My Unauthorized Grammys Post

I previously mentioned that I applied for virtual media credentials for the Grammy Awards. My application was denied. So instead of reading quotes or watching videos from my interactions (or more likely other people's interactions) with the winners and nominees, you're going to get my thoughts and observations of Sunday's ceremonies.

I would like to know the ticket protocol for Grammy nominees. My assumption is that each nominee gets to bring a +1. There’s probably also some type of fine print that children under a certain age are not permitted. In looking at the audience, Beyoncé brought her husband Jay-Z and their oldest child. Alicia Keys brought her husband Swizz Beatz and their two kids. Shakira brought her two sons. Of course, the people I just mentioned are some of the most famous people on this planet. Mark Guiliana got nominated for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album. Mark is obviously an extremely talented musician, but I know nothing about him or his personal life. I randomly picked his name for this hypothetical. Let's say that Mark has a significant other and a 5 year old daughter. Could he have brought them both? Only his partner? This is something I might have learned with media credentials!

Okay, let’s get to the show and the awards.

I feel like Chappell Roan puts on heavy make-up going for a David Bowie look. That's a good thing. There should be more David Bowies in this world.

The Rolling Stones won for Best Rock Album. This Grammy is exactly what the band needs to kick off their career. I see big things in their future!

Before or after a commercial break, comedian Jim Gaffigan had the microphone and said something about Trevor Noah getting traded to the Dallas Mavericks. This was a safe and timely joke about a blockbuster NBA trade. I actually thought he might go with a foreigner taking a job or something about immigration that would have been much more risky.

Anthony Kiedis of Red Hot Chili Peppers has to dye his hair and facial hair, right? Dude is 62 with no gray whatsoever.

Sabrina Carpenter sang Espresso and seems like she has a really good sense of humor based on the vaudeville-style performance. Espresso is a really fun song too, though she also included a portion of her song Please, Please, Please which is a huge step down in my opinion.

To paraphrase Shaq, while I knew the name Doechii, I need to apologize for not being familiar with her work. 

Best performance of the night. I had trouble posting the entire performance, but here's a link in case you missed it or want to see it again. Entertainment Tonight only shows a small part of it.

Since many of my posts have Pittsburgh references, congratulations to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on winning the Grammy for the Best Engineered Album, Classical.

Since many of my posts have Ithaca College references, congratulations to 1979 Ithaca College alumnus Elaine Martone on winning the Grammy for Producer of the Year, Classical.

While I don’t think Jelly Roll was in attendance, I hope that he, Post Malone, and Teddy Swims are on a text chain where they just discuss facial tattoos.

Buzz Aldrin was in a Verizon commercial that aired early during the show. A reminder that Buzz Aldrin is the perfect person to be in a commercial during a music awards ceremony.

I enjoyed that Best New Artist medley though I admit that I was surprised that Kajagoogoo was nominated in this category. "Too Shy" must be 30 years old. (Since I probably won't understand this reference when I look at this post next year, Khruangbin earned a Best New Artist nomination. I know more Kajagoogoo songs, and I already named it.)

Are we done with Benson Boone yet? He just comes off as whiny in Beautiful Things. I guess he could make a decent living being a Paul Skenes impersonator.

Overall, I liked the show. I think there was a nice balance of celebrating the music industry while acknowledging and supporting Los Angeles after the devastating wildfires. I'm glad that Beyonce finally won Album of the Year, and Kendrick Lamar's Not Like Us was unavoidable and a massive hit.

Looking forward to covering the event next year!

Chappell Roan photo by Kevin Winter/Getty; RHCP picture from Instagram's RedHotChiliPeppersClubMexico page; Benson Boone photo by Gilbert Flores/Billboard via Getty.

Spelling Words in Songs

I recently submitted an application for virtual media access to the 67th annual Grammy Awards in February 2025. Unfortunately, the Sean's Ramblings budget does not allow me to travel to and attend the red carpet and ceremony in Los Angeles (assuming that I get accepted), but I think it would be fun to cover the Grammy Awards remotely and provide interesting and informative information to you. To demonstrate my music credentials to the Recording Academy, I am writing this blog post to show a trend in music history maybe not known to many. And my finding/theory is this: 

Spelling a word in a song = H-I-T

Seems simple, right? Like A-B-C (though ABC isn't an actual word), easy as 1-2-3!

