Rockin' Trump

Bruce Springsteen made a powerful statement against Donald Trump and his dictatorial actions - you've already heard it, I won't repeat it - at a concert he performed in Manchester, England. 

To be honest, I would have preferred that he make that statement in Manchester, New Hampshire, not in a foreign locale, but as Trump got upset over it, it was worth it.

Trump is now threatening to investigate Springsteen, as well as pop stars like Taylor Swift, Beyoncé Knowles, and Paul Hewson, the artist familiarly known as  Bono . . . although, as an Irish national, Bono probably shouldn't be subjected to what is apparently the very, very long arm of the law.

Especially when he didn't participate in the 2024 presidential campaign, he being an Irish citizen and all.

Apparently, Trump believes that Springsteen's and Knowles' appearances at Harris campaign events and the appearances of other high-profile appearances of celebrities like Oprah Winfrey amounted to a "MAJOR AND ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION" (capital letters his), and that they were paid to appear.  In fact, they were not, and even if Harris had paid them, giving money to campaign supporters is perfectly legal, as is any campaign contribution Bruce or Beyoncé might have given the former future President.

Bruce . . . Beyoncé . . . Taylor Swift . . . They may all be singing the same song -  "Trump Is a Dictator" - but in the future, they may have to take the advice of Rubber Soul #14.

The Grammys: Yes, I Heard . . .

Okay, so Beyoncé now has more Grammys than anyone . . . thirty-two of them . . . more than Elvis, the Beatles, or Aretha . . .

And yes, disliking Beyoncé has been declared illegal, immoral and unlawful . . . and - anyone caught dislike Queen B will be placed under arrest and thrown in the dungeon. No kidding!  (Righto, sir!) 

Stop complaining - it could be worse.  There's another female dance-pop performer who goes by a single name with seven letters who could have won even more Grammys!  And besides, if winning a Grammy determined greatness, the Starland Vocal Band (Best New Artist Grammy winners for 1977) would be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame today.  

On the other hand, just when you think the Grammys have gone totally zonkers, just like that 😉 - Bonnie Raitt wins the Song of the Year award.  

Oh yeah, Harry Styles somehow became the first white man to win an Album of the Year Grammy in eight years. Like Beck, he beat out Beyoncé.  Guess they made sure Kanye West wouldn't be in the building . . . 

(The 2023 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominations?  Sorry, I can't be bothered to comment on that anymore . . .) 

2017 Grammy Update

Last week I wrote that I was relieved when Kanye West didn't jump out of nowhere to hijack Adele's acceptance speech for the Record of the Year Grammy with a protest on Beyoncé's behalf.  It turns out he was never at the ceremony.  He had threatened to boycott the Grammys if hip-hop/R&B performer Frank Ocean wasn't nominated for anything.  Ocean then declared that he didn't want to be nominated for any Grammys, neutralizing West's boycott threat, but West stayed home anyway.

Adele, of course, dedicated her wins to her Beyoncé, even saying that Madame Knowles-Carter should have won those same awards.  A friend of mine on Facebook said that this was because Adele didn't deserve to win them, and she knew it.

And I don't know why this person is a friend of mine.

I do know that some observers are suggesting that Beyoncé lost seven out of nine Grammy nominations because of racism - this suggestion being made at a time when hip-hop/R&B records dominate the music awards as much as the pop charts and when traditionalist rock bands can't even get arrested.  Perhaps racism had nothing to do with Beyoncé's losses.  Maybe she's just overrated and overexposed. 

All hateful comments from Beyoncé fans telling me what I can do with myself will be unpublished and deleted.  Kanye, you've been warned. :-p

Who Cares About the Grammys?

So how do I think the Grammys will turn out?  I don't give a twit.  Because rock and roll is pretty much left out of the major nominations, what with all the rappers and the popsters and the good ol' country boys dominating everything.  Here is the list of nominees for Album of the Year:

25, Adele
Purpose, Justin Bieber
Views, Drake
Lemonade, Beyoncé
A Sailor's Guide to Earth, Sturgill Simpson

Obviously, Adele is the only artist here that I'm interested in, and I would love to see her win this award.  But I know that Beyoncé is going to win it, if only because Kanye West will disrupt the ceremonies if she doesn't.  I say, give the award to her to shut him up.  And she'll probably win Best Urban Contemporary Album for the same LP as well.   But Beyoncé picking up the Album of the Year prize would be better than seeing the the Album of the Year Grammy to go Drake or . . . Justin Bieber?  How did he get in here?  If he wins, I hope Kanye does take the stage in protest.  As for Sturgill Simpson, I don't know much about him . . . I know he's a country singer, and he doesn't have a chance anyway.  Suffice to say that I am not a big fan of contemporary country.  

