David Alan Grier "It Ain't Necessarily So"

Yesterday, I mentioned the Comedy category at the Grammys.

Today, I'll point out two comedians who have Grammy nominations, but not for comedy.

David Alan Grier, of "In Living Color" fame, is a Yale trained actor, and has won great acclaim for his role in the recent revival of "Porgy And Bess."  Hear him sing a bit of "It Ain't Necessarily So," from the Grammy nominated Soundtrack in the Best Musical Theater Album category.

And Ellen Degeneres is up for Best Spoken Word Album, for her audiobook version of her book "Seriously, I'm Kidding."


Hear the song on Youtube.


Hear Ellen on Youtube.

Jimmy Fallon/Neil Young "Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air"

The thing that sets Jimmy Fallon's imitations above the rest, is that he can actually fool you for a second.

Watch once he gets the hat and wig on---he believably looks like Neil Young.  And his voice is shockingly close to Young's too.

And on top of getting the look and the tone down, he nails the delivery too.  To a casual ear, it does sound just like Neil Young.

Fallon's album "Blow Your Pants Off" is up for a Grammy this weekend, in the Best Comedy Album category.

PS. Make sure you watch the video to the end, as he tells a funny/cute Neil Young story.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Esperanza Spalding "Radio Song"

Let's start with 4 sentences of history.

The format mvyradio plays is called Triple AAA, which coalesced as a format in the early nineties. There was a wide swath of great artists who didn't fit in with your local Adult Contemporary station, but weren't hard enough or hip enough or ironic enough or whatever, for your local Alternative station. Adult Album Alternative flourished because it gave a home to harder-to-categorize artists who---like Susan Tedeschi and Lyle Lovett, Jeff Buckley and Chris Isaak---might bridge a couple of genres or be deemed eclectic. It's hard to imagine, but those artists I just named were hard to find on the radio, circa 1994.

Since the early 90s, Triple A has evolved into a home for singer-songwriters and for alternative acts that a hip 40 year old can enjoy.

But it still can be a home for those uncategorizable artists, who are great, but don't really fit in anywhere.

How about Esperanza Spalding?

She is getting rave critical reviews, won a Grammy last year for Best New Artist and was a stunning presence when she performed at the Oscars this year.

But have you heard her on the radio? Anywhere?

Is it incumbent on a station like mvyradio, to give her a platform?

Theoretically, yes.

Check out "Radio Song." If you heard this on the station, would you say "What the hell?" or "Right on!"

(Note that this is the full 6-plus minute version. We would probably play the 3:30 radio edit, which is more concise and to the point.)


Hear the song on Youtube.


Hear Esperanza at The Oscars on Youtube.

Bon Iver "Holocene"

Another Weekend Post ahead of our Grammy coverage tonight.

Bon Iver is nominated for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album.

How deliciously awkward (and potentially hilarious) it will be, if he gets a televised win and acceptance speech?

Here's a quote from The New York Times, pre-nomination:

"I don't think the Bon Iver record is the kind of record that would get nominated for a Grammy — I would get up there and be like, 'This is for my parents, because they supported me,' because I know they would think it would be stupid of me not to go up there. But I kinda felt like going up there and being like: 'Everyone should go home, this is ridiculous. You should not be doing this. We should not be gathering in a big room and looking at each other and pretending this is important."

While he backed away slightly from the quote, after his nomination, he again raised an eyebrow or two, by turning down a chance to perform at this year's Grammy ceremony.

So if he wins a Grammy, will he reference the above? Will he be sheepish and funny? Will he follow through (see his second pull-quote, from the first linked article), and hector the audience?

I want to him to win, because his music deserves it. But I double-want it, to see some entertaining, awkward television.

mvyradio will cover the Grammys live on our Twitter feed, Sunday at 8pm.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Zooey Deschanel & M. Ward "So Long"

My kids love Winnie The Pooh.

In fact, my toddler, has only about 12 words at this point ("No," "Mine," "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad") and one of them is "Pooh."

So when we started seeing trailers for a new Winnie The Pooh movie, we were excited.

But what was the song in the trailer?

"Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane??? Why? Weird . . .

It's certainly not uncommon for a movie to appropriate a popular song to run under the trailer, even if it has nothing to do with the film.

But for a Disney/Pooh film? You'd think they would stick to original, Pooh-music.

I mean, can you imagine the trailer for "Beauty And The Beast," set to U2's "The Sweetest Thing" or something? No.

Thinking about it a bit, I did grasp the marketing ploy.

They were marketing to me, directly (and people like me).

It's not lost on me that the song came out in 2004, the same year I met my wife. And now, 7+ years later, we have two Pooh-loving kids.

How many other folks out there are like my wife and me, who have warm feeling about the time period this song evokes, and now have kids?

So I get it.

But still, couldn't they have created some original songs, featuring a talented contemporary songwriter, a la Carly Simon and her memorable work on earlier Pooh films?

My father-in-law (though, unlikely moved by the Keane song), saw the commercial and bought the DVD for the kids for Christmas.

And what a pleasant surprise to find out that there are several songs in the movie performed by Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward (usually known as She & Him, but here credited individually).

Again, they're probably marketing to my cohorts, but hell, it worked. The song is cute, but quirky enough to not be irritating.

Sweet like hunny . . .

"So Long" is a Grammy nominee for Best Song Written for Visual Media. Join mvyradio this Sunday, as we live cover the Grammys on our Twitter page.


Hear the song on Youtube.


See the trailer with the Keane song on Youtube.


Hear Carly Simon's take on Pooh on Youtube.

Tina Fey "A Mother's Prayer For Its Daughter"

My kid has hit this phase where she'll start giggling, getting silly, bouncy and she'll run out of the room.

Mere milliseconds later, seemingly to defy the laws of physics and time, she comes tearing back through the room, 100% naked, screaming, laughing hysterically, totally hoop-a-doop out-of-control.

And I smile, knowing that this is a phase that kids go through, and I'll miss it when it's gone.

Because it's a phase. Right?

There is that little corner of my brain (it's little, but loud) that whimpers, "God, I hope this is just a phase, not a sign that I will have a totally out-of-control hoop-a-doop about-to-be-nude-any-second teenage, one decade from now."

I think that's why this reading by Tina Fey has been making the internet rounds, among my parents-of-young-children peers.

It's not a song, but Tina Fey's audio book version of "Bossypants" is nominated for a Spoken Word Grammy.

She has my sympathetic, whimpering vote.

Join mvyradio this Sunday, as we live cover the Grammys on our Twitter page.


Hear the reading on Youtube.

Jeff Beck "20 Flight Rock"

Most nostaglia is a willful lie, no doubt.

Or at least the edges of a memory getting fuzzed out.

Any time someone goes on and on about the innocence of the 50s, of Eisenhower's America, of a gentler time, well, just play them this song.

"I'm too tired to rock." Right. Too tired to Rock.

And though this song is credited to a "Ned Fairchild," note that Ned was actually Nelda Fairchild. Yes, a woman wrote this ode to knocking boots on the top floor (or being too tired to do it).

Innocent, my ass.


The version in the video is Jeff Beck, performing with Brian Setzer in a tribute to Les Paul. Beck's record "Rock ‘N’ Roll Party Honoring Les Paul" is up for the Best Rock Album Grammy this Sunday. mvyradio will cover the Grammys live on our Twitter feed.

mvyradio's Winter Wishlist Auction ends tonight (2/8) at 8pm ET. Up for grabs is a guitar, autographed by Les Paul himself.


Hear the song on Youtube.


See the trailer on Youtube.

Steve Martin "Atheists Don't Have No Songs"

In the days before "Blog" was a word, the first radio station I worked for had a really beautiful website, that had a whole section devoted to articles that the staffers wrote, about music and culture and comedy and such.

I remember writing this piece about the incredibly diverse talents of Steve Martin.

Can't remember if I mentioned the banjo playing.

Martin is up for a Grammy in the Bluegrass category, against such perennial stalwarts of the genre as Del McCoury and Ralph Stanley, and maybe your first thought is, is this a joke? Does Martin really compare.

Well, yeah, you could listen to this song and call it a joke---because it IS frickin' hilarious.

But listen again, and ignore the words. Listen only to analyze the composition, the voice parts, the construction of the song.

It's actually a very impressive example of the genre.

So yeah, the song is jokey, but the nomination is no joke.


Hear the song on Youtube.

mvyradio will be watching The Grammys this Sunday, and tweeting our thoughts. Join us!

Booker T Jones "Representing Memphis"

Go ahead and listen to the song first, and as your listening, try to guess which Grammy category Booker T Jones is nominated in.

