The 50th Grammy Awards: Come back Hoobastank, all is forgiven!

If an award show falls in the forest, but there are no awards being given out, does it make a sound? And if it does make a sound, does that sound resemble the sound of a Chevy Malibu commercial?

I’m not kidding, folks. They gave out exactly 9 Grammys last night. That’s one award every 23 minutes. That’s only a little bit more than the number of Grammy Lifetime Achievement Awards given out, of which there were seven, which is one every 30 minutes. I believe that at some point this Grammy Award versus Lifetime Achievement Award matrix will become unstable and collapse, as everyone who has ever won a Grammy will also have simultaneously won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

These Lifetime Achievement Awards did not come with a video or audio retrospective either, it was all “hey, we’re giving so-and-so a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, here’s a picture of the dude, now let’s move on to Cher introducing Beyonce honoring Tina Turner.”

Beyonce, never one of my favorite people, did an interpretive dance that purported to honor the ballsy black women of music history, although because it was Beyonce, it came across more as a post-mortem on every bitch who deserves a Grammy less than she does.

Okay, I know I am hard on Beyonce. And I have decided to be nicer to her now that her thighs are larger than mine. Although I will admit that when she was twirling her head with Tina Turner during “Proud Mary,” I did say a teeny little prayer that it would be her wig that flew off first.

And how awesome was it that, just seconds after Prince gave out some award (the title of which I couldn’t hear because Prince is still doing the whole “I’m too special to speak at a volume that humans can hear”) to the endlessly boring Alicia Keyes, that the Grammys decided that it was time for everyone to get nostalgic for Morris Day and the Time, and brought them out to do “Jungle Love”?

(oh-ee-oh-ee-oh!)

I thought for sure that Prince would reappear on stage with Wendy and Lisa in tow, and they would re-stage the “Purple Rain” battle of the bands. By the way, am I the only one that rooted for Morris Day in that movie? Prince just always seemed like an asshole to me. A teeny, tiny little purple asshole.

Jason Bateman, the “host” of the Grammys, showed up for the first time at 8:35, and only then because they needed someone to shill for their lame-ass “My Grammy Moment” promotional stunt. Viewers had to vote for which orchestra musician would play with the Foo Fighters later in the show. Shockingly, the hot Asian chick won over the non-hot female cellist and the incredibly dorky violinist with the white boy 'fro. And I say “shockingly,” because the Grammys are about musical talent, friends, not crass commercial appeal.

Speaking of which, thank you Grammys, for letting me know how much Mary J. Blige loves her some Chevy Malibu!

Of course, there was Kanye, who gave other hip-hop artists some advice on how to win Grammys: don’t release your album the same year he does. Bang!

Ah, ya gotta love Kanye. This year it was all about his mama, who died several months ago after botched plastic surgery. Kanye had the word “mama” shaved into the back of his head. He succeeded in getting the director of the telecast to stop playing music under his acceptance speech for Best Rap Album by advising him that, seeing as how he was honoring his mother, it was in bad taste. Even I squirmed. Kanye even sang an only partially-cheesy song about his mom during his 5 minute slot, although he sang his hit song “Stronger” first, of course. Got to make sure they hear the hit first. Mama woulda wanted it that way.

Oh, and did anyone else notice that Kanye, besides cutting out the numerous swear words and the word “dyke” from the song “Stronger,” also self-censored the following line:

You know how long I've been on ya?
Since Prince was on Apollonia
Since OJ had Isotoners
Don’t act like I never told ya.

Network dudes, WTF? That’s a funny fucking line. Don’t be cutting out the funny lines from my Kanye, people. I’m not listening to Kanye because I can’t live without Steely Dan samples.

Some random observations:

This year the Grammys seemed to be heavy on the mash-ups of the standard rock song and the new, Grammy-approved pop song.So when Carrie Underwood came out in her huge teased blond hair that made her look, inadvertently, I’m pretty sure, like a 50-year-old Dallas divorcee, and sang her latest hit “Before He Cheats” as dancers wielded big sticks and danced some vaguely martial-artsy moves, I had half-convinced myself that Carl Douglas might suddenly appear and favor us with a little “Kung Fu Fighting.” Alas, it was not to be.

Ringo Starr should win an award for most gracefully aging pop star. He’s not bloated, he hasn’t had an embarrassing face lift, and his hair color does not look like one of those available from Kiwi brand shoe polish.

Speaking of embarrassing face lifts, Andy Williams’s cheek bones look like they could cut diamonds.

When Ringo handed Vince Gill his Country Music Album of the Year award, Vince turned to the mic and said “I just got an award handed to me by a Beatle!” Then he thought for a moment and said “Have you had that happen yet, Kanye?” Bang! Bang!

Brad Paisley has a paisley guitar. I hate that.

That strap holding up Aretha Franklin’s dress didn’t look nearly sufficient.

(Never has so little done so much.)

The “I should’ve stopped partying long enough to attend at least one rehearsal” moment of the evening goes to Kid Rock for his completely incomprehensible duet of “That Old Black Magic” with Keeley Smith.

When is Stevie Wonder going to hire someone honest enough to tell him that he looks ridiculous?

Oh, Amy Winehouse. I’m not sure I’m buying the whole “I’m absolutely dumbstruck by each and every award, bit of praise, or applause.” Do y’all think she’s for real? I love her to death for her talent, but I just get the sense from her that I’m being played a bit, you know? Like she’s all cute and wide-eyed and vunerable, and I just want to put my arms around her and take care of her, but then as soon as I leave the room I feel like she’d be going through my purse looking for cash and hard candy.

This was supposed to be the year of the new, re-tooled Grammys, the Grammys that “get it.” Unfortunately, to “get it,” you have to know what “it” is. And the Grammys most definitely do not know what “it” is. For example, here is what they thought “it” was last night in the category of Best Pop Performance – Duo or Group:

Bon Jovi

U2

Maroon 5

Daughtry

Maroon 5 won. Not that it matters exactly how you arrive at the degree of not "it” that it takes to make it to that list of nominees: whether it's that you’ve hung around too long, or that you’re tainted with American Idol-stank, or that your music is just simply awful. It matters not. You’re not "it,” and you’re getting a Grammy!

For those of you who crave old, outdated dish, read last year’s Grammy review.