Oh Yes It's Grammys Night

    This past Sunday night were the Grammy awards.  I was afraid that the storms pounding the west coast would cause problems like they did for the NASCAR race, which I missed because I didn't know it had been moved up a day.  Anyway, the presentation came off as scheduled, and I really wasn't disappointed.  Last year, I felt underwhelmed with the ceremony.  I don't know if it was the selection of artists and songs weren't up to my liking, or that I didn't agree with the winners, or whatever.  I just really enjoyed myself this year.  It started with the Dua Lipa set.  I was at cross purposes about what she was going to perform.  Since her big nominated song wasn't going to be honored at the Oscars, I almost thought that she was going to sing it here instead.  Wrong.  She began with a tease of her next single "Training Season" on the secondary stage in the audience before transitioning to the main stage to belt out "Houdini," with just a few lyrics of "Dance the Night" sung by backups as she moving between the stages.  I honestly didn't think she had enough credentials to be allowed to perform new material.   The "Fast Car" duet between Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs was great, although Combs got shut out of every category.  In fact, men were shut out of all of the live categories.  While the producers aren't told who the winners will be, they do have good guesses based on experts.  I think that they deliberately chose to live present categories most likely to have women winning as a statement against the former president of the awards. (Only the four general categories are guaranteed to be live every year.  The other seven or so are based on multiple criteria.) That's why Laney Wilson was seen to accept for country album and not Chris Stapleton for solo country performance or song, both for "White Horse."  Then there was Miley Cyrus winning her first ever Grammy as the first presentation of the night.  Her exuberance and joy carried over to her performance of "Flowers," as she switched up some of the lyrics to reflect her mood.  I did catch that she did not thank her father, though in either of her acceptance speeches.  SZA came up with a mash up of her hits "Snooze" and "Kill Bill." It was a little busy, and I missed parts of it. In fact, most of the performances were great.  Even many of the ones in genres I don't like, I found to be pretty good.  The ones that most missed the mark were the Travis Scott rap, the U2 rock cutaway from The Sphere, and the first Billy Joel song.  The second one wasn't so bad.  What I did find weird were the choices played during the "In Memoriam" segment.  While all were appropriate and excellent, the choices were all also tied to others.  I would've liked at least one signature tune more closely tied to the featured artists.  The gospel revival rendition of "Lean on Me," though, was a surprise.  I didn't expect anything like that.  I must admit that I hadn't heard of many of the people presented, although I was able to read their names, something that doesn't always happens at every awards show.  Of course, the biggest shake ups were Taylor Swift announcing her new album and the return of Celine Dion to the stage to present the Album of the Year award to Swift.  After all of the gloom-and-doom clickbait articles that show up on my Facebook feed, I had been fearing the worse for her.  Anyway, I felt happier after watching this year's show compared to last year. Last year, the Grammys were heavy with disappointment.  This year, there was a lightness that I enjoyed.  Now, I hope it inspires me to make my puzzles next week.