A taste of the 1980s Minneapolis Sound

February 10, 2008

Minnesota was in the house at Sunday's Grammys. In fact, Minnesota dominated the first 20 minutes. Prince presented the first prize, and then Jimmy Jam, chairman of the Recording Academy, started to give a speech, only to be interrupted by fellow members of the Time, Morris Day and Jerome Benton.

It was time for the Time's first performance in 18 years, an abbreviated rendition of "Jungle Love" (from "Purple Rain") that segued into the Time backing Rihanna, one of today's biggest stars, on "Umbrella" and "Please Don't Stop the Music."

Cool.

As it turned out, Prince was the only Minnesota resident to go home with a Grammy. Nominated for two trophies, Prince earned one, for "Future Baby Mama," a track on his "Planet Earth," honored as best male R&B vocal performance. It is his seventh Grammy.

The Minnesota Orchestra and music director Osmo Vänskä, nominated for best orchestral performance for Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, saw the trophy go to Leonard Slatkin, former Minnesota Orchestra Sommerfest artistic director, now with the Nashville Symphony, who landed three Grammys Sunday.

Minneapolis guitarist Brian Setzer missed out in the classical crossover category, as his "Wolfgang's Big Night Out" lost to Turtle Island Quartet's "A Love Supreme."

But Hopkins High School graduate Andrew Dawson practically couldn't miss in the best-rap-album category since he served as engineer on four of the five nominees. He merited a Grammy for his work on Kanye West's "Graduation."

Windom native and University of Minnesota graduate Maria Schneider, a celebrated New York jazz composer/conductor, captured her second Grammy, for best instrumental composition for "Cerulean Skies." However, she struck out for best large jazz ensemble recording.

JON BREAM

Prince: a thirty year career, One Oscar and seven Grammys

Alicia Keys: a six years and counting career and eleven Grammys

Amy Winehouse: A four years and counting career and five Grammys

Do I detect some type of imbalnce here?

please, "FBM" sucks rotten eggs.

Hi Anxiety! Great article... I see your city/state was all over the Grammy's this year

Prince: a thirty year career, One Oscar and seven Grammys

Alicia Keys: a six years and counting career and eleven Grammys

Amy Winehouse: A four years and counting career and Ten Crackpipes

Do I detect some type of imbalnce here?

UncleGrandpa said:

fixed

But good on P this song is a good one

Absolutely Fantastic!! Well done Prince

But.... why, oh why, OH WHY didn't we get to see Prince receiving this prestigious award?! He looked fab-u-lous! I had to stop myself from licking the screen and had to make do with shoving my fist into my mouth and squealing

The Time were brilliant - right up until Rhianna started sqwaking that fuckin umbrella song Now I have nothing against Rhianna, I quite like her (apart from the aforementioned 'fuckin umbrella song') but this collab just didn't work at all.

UncleGrandpa said:

Well, the competition back then was much more fierce.

Se7en said:

This is true. Funny that the talent is so lacking nowadays that shit like "My Humps" gets nominated for a Grammy. The Grammys are shit anyway. Remember, they gave one to Milli Vanilli back in the day, while music from people like Ani DiFranco, Damien Rice, Sufjan Stevens, Beth Orton, and Andrew Bird has been ignored.

I expect that Prince will receive more Grammys if he continues to put out albums. I think folks are starting to realize the he's one the of few genuine, time-tested talents out there, and they're going to start giving Prince Grammys for just about anything to sort of make up for the fact that he was passed over back in the day.

The same thing happened to Joni Mitchell. She didn't get her due back in her prime, and then they started showering her with awards all of the sudden. Joni herself lamented that she felt they were only giving her awards because they felt like they should honor her for SOMETHING. The fact that Prince's most recent Grammy wins were for songs that rank about average in his body of work (e.g., "Future Baby Mamma", "Call My Name") confirm my thoughts on this matter.

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[Edited 2/11/08 18:46pm]

That did NOT look like Jerome with the mirror.....was that him?

BlackAdder7 said:

Yeah, that was definately Jerome.

And the article said that it was the first time The Time had performed together in 18 years?!!! Surely that's not right...they are on the Prince Rave Into The Year 2000 dvd doing Junglelove and The Bird!!