While I acknowledge that this is not an exhaustive review of every song with words spelled out, I think this is a pretty thorough list. The idea of this post/theory stemmed from the current Chappell Roan song, HOT TO GO! where the artist spells out H-O-T-T-O-G-O 14 times. It's a really catchy song and Target agreed by featuring it in a commercial. HOT TO GO reached #15 on the Billboard HOT 100 chart, but would easily have reached #1 if Billboard had a HOT TO GO 100 chart. Let's take a look at other songs that help make my argument.

Respect by Aretha Franklin

This is simply one of the greatest songs of all time. Not much more to write except that it went to #1 in 1967.

Saturday Night by Bay City Rollers

BCR (did anyone ever call them BCR?) just comes right out with a spelling lesson. It’s right there at the start of the song. S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night! Saturday Night hit the top spot in 1976.

Jump Jump by Kris Kross 

Two different words spelled in the same song. First, you have the D-A-double D-Y-M-A-C. (Yeah, you know me!) Later, either the Mack Daddy or the Daddy Mack spells out J-U-M-P. Next, wear your clothes backwards, and you get a 1992 #1 song.

Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani

You never realized how much fun it was/is to spell bananas until Gwen Stefani told us. This song was #1 in 2005, or nearly 20 years ago which is B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

U.N.I.T.Y by Queen Latifah

Although this song didn't reach the top 20 like the others above (#23 in 1995), this is Queen Latifah's biggest song and won a Grammy for best rap solo performance.

Gloria - Them

Until I started writing this post, I thought this was a Van Morrison song. Turns out, the song was released by Morrison's band Them in 1964. This is the rare song in this post that didn't chart very highly. Sort of. While Them's original Gloria only peaked at #75, a cover version released around the same time by The Shadows of Knight  reached #10. Patti Smith and The Doors both had their own versions of the song. This song received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award and made multiple greatest songs and rock songs of all time lists. While I can't prove it, I don't think this happens without Morrison spelling out G-L-O-R-I-A. (The audience shots in the video below are fantastic.) Thanks to Wikipedia for all of this information.

P.I.M.P. by 50 Cent

Let's go back to 2003. 50 Cent was the biggest artist in the country. His Get Rich or Die Tryin' album sold over 9 million copies. Although P.I.M.P. didn't reach the top spot like 50's first two singles from this album, it made it to #3. Not too shabby.

Safety Dance by Men Without Hats

After being told that you can dance if you want to, this song went to #3 in 1983. I also danced to this song with friends at an 80s dance party in college.

Fergalicious by Fergie featuring will.i.am

Glamorous by Fergie featuring Ludacris

While Fergie may not be a pioneer in spelling words in songs, if you had a spelling contest, she would be the bee champion. Fergie released these songs back-to-back with Fergalicious reaching #2 in January 2007 and Glamorous going to #1 in March of the same year. The former somewhat indirectly spells multiple words like the D-A- double D-Y-M-A-C did 15 years earlier. First, you have "T to the A, to the S-T-E-Y girl, you tasty" followed by D to the E, to the L-I-C-I-O-U-S. Glamorous has none of the "to the" in the middle of a word. That's probably why the latter went all the way to the top of the chart! 

First Class by Jack Harlow

Harlow sampled Glamorous in 2022 and kept the spelling of Fergie's title in his version. The result was another #1 song. 

Lola by The Kinks

Spelling out C-O-L-A and L-O-L-A is just brilliant. This song reached the top 10 by going to #9 in 1970.

R.O.C.K In the U.S.A. by John Mellencamp

#2 in 1986. Maybe this would have gone to #1 if Mellancamp went by John Cougar Mellencamp at the time.

Steal My Sunshine by Len

Although it’s not prominent, Len sneaks in the spelling of L-A-T-E-R early in the second verse. Steal My Sunshine went to #9 in the US in 1999 and is Len's only charting song.

Can’t Hold Us by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Ray Dalton

The winner of the longest spelled word goes to Macklemore for I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T.  No record label is going to sign him. He's not going to sell out! Can't Hold Us went to #1 in 2013 and was the most streamed song on Spotify that year.

O.P.P. by Naughty by Nature

Y.M.C.A. by Village People

Technically, these are abbreviations and not words. O is for other, P is for people. The last P , hmm, stands for property. This song reached #6 in 1991 and was played at every single homecoming dance in America that fall.