And here are the Record of the Year nominees:

"Formation," Beyoncé
"Work," Rihanna, Drake
"Hello," Adele
"7 Years," Lukas Graham
"Stressed Out," TWENTY ØNE PILØTS

Again, I'd root for Adele if I cared about these awards, but the other mononymic performers will be in a dead heat for this one.  As for Lukas Graham and TWENTY ØNE PILØTS . . . never heard of them.  Shows how much I know about current music when I listen to a college-indie station play current artists that don't sell a lot of records, assuming they sell any.   Beyoncé will likely get this Grammy too, over Rihanna and Drake.  And Beyoncé will likely win Song of the Year and Best Video for the same song.

If rock didn't have its own award categories, it wouldn't win any Grammys at all anymore.  But at least Beyoncé wouldn't be nominated for anything there, right? Wrong.  Her song "Don't Hurt Yourself" - considered a rock song because Jack White is featured on it - is up against "Joe" by the Alabama Shakes (at last! a current band I've heard of!) David Bowie's "Blackstar" and Disturbed's astonishing cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence."

And she'll probably win that too.

It's obvious, though, that, even if Queen Bey weren't a factor, hip-hop and electronic pop are in vogue and rock is so out.  Beck's Album of the Year win for Morning Phase may very well have been the last time a rock album won a Grammy award without having to be in its own special category.  Which means that even though Kanye West - who has a problem with rockers like Beck winning anything - isn't up for a lot of Grammys this year . . . even if he doesn't get an award tonight, he's already won.

Forget it, rock fans - our time is up.

Note to Beyoncé fans who think I'm putting her down and are ready to leave hateful comments telling me to go to hell and giving me directions . . . I never said Beyoncé is not a good performer.  I merely note that she's not a rocker.

"Ima Let You Finish"

I don't normally care for or about the MTV Music Video Awards, which is really the musical equivalent of the Clios. That is, promotional music videos are commercials. But even a musical curmudgeon like myself would have to feel compelled to comment on Kanye West's interruption of country singer Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for her award at the MTV shindig this past Sunday. West ruined what should have been a wonderful experience for Taylor Swift by interrupting her acceptance speech to declare his opinion that Beyoncé Knowles should have won that same award. Knowles herself expressed a look that was a combination of surprise and bewilderment, looking like she was laughing at West more than with him.

I don't profess to know what prompted West to pull such a stunt. After all, Taylor Swift winning an award instead of Beyoncé Knowles is not like poor people in New Orleans losing their homes to flooding. West was right to call out George Walker Bush four years ago, but expressing displeasure over an award recipient in the same manner was neither justified nor called for.

Knowles, to her credit, had Swift share the stage with her later in the ceremony, and even President Obama weighed in calling him a "jackass," which many found offensive. (So did I; he should have dropped the "jack.")

If you really wanted to find jackasses this past weekend, you only needed to look at Washington, where sixty thousand of them - although Glenn Beck insists there were over a million of them - demonstrated against Obama's health care reform proposals, virulently denouncing him as a fascist and accusing him of spending too much money and letting the government take over health care. Many of the signs and slogans were vicious and nasty, making clear references to Obama's race and national origin, continuously claiming he was born in Kenya. This is the culmination of numerous town hall meetings and public speeches (some of them Obama's) in which people carried guns.

This is all pretty unsettling. Because just as it was implied that Kayne West found it objectionable that a country and western singer would beat out a hip-hop/R&B diva for an award (Kanye West doesn't care about white people?), it's more than implied that these protesters really don't like the idea of a black man in the White House.

Kanye West is a clown. But these tea-party conservatives, egged on by folks like schizophrenic, egocentric paranoiac prima donna Glenn Beck are downright scary.