The 50th annual Grammys aired with fewer boring acceptance speeches than usual—and seemingly fewer awards than usual. Most of the awards from the show’s 110 categories are not presented as part of the television broadcast.

This is a good thing, since among the many riveting categories are Best Polka Album, Best Album Notes, and Best Surround Sound Album.

How about Biggest Yawn?

Too bad the Best Spoken Word award wasn’t televised—it would’ve been nice to see nominee Bill Clinton’s reaction to Barack Obama’s win for his book The Audacity of Hope.

Instead, the broadcast was filled with live performances and half-hearted tributes to artists who have died in the past year.

Posthumous lifetime achievement awards were bestowed upon artists whose stature was probably meant to lend some sort of credibility to this event’s relentless ode to disposable pop and artistic superficiality. It was insulting to the memory of the great artists.

While Luciano Pavorati got a big send off from Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban, other notables such as Ike Turner, Porter Wagoner and Oscar Peterson were brushed aside with a quick slideshow.

The Grammys were wrong not to offer a bigger tribute to these artists, including Ike Turner. A pioneering guitarist and producer, Turner was given something of an anti-tribute by the Grammys who organized a big, boring number featuring Tina Turner and wannabe Beyonce while failing to give more than a passing nod to Ike. Granted, he and Tina had a famously rocky relationship and he was a known drug addict, his contribution to the music world is huge and undeniable.

And, afterall, Amy Winehouse has a troubled history at her young age, included criminal charges and drug issues, and that didn’t stop the Grammys from honoring her in grand style.

Aside from the limp tributes, the show featured a pompous performance from a shaky Foo Fighters complete with orchestral intro and interlude.

Alicia Keys was some sort of shiny disco disaster, a wash of dead guitars, cracked vocals and cheesy keyboards culminating in an anticlimactic climax featuring a typically soulless guitar solo from John Mayer.

Winehouse performed “Rehab” via satellite from London after being denied a visa to enter the US. Though far from amazing, her slightly woozy performance was easily the night’s best, while a blander than bland performance of the awful song “Ticks” from cringe-inducing country singer Brad Paisley may have been the worst.
Well, Feist and her calculatingly cute “1234” was pretty terrible too. The world needs another Cat Power/Bjork about as much as it needs another lame awards show.

The big surprise of the night was that the Album of the Year award didn’t go to a favorite like Amy Winehouse, Kanye West, Foo Fighters or Vince Gill—it went to 67-year-old jazz pianist Herbie Hancock for his album River: The Joni Letters. With a career that includes work with Miles Davis, and an album featuring Tina Turner, Norah Jones and Joni Mitchell, it’s likely that he was the most deserving nominee, although most viewers were probably left mumbling, “Who the heck is Herbie Hancock?”
While he didn’t win the big Album of the Year prize, Kanye West won several awards (presumably not for his questionable LED jacket and Soulja Boy sunglasses), talked too much and insisted on speaking directly to his mother, who he seemed to believe was in heaven watching the Grammys and telling him to become the biggest artist in the world.

It was sweet enough, but in heaven, you probably don’t have to watch boring awards shows like the Grammys—that’s why it’s heaven.