Not much to write about Y.M.C.A. Amazingly, it never reached #1 in the US, peaking at #2, though it went #1 in 15 other countries. If someone finds this blog in 100 years and looks through the songs in this post, this is the one that will still be known.

Finally, I'll give an honorable mention to Taylor Swift for her song Me with Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco where she says "Spelling is fun." I agree with Taylor (though apparently there was some controversy with this line), and spelling words in songs is a key to success!

Friday Video: Levitating

While this song has been out for a while now, I dig "Levitating" by Dua Lipa featuring DaBaby. 

They were great during the performance at the Grammys too. 

I'm half-way through my 30 blog posts in 30ish days challenge. Just curious, do you like these more frequent, but less detailed posts, or do you prefer the longer posts that come out once or twice a week?

Sean's 2017 Grammy Awards Recap

I promised that I wasn't going to write about the Grammys this year. I just didn't have the time. Then I started watching the ceremony, and this happened:

* Ed Sheeran performed his new song. The Weeknd performed his new song. Beyoncé had a new song(?)/spoken word performance that has never been seen before. Meanwhile, Adele opened the show by performing Hello, a song that has been out for well over a year.

* Do the Daft Punk guys ever get tired of wearing this outfit?

At some point, you'd think they would want to come out on stage wearing a T-shirt and jeans and maybe a Sia wig.

* I've head The Weeknd's new song on the radio a few times and really thought it was a new Michael Jackson song that was recorded before his death and only released now.

* If you were going up against David Bowie in any category, you knew you were going to lose, right?

* It's a good thing that Chance The Rapper has had a successful music career. It would be odd for him to answer phone calls and reply to e-mails as Chance The Rapper if he worked as an accountant or plumber. Of course, in that case, maybe he would change his name to Chance The Accountant or Chance The Plumber.

* 21 Pilots said that they watched the Grammys several years ago and pledged that they would accept a Grammy award in their underwear if they ever won. Is it common for groups of teenage/millennial males to sit around watching television in their underwear?

* My next door neighbor in college played Award Tour by A Tribe Called Quest all the time. It was great to hear the song (well part of the song) performed live.

* John Legend and Chrissy Teigen must have an amazing babysitter. They regularly appear at award shows and functions, and I doubt the baby travels with them.

* Meanwhile, apparently Jay-Z and Beyoncé couldn't find a babysitter on Sunday, so they just brought their daughter Blue Ivy to the Grammys. Personally, I would have loved for there have been a separate TV station simply showing Jay-Z and Blue Ivy (and Beyoncé though she was on stage or backstage for a significant part of the show). For example, let's see if Blue Ivy has a meltdown when she discovers that Jay-Z forgot to pack an applesauce. Or, what is Jay-Z's reaction when the kid asks for Goldfish but then decides that it's more fun to throw them instead of eat the snack? Are random people coming up to Blue Ivy telling her that she's cute? Jay-Z probably doesn't want random people coming up to his daughter.

* James Brown was known as the Hardest Working Man in Show Business. Someone needs to give Lady Gaga the Hardest Working Woman in Show Business title. After an impressive Super Bowl halftime show where she ran all over the stage, she had less than a week to prepare for a Grammy performance with Metallica.

* Compare that to the Carpool Karaoke bit. John Legend and Faith Hill clearly didn't know the words to Sweet Caroline. Practice for 10 minutes, particularly when you know you're going to sing with Neil Diamond!



And with that, goodbye from the other side.

Sunday Notes

Between the Grammy Awards and the Penguins and Pitt games, Sunday was a good television day. Here are my notes from yesterday:

- Can the Penguins and Pitt play every Sunday until April? This will help get over the lack of Sunday football games.

- Actually, after watching Pitt lose to both Seton Hall and South Florida, perhaps we’ll just stick with the Penguins playing on Sunday afternoon.

- There were not one, but two television commercials during the Penguins-Red Wings game featuring racecar driver Danica Patrick. Does she have a big following among hockey fans that I am unaware of?

- "Have you heard about McDonalds new $1 menu at breakfast?" Has this sentence every actually worked as a pick-up line?

- Sidney Crosby’s 2nd period and shoot-out goals were sweet.

- South Florida’s Dominique Jones is the best college basketball player you’ve never heard of. I may also be the best college basketball player you’re heard of.

- The Grammys were kind enough to let us vote for one of three Bon Jovi songs for the band to perform. I think there should have been a write-in vote to have them cover a Barry Manilow tune.

