Grammy Awards 2010: Live coverage of the nominations

The nominations for the 2010 Grammy Awards were unveiled tonight at downtown's Club Nokia -- just a few city blocks from the P&H HQ -- and we brought you live coverage beginning at 6 p.m. In addition to finding out just how many nominations Taylor Swift receives, the CBS special stood out as a coming-out party for Nick Jonas & the Administration.

The Grammy Awards are set for Jan. 31, 2010, at downtown's Staples Center, and Pop & Hiss already has a wish list for keeping the Grammys relevant throughout the upcoming decade. Stay tuned to this post for updates throughout the evening.

Quick thoughts: The Grammys returned to an old favorite, giving Beyonce a leading 10 nominations this year, including album, record and song of the year, all stemming from her 2008 release "I Am ... Sasha Fierce." Rising star Taylor Swift walked away with eight, also scoring noms in record, album and song.

Biggest surprise: Silver Lake's Silversun Pickups earned a best new artist nod for their sophomore effort, "Swoon." Released on local indie Dangerbird Records, the album was a breakthrough for the act, having debuted in the top 10.Though not the act's debut, such technicalities are meaningless to Grammy voters, and the act will compete with MGMT and the Ting Tings, two acts who released their debuts in early 2008, as well as R&B's Keri Hilson and country's Zac Brown Band.

Biggest snub: Where to begin? The 2010 Grammy nominations are a complete puzzler, and one has to wonder just where Recording Academy voters are discovering their music.

Locking Kanye West's "808s and Heartbreak" out of major categories is just the beginning. As far as Dave Matthews albums go, one can do far worse than "Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King," but that album's friendly light rock was not as inventive or challenging as "808s." Likewise Beyonce's "Sasha Fierce," which is less deserving of the R&B nod than Maxwell's "BLACKsummers' Night."

Voters also slept on Diane Birch, whose vintage soul is packed with tough topics and sharp melodies, an ideal best new artist candidate. Also missing is the Decemberists' orchestral prog-rock opus "The Crane Wife," a better pick for best alternative album than Depeche Mode's "Song of the Universe." 

And just where was Whitney Houston's "I Look to You"? Voters completely shunned one of the year's biggest comeback stories.

A list of nominees.

ANN POWERS: CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK: A big Grammy nomination: This show has got to go

Grammy countdown: A moment of Grammy levity, courtesy of 'The Simpsons'

A major industry and television event, the Grammy Awards go down just a few blocks away from us here at the Pop & Hiss HQ, leading to plenty of discussion and debate 'round these parts. Desperately, we want the Grammys' top categories to better reflect the year's top music, rather than just its top selling, and that always leads to some disappointment when the nominations are announced.

Around 7 tonight, the full list of 2010 Grammy nominees will be unveiled. Pop & Hiss will live blog the nomination concert, which starts at 6 p.m. here in Los Angeles (it is tape-delayed, and will air on CBS at 9 p.m.), and will offer analysis and reviews soon after.

But now, in an effort to downplay any expectations (Diane Birch! Phoenix!) we may have for this evening, we turn to "The Simpsons." Over the course of its 20-plus seasons, there are few pop-culture moments that the animated series hasn't been able to put in perspective, and the Grammys have not been spared.

-- Todd Martens

Susan Boyle a Thanksgiving sales treat, but Lady Gaga is also a winner

One of the biggest and most surprising music stories of 2009 has become a failed contestant on "Britain's Got Talent," as Susan Boyle shot to No. 1 on the U.S. pop charts and scored the highest-selling debut week of 2009. A TV-fueled sensation, Boyle's collection of pop standards, "I Dreamed a Dream," sold 701,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Equipped with a compelling rags-to-riches back story, Boyle became a reality TV sensation overseas, and a YouTube hit in America. Her orchestral-pop covers hit a holiday season sweet spot, with Boyle topping  Eminem's "Relapse" to score the best debut week of 2009. The rapper's return landed with 608,000 earlier this year.

Adam Lambert, the week's other TV-driven media craze, fared well, if not exactly landing with a blockbuster debut. His "For Your Entertainment" sold 198,000 copies in the days after his American Music Awards scandal. That's an OK number for an "American Idol" veteran these days, as this season's winner, Kris Allen, can attest, but falls below the expectations Billboard printed last week.

