People, places and what triggers you to make faces

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

The Lady's Gone Ga-Ga

Watching Adele beat Beyonce three times made you think FAKE GRAMMYS! Beyonce is an outofthebox performer, she thinks, conceptualises and then uses costume and dance and vocals to give you an experience you never forget. Adele has a good voice but she is unremarkable, and then she messes up not one but two Grammy Live shows; one is forgivable, two is just being careless (much like second marriages).
Then there was Lady G. What in the world has happened to her? She was pure pop entertainment at one point, now she's wearing pink hats because she was "wearing a hat in the bathtub when she was writing" her Joanne album, or wearing nothing and singing with Metallica, unintelligibly. She's done things to her face - no, she was not born that way - and is trying too hard to be Real. That was when she was singing Bad Romance, or was with Tony Bennett, or doing a Julie Andrews homage. Now she's becoming a caricature, trying to "find herself", (no doubt we'll bump into her at an ashram in Pondicherry soon), and it's embarrassing to watch.
Talking about Real, that was Gary Clark Jr and William Bell doing Born Under a Bad Sign, which was my anthem growing up and even more relevant, alas, today. No histrionics, no epilepsy-inducing light shows in the background, no wearing a boob-baring male equivalent for attention - an embellished jockstrap perhaps? - it was just great, cool music.
But my favourite of the night was James Corden. What an entrance. It's not just that he's funny, he's genuine when dealing with others. I can't tolerate the Jimmys and their talk shows; you can tell they want to be more memorable than their guests. Like journalists who try to be more on-the-page than the people they're interviewing. 
Ego is something you have to own very delicately: It can be the gift that never stops giving in terms of creativity, or you can be Lady G.