- I think I liked Beyonce covering Alanis’ You Oughta Know.

- Pink is a professional. How else can you explain her singing while twirling round and round while wet.

- Speaking of the Pink performance, are the Grammy Awards now like Sea World where the first three rows are the splash zone?

- When did Lady Antebellum get big? I saw them perform during halftime of a Steelers game a few years ago.

- Ke$ha and Justin Bieber are available to present at Bar Mitzvahs, corporate events, and weddings!



- Is Kanye banned from all award shows? He should have been on stage for actually winning for Run This Town with Jay-Z and Rihanna.

This was about the time that I went to sleep.

Live Grammy Awards Journal

Welcome to my live coverage (from my couch) of the 50th Grammy Awards. I will be writing about the Grammys throughout the evening or until I get bored or tired. Kanye West leads all artists with eight nominations and I expect him to get a few wins tonight. The big story of the evening will probably be Amy Winehouse, who has six nominations, but will not be in attendance since she was denied a visa.

This is usually about the time when I make predictions, but I really have no idea who will win. Seriously, who do you think will win Record of the Year between Beyonce (Irreplaceable); Foo Fighters (The Pretender); Justin Timberlake (What Goes Around…Comes Around); Amy Winehouse (Rehab); and Rihanna featuring Jay-Z (Umbrella)? You can probably make a case for any of these five. Actually, the bigger question is who does Jay-Z support for this award: himself or his girlfriend (they’re not married yet?) Beyonce?

In case you were wondering, Barack Obama has already won a Grammy today for the Best Spoken Word Album category. Obama defeated Maya Angelou, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Alan Alda. No offense to Alan Alda, who has won several Emmys and been nominated for an Oscar, but he really didn’t have a chance.

I’ll be back with updates later, but in the meantime, I leave you with this. 18-year-old Taylor Swift is up for Best New Artist. Swift may be best known for her single, "Teardrops on My Guitar," which features the line, "The only thing that keeps me wishing on a wishing star." Wishing on a wishing star? Who would use wishing, or a variation of wish or wishing, twice in the same sentence? The great Terence Trent Darby would never do such a thing.
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- I have to applaud CBS and the Grammys for a great get to open the show. I don’t know how they convinced Frank Sinatra to come out of, um, retirement, to perform.

- Alicia Keys had a nice little duet with Sinatra and then came out to welcome the crowd. Does the Grammys not have a host? Was Ellen DeGeneres not available? (I’m anti-Ellen at the moment. I stayed home from work on Thursday because I was sick and caught the beginning of her show. She opened by dancing around the audience, taking people’s purses along the way. Then, she went through people’s purses making fun of the contents. I decided right then that no matter how sick I felt Friday morning, I was going to work.)

- Before I forget, how many commercials do you think we’ll see tonight for the latest edition of Big Brother? I’ll guess at least three.

- Carrie Underwood had a nice performance of “Before He Cheats” with the people from Stomp (I think). She dedicated the song to Tony Romo. (This is completely untrue, but why not start a rumor.)

- Prince presented the Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. Prince is probably 50 by now, but he’s still cool and always will be. The winner: Alicia Keys, who looks very good tonight. However, I hope that this doesn’t start a trend of an artist performing and then winning the award while being on the side of the stage.

- Next performance, The Time, but part-way through the performance, out comes Rihanna. I really like "Please Don’t Stop the Music," but can do without "Umbrella." Now it’s The Time and Rihanna together. I never would have predicted that combination.

- Tom Hanks presents a lifetime Grammy Award to The Band. I put them at #12 in my list of the Top 25 greatest Canadian musicians (4/5 of the band is from Canada). Then, he quickly segues into this little band called The Beatles and Cirque de Soleil performs part of its show “Love.” It’s Tom Hanks! You didn’t expect him to introduce Plain White T’s, did you?

- I didn’t mention this before, but as always, feel free to share your own comments below. In addition, you can see who has already won awards at Grammy.com. It looks like very few awards are actually going to be presented on the air.
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- An actual award! Cyndi Lauper and Mylie Cyrus present the Best New Artist. Lauper gushes all over Cyrus saying something about Cyrus lassoing the moon and that we’ll see her in this category next year. In a surprise (not at all), Amy Winehouse wins.

- I’m going to pretend that the Jason Bateman thing didn’t happen. He looked a bit out of place.