Allen's self-titled debut entered with 80,000 last week, and this week took a major dip. Allen seems to be heading straight to a future of Christmas tree lighting ceremonies and neighborhood parades faster than one can say David Archuleta. Allen went from No. 11 to No. 31 and sold 33,000 copies this week, giving him a two week total of 112,000 copies sold.

Boyle's impressive numbers aside, however, another winner for this sales week was pop star Lady Gaga.

Grammy countdown: How the awards can stay relevant

At the age of 52, the Grammy Awards are set in their ways. As the Oscars and the Emmys made dramatic changes to their galas, upping the number of nominees of major categories, the Grammys waved goodbye to polka. 

Changes to the Grammy Awards come slow. On Wednesday night, the Recording Academy will unveil the nominees for its Jan. 31 ceremony in an hour-long special on CBS. The telecast will play out like a mini-Grammy Awards, with performances from the Black Eyed Peas, Nick Jonas and Maxwell, among others. While awards won't be given out Wednesday night, not many are handed out at the actual gala either, with this year's show having been turned into a telecast that featured almost two dozen musical numbers.

The performance-heavy broadcast worked, and there's a reason CBS is interrupting its "Criminal Minds"/"CSI: NY" lineup Wednesday night. The 2009 Grammy telecast brought in 19.4 million viewers, up from 17.5 million in 2008, according to Nielsen Media Research. Last year's prime time Grammy nominee special didn't fare as well, bringing in closer to 7.5 million viewers, but it effectively turned the unveiling of nominations into an event.

Wednesday night's affair will be more intimate than last year's press conference-turned-concert. Tickets this time were not sold to the public, and while it's still taking place at downtown's L.A. Live complex, the Grammy nominee venue has been shifted from the 7,000-plus-seat Nokia Theatre to the more intimate 2,300-capacity Club Nokia.

Additionally, now that the Grammy Awards are a two-pronged television event, don't exactly expect them to suddenly get risky with the nominations. But the gala can't get comfortable, either, as it's reflecting a constantly shifting music industry, and the ratings bump for the 2009 awards was an anomaly rather than the norm.

So, how do the Grammys stay out in front? Pop & Hiss has answers.

Grammy countdown: Is there an M.I.A.-like surprise for record of the year?

M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" wasn't the obvious choice to be nominated for a major Grammy Award. The song, after all, uses a string of gun shots as one of its hooks. At a major award gala, one in which the Dixie Chicks were considered a surprisingly political nomination choice, it would be safe to assume that the revolutionary anthem "Paper Planes" would be sitting the kudos event out. 

Yet old man Grammy had a few surprises in store for its 2009 telecast, nominating M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" for record of the year, and embracing obscenity-per-second rapper Lil Wayne in its album of the year field. Ultimately, the more conservative choices won, but a step on the continued road to relevancy had been taken.

Can the Grammys maintain a bit of adventure when nominees are announced this Wednesday evening? Pop & Hiss has already handicapped the major album and new artist categories, and today turns the attention to the record of the year field. In a year that featured new singles from Green Day and U2, is there room for any new blood in Club Grammy? Read on.

The things we don't need to be reminded of department: Lady Gaga's Christmas song

A tweet from the Universal Music Group reminded us of this little Lady Gagy ditty.

Indeed, before she was playing to the art house crowd, Lady Gaga was conceptualizing what the holiday season might look and sound like if Hugh Hefner's girlfriends were to kick Mom and Dad out of the kitchen. There shall be no Christmas tradition safe from a sexual metaphor, and no holiday season cliche too obvious to touch (Santa, you and your R-rated laugh have been called out).

Or maybe it's simply the greatest holiday music parody since "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer"? The church organ, after all, is a nice touch.

It's a free download today on Amazon.com. Listen below, with headphones:

01 - Christmas Tree

-- Todd Martens

Photo: Getty Images

The holiday weekend's top shows: Japandroids, Dum Dum Girls

Although Thanksgiving isn't traditionally a rock 'n' roll holiday -- Beyonce's ABC television special notwithstanding -- there are a couple of strong music options over the next few days, at least for those who can escape the family duties.

