Anticipation is apparently the next big thing. 

How else to explain “The Grammy Nominations Concert Live!! – Countdown to Music’s Biggest Night”  which is about to start in a few minutes on CBS.

A whole one hour prime-time TV special devoted to announcing THE NOMINATIONS for awards that won’t actually be given out until Feb. 10? What’s next? A special to announce the Hollywood stars who MAY be making movies next year? 

The show won’t be just the nominations of course, it’ll mostly be performances, including some by  Dierks Bentley, Luke Bryan, Fun., Hunter Hayes, Maroon 5……….

We could go on and on but that might ruin the anticipation. 

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10:05 p.m. 

Interesting how the Grammy nomination show is showing 1973 footage of Johnny Cash, since he sort of stuck up his middle finger at the music industry for much of his life. Now The Band Perry is doing “Jackson” so everything’s O.K. 

Good music conquers all. 

 

10:12 p.m.

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Twelve minutes in and they’ve done one whole category, Pop Vocal. Good thing the actual awards aren’t until February.

 

10:15 p.m. 

MAINE ALERT: One of the nominees for Pop Vocal Album was Fun. Those guys played the State Theatre about a month ago, doing a fundraiser for the same sex marriage effort. I’m not saying that’s why it passed on Election Day, I’m just saying…..

 

10:23 p.m.

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Fun. again. This time nominated for Record of the Year, “We Are Young.” But there’s a Taylor Swift song in the nominees list too.

Now Roger Daltrey is on stage with his bare chest showing. He looks good and all, but I prefer my senior citizen rock gods to be all shirted up when performing. It’s just safer.  

 

 10:30 p.m. 

MAINE ALERT: Country youngster Hunter Hayes was just nominated for Best New Artist. I’ll give you one guess where his self-titled debut album was mastered?

That’s right, Portland’s own Gateway Mastering, the center of the mastering universe. I’m not kidding, everyone from the Stones to Springsteen to Clapton to Carrie Underwood has their recordings mastered there.

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The work is done either by Bob Ludwig or Adam Ayan, mastering engineers supreme. Some years the two together have worked on 30 or more Grammy nominated recordings in one year. 

Mastering is the final tweaking of the sound on a recording, and it takes a sharp ear. The Hunter Hayes record was mastered by Ayan, but I’m sure we’ll see some nominees that were helped out by Ludwig too, before this show is over.

 

 10:38 p.m. 

Didn’t know this was the Fun. show. Now they’re singing “We Are Young.” There are 81 Grammy categories and so far they’ve anounced only  a half dozen, so maybe they ought to change this song to “While We’re Young, Already.”  

 

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10:53 p.m.

Country Solo Performance category was just announced, and score two more for Gateway Mastering in Portland: Both Hunter Hayes and Carrie Underwood got nods. 

10:55 p.m. 

Album of the Year at least has two groups that played Portland this year, Mumford & Sons and Fun., of course. 

That’s a wrap. Taylor Swift just told us to go to Grammy.com to see all the nominees, most of which did not make this show in any form. Or you could wait til just before the February ceremony to check out the list. 

That way, you’ll have a lot more anticipation, don’t you think? 

 


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