- Back to performances. Kanye West was terrific with “Stronger” featuring Daft Punk and then received a standing ovation for “Hey Mama.” Fergie then sings her song “Finally” with John Legend.

- It’s only 9:00pm Eastern time, and I’m already tiring. If you’re looking for other TV options, a new episode of Rock of Love 2 is airing on VH1, Family Guy is on Fox (not sure if it’s new or not), and we’re part-way through Office Space on Comedy Central.
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- It’s Beyonce; then Tina Turner; then both of them together for “Proud Mary.” I have nothing witty to write except that seeing Turner perform reminds me of the New York Post’s (I believe) headline from a few months ago: “Ike Beats Tina to Death.” Keep on dancing Tina! Another standing ovation.

- Andy Williams? I’m amazed that the Grammys were able to get both him and Sinatra since they both, you know, are no longer with us. Oh wait, Andy Williams is really there with Nelly Furtado and someone else. I’m a terrible person for even writing this paragraph.

- Another Amy Winehouse win for Song of the Year. Everyone keeps mentioning that Winehouse will be around later performing live via satellite from London. It’s going to be after 2:00am in London by the time she performs. I hope she’s not taking Vivarin or something illegal to keep herself awake.

- Jason Bateman is again awkward introducing the Grammy moment winner. Fortunately, Foo Fighters are there with an excellent performance of “The Pretender” with the Grammy moment winner, an orchestra and John Paul Jones to bail him out.

- I don’t think Kristy Jo is going to make it through the end of tonight’s Rock of Love 2. She has been one of my favorites, but she’s having a rough time.
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- Kanye West wins Best Rap Album and says that if he doesn’t win Best Album, Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson (the producer) should win. In an unprecedented award show moment, he also gets the telecast to stop playing the music they play to get an artist off the stage to say something about his mother.

- Ludacris introduces Aretha Franklin as the Queen of Soul. When Beyonce introduced Tina Turner earlier tonight, she called her “The Queen.” No offense to Tina Turner (I’ve written this way too many times tonight), who I think is an amazing artist, but Aretha is the queen.

- Kristy Jo is staying since another girl decided to go; however, it turns out that the other girl was going to be sent home anyway. Why do I watch this crap?

- Back to the Grammys, another Canadian, Feist, is on stage. It may be too soon to add her to the list of top Canadian performers, but she at least gets an honorable mention.

- I am getting sleepy.

- Kid Rock and Keely Smith sing together? That’s even more random than The Time and Rihanna. They then present the Best Rock Album to Foo Fighters. I’m pretty sure that Dave Grohl kissed Keely Smith on the lips.
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- Alicia Keys is not the queen. Stevie Wonder calls her incomparable. By the way, how many times is Keys going to perform tonight? Is this like a few years ago when Justin Timberlake seemed to be on stage for the entire show? Is Timberlake even there tonight?

- Ringo Starr and Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics come out to say that “my country send me to United States to make movie-film. Please, come and see my film. If it not success, I will be execute.” Actually, Ringo says that he likes country music. Vince Gill wins something, makes a joke that involves Kanye (I missed it) and gets a laugh from the crowd and Kanye.

- I zoned out for a few minutes, but Rihanna won something, and now Cuba Gooding Jr. is live in London to introduce Amy Winehouse.

- Amy Winehouse performs and then wins Record of the Year. She thanked a few people, including her parents, but not her husband. Is he still in jail?

I'm done. Congratulations and thank you to everyone who made it this far!

Update 2/11 @ 7:00am: Here's a recap of the Grammys from Yahoo. Apparently, Winehouse did thank her jailed husband, but I missed it.

Election Day Suggestions Needed

I am compiling a list of free or discounted activities for Tuesday’s “Potomac Primary” that I will publish on Monday morning and am looking for suggestions. For example, California Tortilla is giving customers a free taco to anyone wearing an "I Voted" sticker. Are there other restaurants or businesses that have similar promotions? In addition, I want to include election night parties, and while I have found events on Tuesday night for Barack Obama and John McCain, I have had no success in finding parties for any other candidates. (Where are the Fred Thompson and Joe Biden parties? They are both on the ballot!) If you know of any events in the DC area, please leave the details in the comments or e-mail me at seanramblings at yahoo [dot] com. As I mentioned, I will publish this list on Monday morning.

I’ll be back Sunday night for a live blog of the 50th Grammy Awards!