Japandroids at the Echo. "Let's get to France," the duo of Brian King and David Prowse holler in "Wet Hair," kicking up a racket of guitar-and-drum noise. The pounding rhythms and distortion-drenched riffs may hint at a garage-punk anthem about escaping their Vancouver, Canada, homes for Europe, but it's really just youthful longing that permeates the songs of the Japandroids. What's in France? "French girls." Loud and fast, the Japandroids at times recall the early '90s with their low-fi, scuzzy-sounding anthems, but once one adjusts to the rush, there's brisk hooks and sharp one-liners to be found beneath the thundering notes. On "Heart Sweats," for instance, King yowls, "You're such a mess," through gritted teeth, all while the song threatens to devolve into one. But his put-downs are researched. "I should know; I used to date a stylist." The Echo, 1822 W. Sunset Blvd. Tickets are $10. 

Grammy countdown: The best new artist front-runners (Part 2)

Always one of the more controversial categories, best new artist remains, perhaps, the most difficult Grammy field to get just right. The vaguely defined category is open to interpretation.

Read the Grammy rules: "A new artist is defined as any performing artist who releases, during the eligibility year, the recording that first establishes the public identity of that artist as a performer." The "recording" in question doesn't have to be a full album, either. Witness alterna-rockers MGMT, which are on the ballot for the upcoming Grammy Awards, but released their "Oracular Spectacular" during last year's eligibility period.

Looking at the ballots for the 2010 Grammys, nominations for which will be announced next Wednesday, here's our second look at the front-runners for best new artist. On Tuesday, Pop & Hiss highlighted Diane Birch, the Zac Brown Band, MGMT, Laura Izibor and Wale. Pop & Hiss would love to see a Bat for Lashes or a Grizzly Bear sneak in, but they're not among the best bets to get nominated.

Who is? Read on.

The Adam Lambert brouhaha resulting in a sales winner

As evidenced by Miley Cyrus just a few months ago, a little controversy rarely hurts in the sales department. Adam Lambert is on track to beat retail expectations for his RCA release, "For Your Entertainment," according to early returns compiled by keeper-of-the-charts Billboard Magazine.

The artist appeared on the "The Early Show" this morning on CBS, noting that some of his more aggressive moves on his American Music Awards appearance weren't all rehearsed. "The song lyrically is sexual, and I was just performing the lyrics of my song," Lambert said. "I think in the future I will probably make a little bit more of an effort to stay consistent with what I do during rehearsal to what I do during the show. That's something I'm learning now, and that way if anyone has a problem with what I'm doing, it can be explored during rehearsal."

But all the chatter and debate isn't stopping people from picking up his first post-"American Idol" release. Billboard writes that "For Your Entertainment" should sell at least 225,000 copies when it debuts on next week's chart, and could possibly move more with post-Thanksgiving shoppers invading retailers. Lambert's promo tour continues tonight with an appearance on the "Late Show With David Letterman."

Grammy countdown: The best new artist front-runners (Part 1) [UPDATED]

Always one of the more controversial categories, best new artist remains, perhaps, the most difficult Grammy field to get just right. The vaguely defined category is open to interpretation.

Reads the Grammy rules: "A new artist is defined as any performing artist who releases, during the eligibility year, the recording that first establishes the public identity of that artist as a performer." The "recording" in question doesn't have to be a full album, either. Witness alterna-rockers MGMT, which are on the ballot for the upcoming Grammy Awards, but released their "Oracular Spectacular" during last year's eligibility period.

It's also the field, perhaps, most easy to criticize. For the 2009 awards, the Jonas Brothers managed to nab a best new artist nod, but the young Disney rockers had scored high-charting albums in prior eligibility periods. On the flip side, however, it's one of the few Grammy categories where there are bound to be genuine surprises. R&B newcomer Jazmine Sullivan was an artist who rode some late-year success straight to a nomination for the 2009 awards. 

Looking at the ballots for the 2010 Grammys, nominations for which will be announced next Wednesday, here's a look at the front-runners for best new artist. Pop & Hiss encourages comments, and please note this is only Part 1 of the best new artist run-down. Come back later this holiday week for Part 2.