Best Grammys Ever

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Paul Levinson

Location: New York City, New York, USA
Birthday: March 25

Title: Professor
Company: Fordham University

Bio: Paul Levinson's The Silk Code won the 2000 Locus Award for Best First Novel. He has since published Borrowed Tides (2001), The Consciousness Plague (2002), The Pixel Eye (2003), and The Plot To Save Socrates (2006). His science fiction and mystery short stories have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards. His eight nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997), Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003), and Cellphone (2004), have been the subject of major articles in the New York Times, Wired, the Christian Science Monitor, and have been translated into ten languages. New New Media, exploring how Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and blogging have changed our lives, was published in September 2009. Paul Levinson appears on "The O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "The CBS Evening News," the “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” (PBS), “Nightline” (ABC), and numerous national and international TV and radio programs. He reviews the best of television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog. Paul Levinson is Professor of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City

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FEBRUARY 13, 2012 3:30PM

Rate: 2 Flag

I don't remember any Grammy Award ceremony being better than last night's - and I've been watching every one of them since the 1960s.

Any one of the following would have been enough to make last night's Grammys extraordinary -

Paul McCartney's ending medley, joined about halfway by friends (including Joe Walsh and Bruce Springsteen), in full and fabulous form, leading right up to a great rendition of "The End"
The Beach Boys's "Good Vibrations" - with Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnson, and friends. Like McCartney's medley, this is an intricate, complex song and arrangement, to say the least, and the Beachboys and friends performed it just beautifully and memorably.
Glenn Campbell, also with a friends, in a poignant rendition of "Rhinestone Cowboy" - heartbreaking, really, since he's suffering from Alzheimer's (Tina and I met once years ago, after a performance he and Tanya Tucker gave in the Catskills)
Jennifer Hudson's powerful performance of Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" (written by Dolly Parton) - a wonderful, also heartbreaking tribute to Whitney Houston
Paul McCartney's "Valentine" - which sounds like the best song of this kind he's written since "Yesterday"
Bruce Springsteen's opening "We Take Care of Our Own" - with Stevie, Max, and the E-Street Band. Another blockbuster, which I hear tell has some Occupy Wall Street inspiration.

LL Cool J was also great as the host (I've gotten to know him on NCIS-LA). It's taken half a century, but the Grammys finally got it right.

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Sounds like a good show. I'm usually asleep when awards shows come on and I can't stand the speeches. It would be nice if there was somewhere to get just these bits to see.