The 2020 Grammys: How Much Weight Can One Awards Show Carry?

Ann Powers: Here we are, Rodney, to talk about one of the weirdest, most emotionally fraught and repressed, most resistance-fueled yet frequently deluded awards shows I can recall seeing in recent years: the 2020 Grammy Awards. Let's start with Lizzo, not quite the spirit of the night that I expected her to be. "This is the beginning of making music that moves people again," the flute-wielding dynamo exclaimed when picking up an early statue, the only one she took during the televised performance. (She claimed three in total). To me, that sounded like an affirmation: say it enough, positive thinkers, and it will come true, despite the urgent allegations of financial, electoral and personal impropriety that have overtaken Grammy presenting organization the Recording Academy in the past few weeks. Behind every powerhouse ballad, frenetic dance number and fiery rock or hip hop jam was the knowledge that like the set for Gary Clark, Jr.'s monster performance of his anti-racist power anthem "This Land," the Academy's house is on fire.

Could music heal unmanageable grief, as Alicia Keys nearly prayed at evening's start, mourning Kobe Bryant, whose presence (and jersey) loomed over the crowd in Staples Center, full of L.A.-based celebs who might have counted the fallen athlete among their friends? Might it both express and ameliorate rage at the longtime exploitation of artist, now exposed yet again? I think the answer this evening was: sometimes, explosively; and then not at all; and then, for a few remarkable moments, sustainably. For me this evening was a lot like showbiz itself — unpredictable, hokey, sometimes deeply moving and sometimes just plain wrong.