, even though he dumped her and married a Playboy bunny. He gave some insight on how he wrote some of his greatest songs. For a moment, he seemed like our buddy Bob-that guy that couldn't sing but wrote such great songs.
Then he became Bad Bob. He criticized song writers of the past (Leiber and Stroller, who wrote "Hound Dog") and country music stars of the past (Merle Haggard). It was strange because a few years ago, Dylan toured with Haggard.
Where Bob crossed the line was his criticism of old Tom T. Hall. In his speech, Bob made it seem that Tom T. was this old fuddy-duddy country music singer. Actually, Tom T. was nothing of the sort. Hall wrote a lot of great songs like "Ballad of Forty Dollars", "The Year Clayton Delaney Died" and "Faster Horses".
His song, "I Love" drew most of Bob's ire, for some odd reason. In it, Hall says, " I love little baby ducks, old pick-up trucks, slow moving trains and rain". True, it's no "Ballad of A Thin Man", but it is a nice little song about nice little things.
If Bob doesn't like Tom T., that's really up to Bob, however Tom T.'s wife died a few weeks ago and getting such a harsh appraisal from the iconic song and dance man was thoughtless at best and cruel at worst.
What Kayne and Bob missed was an old truism: if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment