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Lady Gaga couldn’t stick around in New York for the taping of tonight’s Elton John: I’m Still Standing TV special. She’s on stage tomorrow night in Birmingham, UK. So she did the next best thing: she pre-taped “Younr Song” to be dropped into the special.
Tonight’s guests include John Legend, Miranda Lambert, Miley Cyrus, Ed Sheeran, Alessia Cara, and a bunch of stars who are still in town following the Grammys. They’ll each do an Elton song and of course, Elton himself will hit the piano keys at some point. The show airs April 10th on CBS.
I’m told Miley will not again be singing “Tiny Dancer” as she did with Elton on the Grammys. Instead, she’ll perform “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me,” which she’s also singing for an Elton covers album coming this spring. Other artists on the covers album include the aforementioned Lady Gaga, Ed Sheeran and Florence and the Machine.
Lady Gaga out in New York City tonight. She was leaving Madison Square Garden after recording a cover of “Your Song” by Elton John for a special Grammy tribute to him airing on April 10. ⭐️ pic.twitter.com/Z6anThZeFZ
Is Ryan Coogler 30 years old yet? He had such an amazing launch with “Fruitvale Station” and then “Creed.” Now Coogler’s Marvel movie, “Black Panther,” premiered in Hollywood tonight to ecstatic reviews and raves. It should set records for February openings, comic book movies, Marvel films, etc.
“Black Panther” opens February 15th. Right now Disney is embargoing reviews, allowing only Twitter reactions. New York press doesn’t see the movie until February 6th. But it’s pretty clear that Coogler and his stars Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan are about to go through the roof. Can’t think of three guys who deserve it more!
We’ll check Twitter in the AM for a round up of comments!
“Hello,Dolly!” without Bette Midler has fallen back to Earth at the box office.
The show averaged $2.4 million a week under Midler’s spell from last March through this past January 14th. That’s when Midler left and Bernadette Peters came in to succeed her.
During Midler’s run people were paying astronomical amounts for seats from secondary brokers. The top price on the regular market was over $800.
Now “Dolly!” can be had for a song. Last week, the average ticket cost $103.56. The week’s take was just $1.1 million– $300,000 short of sold out. The show itself was the 9th highest grossing musical, dropping behind “Come from Away” and “Waitress.” How the might have fallen!
It’s not clear how long Peters will stay– I’ll bet she’s great. But there is talk that when she’s done, Audra McDonald might be the next Dolly Levi. That would be a swell twist for producer Scott Rudin, whose ill-fated “Shuffle Along” McDonald starred in until she became pregnant and had to leave that show before it closed in a heap.
McDonald would also be carrying the torch for Pearl Bailey, who legendarily fronted an all black production of the show in the 60s for David Merrick when Carol Channing left the show. Of course, McDonald now would star in a multi-cultural cast.
Diane Keaton has posted a Tweet to support her pal Woody Allen, ex boyfriend and director who she won an Oscar with in 1978. Keaton is one of many actors from Woody’s original ensemble who’ve always supported him including Tony Roberts, Michael Murphy and others. Back in 1993, when the Mia Farrow scandal first broke, Diane stepped in and starred in a great Woody comedy “Manhattan Murder Mystery.”
Woody Allen is my friend and I continue to believe him. It might be of interest to take a look at the 60 Minute interview from 1992 and see what you think. https://t.co/QVQIUxImB1
The best Grammy party? Universal Music Group nailed it at Spring Studios in Soho, with Quincy Jones holding court, Dave Chappelle joking around, and Erykah Badu DJing. (No mention of her Hitler mess.)
Sting and Trudie Styler took a swing through the room and talked to everyone. “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah was just happy to be out late at night.
The rooms — there were many– airy and light– a very cool environment– were filled with UMG stars like Luis Fonsi, the guy behind “Despacito”– and Lorde, who was enjoying herself despite not performing on the Grammy show. She still had a great credit from Friday night’s MusiCares benefit. She sang Stevie Nicks’s “Silver Spring.” She didn’t know — I told her– that Courtney Love had a hit with it years ago. Also in the house: Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber, singer Julia Michaels, and “Colbert” bandleader Jon Batiste.
Q– Quincy, by the way– is very excited about like 19 projects including a new app called Zig that he just invested in. He’s 84 years young and looks terrific– “I gave up drinking!” he declared, “it saved my life.” He is still interested in dating, however. Q is a role model!
