9:55 p.m.: The Grammy Nominations Concert Live starts in a few minutes. Instead of announcing the nominations for the 55th Annual Grammy Awards at the crack of dawn, like any good awards show, the Grammys decided a few years ago to make the announcement into a special event…sort of a mini-Grammys with performances and big acts reeling off the names of a the nominees in a few select categories.
10:03: It can only go up from here. The show opens with the most cliched of cliches: that a black person can’t possibly be up on country music and know what a honky tonk is. That follows with Taylor Swift, or T-Swizzle, turning into a beat box while LL Cool J horribly sings a few lines of “Mean.” It’s going to be a long hour.
10:05: The Grammys have to go back a few decades to find a real legend: we switch to footage of Johnny Cash who is then honored by Dierks Bentley and The Band Perry, who duet on “Jackson.” Better that than “Ring of Fire,” but sometimes an homage just feels like a pale imitation.
10:08: Country cutie Hunter Hayes performs a medley of the songs from the albums up for Pop Vocal Album (though no one actually announces the category). Kelly Clarkson’s “Stronger,” Florence & the Machine’s “Ceremonials,” fun.’s “Some Nights,” Maroon 5’s “Overexposed,” and Pink’s “The Truth About Love” are the nominees for Pop Vocal Album. Their joy at being nominated we’re sure mitigates the fact that Hayes completely butchered most of the songs.
10:15: Maroon 5 is performing a medley of all their hits they’ve had in the past year, which is considerable, especially given that the band was on the verge of extinction until Adam Levine’s stint on “The Voice” revived the band: “One More Night,” “Moves Like Jagger” (no Xtina) and “Daylight.” No “Payphone.”
10:21: “Lonely Boy,” The Black Keys; “Stronger,” Kelly Clarkson,” “We Are Young,” fun., “Somebody That I Used To Know,” Gotye, “Thinking About You,” Frank Ocean,” and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” Taylor Swift are the nominees for record of the year. In my predictions, I thought that “We Are Young” and “Somebody” weren’t eligible because they started being worked to radio prior to the Sept. 30 eligibility period, but that’s clearly not the case. That changes everything…
10: 23: I’m not sure why we have footage of the Who playing from their Nashville show earlier in the week as an outro, but we do. Maybe because it was their first concert in Nashville? Hard to believe, but true!
10:28: Luke Bryan performs “I Don’t Want This Night To End.” Perhaps in deference to the occasion, he’s not sporting his usual baseball cap. I have a friend who counts the number of times that Bryan switches his cap from forwards to backwards on concert. I think it’s about 2,439 times usually. It’s a smoke-plume, confetti-dropping energetic performance that they should have saved to close the show. He sounds a little flat, but it’s a good overall performance from a country performer who it’s been fun to watch get better and better.
10:31 Little Big Town is singing “Yesterday” in tribute to the Beatles who won best new artist. Why not “Afternoon Delight” for Starland Vocal Band? The nominees are Alabama Shakes, fun., Hunter Hayes, The Lumineers and Frank Ocean. That sound you hear? Ten million One Direction fans rushing to Twitter to denounce the horror of it all!
10:39: Fun, who already has three nominations tonight, is performing “We Are Young,” or as I like to call it, the Record of The Year. It will win and they will win best new artist. It’s a beautifully produced record and the performance tonight with Janelle Monae will garner them votes…even though it’s a little rough around the edges. Plus, just listen to Nate Ruess sing…
10:51: Ne-Yo brings down the house with “Let Me Love You (Until You Can Love Yourself).” Love him. Nominations for best country solo performance: “Home,” Dierks Bentley; “Springsteen,” Eric Church; “Cost of Livin’,” Ronnie Dunn, “Wanted,” Hunter Hays, Blake Shelton, “Over,” and Carrie Underwood’s “Blown Away.” What?
10:55: Album of the year nominees: “El Camino,””Black Keys, “Some Nights,” fun., “Babel,” Mumford & Sons, “Channel Orange,” Frank Ocean, and “Blunderbuss,” Jack White.
10:58: Maroon 5 close out the evening with “Payphone.” Off to look at the full list of nominations. Keep tuning in to Hitfix throughout the night as we dive deep into the nominations and who, besides One Direction, was snubbed, and who, like Fun. and Frank Ocean, are already big winners.