Museum exhibits and broken promises

Times staff writer Todd Martens blogged the Grammy ceremony throughout the night. Here are highlights:

7:49 p.m.: Record of the year: Amy Winehouse, “Rehab.” The singer is tearing up on the London satellite. She has her mom with her and gives a shout-out to her man Blake Fielder-Civil. “Incarcerated,” she notes.

8:04 p.m. The Josh Groban-Andrea Bocelli duet. And the Nielsen numbers begin to slide.

8:15 p.m. John Fogerty, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard. “Great Balls of Fire” is the centerpiece of this nostalgia convention, which felt like a museum exhibit. It’s almost 8:30, when this thing is supposed to end, and still no [Michael] Jackson tribute, which was teased in the commercial . . . but is anyone really surprised this didn’t happen?

8:25 p.m.: A commercial for Grammy.com just said “celebrate Grammys future” on the site. Ah, the website celebrates the future of rock so the show doesn’t have to.

8:29 p.m.: Did that really just happen? Did Recording Academy voters really just seal the relevance of the Grammy Awards in a coffin and bury it for good? Is Kanye [West] not going to get up on stage and take that thing away from [Herbie Hancock]?

Hancock: “I’d like to thank the academy for courageously breaking the mold this time.”

For passing up the artist-of-the-moment for an industry favorite? That’s what the Grammys always do, sir.

--

Read more at his Extended Play blog at TheEnvelope.com.