The song is "Representing Memphis" from Booker T's album "The Road From Memphis." This track features vocals by Sharon Jones and Matt Berninger of The National.


Hear the song on Youtube.

So, what category do you think this is in?

Hmm, well there's no "Soul" category.

Nope, nothing in the R&B field.

The Grammys don't really single out individual instruments, so no "Best Piano/Keyboard" or anything.

Stumped?

Here it is: This album is nominated for "Best Pop Instrumental Album."

Huh?

Yes, you may have noticed that there were some vocalists on this track, seemingly disqualifying it as an instrumental.

But there are some fun and funny rules in the Grammy world, and for "Instrumental Albums" the rules state that only "at least 51% playing time of newly recorded pop instrumental tracks." So even with a few tracks featuring vocalists, Booker T's mostly instrumental album qualifies in the category.

Tonight on The Hot Seat, I'll be doing an hour of weird, fun and offbeat nominees for this year's Grammys (which will be handed on out Sunday). Tune in tonight at 9 ET to hear from Tina Fey, Weird Al, Steve Martin and others. And go to mvyradio.com this Sunday, as we Live comment on the Grammys, on Twitter.

Esperanza Spalding "Little Fly"

There's a saying that goes: If you're not angry, you're not paying attention.

That seemed to be in play on Sunday night, when a gasp went up from the crowd at the Grammys, during the announcement of the Best New Artist Award.

The gaspers seemed to fall into two groups.

One group was angry. They were Beliebers, who had felt with dogmatic certainty that Justin Bieber would be crowned Best New Artist.

And the other group had not been paying attention, because the gasp was something along the lines of "Esperanza who?"

(There was a third group, known as People Who Knew About Esperanza Spalding Because They're Into Jazz, but that group contains so few people that it is statistically insignificant. "JK!" As a Bieber kid might say, or text)

The angry folks---like most folks who spend a lot of their time being angry and want to you be angry too---took the constructive path of threatening Grammy voters via Twitter, and changing Spalding's middle name to "Quesadilla" on Wikipedia.

The folks who were not paying attention said (somewhat inaudibly), "I should probably check her out or something . . ." their voice trailing off.

And as usual, the People Into Jazz just felt a little smug about their music taste. Zing! JK. Love you, PIJ's.



For those of you who weren't paying attention but want to catch up, here's some background

The Lonely Island “I’m On A Boat”

(As evidenced by my Monday post) My Rap Music knowledge is pretty well stuck back in the late 80s and early 90s.

At some point I just lost touch with the scene. Or lost interest.

Or it lost interest in me, is actually what I thought. I knew that rappers were not writing their songs for white, middle class 40-somethings. So I haven’t really been qualified to assess the Rap music scene.

And for that reason, I would dismiss the dismissive comments about Rap music, that I often hear from mvyradio listeners. People on the request line, and in emails to the station, will express their strong distaste for Hip-Hop. But they aren’t supposed to be the audience for Hip-Hop, so their judgement seems too subjective.

But what to do with information that is not subjective, that supports the claim that Rap music is completely devoid of musical value? That a once-creative, urgent, necessary, dynamic art form, had devolved into a crass, commercialized parody of itself?

How else do you explain the Lonely Island Grammy Nomination? And no, not for the Comedy category.

Lonely Island is a comedy troupe from New York, who’s members famously got absorbed by Saturday Night Live. A couple of members are SNL writers, and member Andy Samberg is a part of the cast. They are the team responsible for the Digital Shorts that have appeared on the program for the last couple of years. You may remember them from such classics as “Dick In A Box,” “Lazy Sunday” and “Jizz In My Pants.”

And now you can remember them as the 3 comedians (plus T-Pain) who are nominated in the “Best Rap/Sung Collaboration” next to Beyonce, Kanye West, Keri Hilson, Ne-Yo, Jay-Z, Rihanna, T.I. and Justin Timberlake.

Is this the state of Rap music? That a song, made explicitly so they could shoot a video that mocks the stupid, crass commercialism and conspicuous consumption of Rap music videos and lyrics, is actually held up as one of the best of the year.

How could an outsider not laugh with this video, and then laugh at what the genre holds in high regard?

Of course, now you have to see the video.

And you can hear clips of all the Grammy nominees in this category. See if you can spot which one is the joke.



Buy the intentionally funny album, here