UMG chairman and chief Lucien Grainge still commands the biggest of all the record companies with panache and style!
Paul McCartney wasn’t at the Grammys and didn’t win anything officially.
But he’s the surprise winner of the night. That’s because the producer of his new record, Greg Kurstin, won Producer of the Year.
Kurstin is one of a couple of producers including Ryan Tedder working with McCartney on his first new album in several years. I’m told the songs are “amazing” — as in maybe we’re amazed.
Kurstin is best known for working with Adele, writing her hit, “Hello,” and producing her zillion selling “25” album.
Tedder, of course, has written hits for everyone on the charts and fronts his own hit band, One Republic.
For whatever reasons, the 2018 Grammy Awards scored the lowest rating ever for a Grammy show, down 24% from last year. And this was without competition of any notable kind.
It was also the lowest-watched show since 2009. The total viewers came to just under 20 million.
There will be plenty of speculation about why this happened. But it can’t really be that the show was too political since no one could have predicted that going in. And the now famous video spot of various celebs reading “Fate and the Fury” aloud was in the second half of the show.
Everyone will be a Monday morning quarterback. But I did wonder why the show began with an extended performance piece by Kendrick Lamar– clearly announced as a satire– in which a lot of people were killed on stage. Not exactly upbeat. The next segment, after James Corden’s introduction, was Lady Gaga singing about her dead aunt. From there, you were either interested in the very depressing, or you were gone.
On top of that, the Grammys faced several obstacles. The biggest one was the snubbing of Ed Sheeran, whose “Divide” album is still at the very top of the charts. Sheeran would have been the main attraction of the show, but he received no major nominations and wouldn’t appear because of it.
Then there was the Lorde issue: she was not offered a spot on the show because of her stand on Israel. Then to obscure that fact, they let it seem like it was some kind of anti-female thing, which it wasn’t. But that’s what it became.
There were a lot of weird choices made by the production team. Right after Lady Gaga sang two dirges, Pink appeared and sang another one. Oy vey. There were no thrilling moments. There were moving moments– like Kesha– but there was no fun, no sense of humor, a taped segment from U2 that was palmed off as a live one…
As Sam Cooke sang, a change is gonna come to the Grammys for next year after this debacle. When the show returns to Los Angeles, there’s going to be a lot of re-thinking about how this happened. It can’t happen again.
It’s not a surprise that Bruno Mars swept the Grammys with Album, Song and Record of the Year. The album, “24K Magic,” won the award for Best Engineered album during the afternoon session hosted by Paul Shaffer. From that moment on, Bruno was a cinch.
The biggest surprise was that “Despacito” didn’t win Best Record. It was the biggest selling single of the year, and ubiquitous on radio, etc. But once voters ticked off Bruno Mars for one category, they went for the others, too.
There was some irony that Sting presented Bruno with Best Song, since Mars’s older hit, “Locked out of Heaven,” eerily imitates the Police sound.
But Sting — and Shaggy– actually turned out to be big winners of the night anyway. When Sting hit the stage and sang “Englishman in New York” it was the first time during the 60th annual Grammys that I felt a sense of relief– an adult was in the room, an actual musician. It was 36K magic. When he and Shaggy segued into “Don’t Make Me Wait” the crowd at MSG literally roared.
Other excellent performances including Elton John and Miley Cyrus singing “Tiny Dancer,” Lady Gaga’s moment, and Pink. I was very impressed with SZA and with Donald Glover.
Ken Ehrlich turned lemons into lemonade, putting the spotlight on Broadway. Diva of divas Patti Lupone and newcomer Ben Platt were terrific. Kudos to whoever did the sound mix in MSG– it was warm and bright, very well balanced.
Some people grumbled that the show was too safe, that there was no big unforgettable moment. But that moment may have been the complete shutting out of Jay Z. The rap mogul was rendered moot after getting the Industry Icon award on Saturday night. That he and Beyonce were in the Garden but were not the center of attention was fairly interesting. It was like an anti-moment.
And then there was Lorde, who was totally ignored. There’s not much more to say on that subject, for now.
There was a lot of singing on the Grammys but not a lot of musicianship. U2’s segment was taped, and felt it. Gary Clark Jr. and Jon Bautiste got short shrift in their segment. There was no rock played, so we missed any virtuoso stuff on any instrument. That was kind of glaring.
James Corden almost got out of the show without making much of an impression. But then there was his comedy bit of celebs reading “Fate and Fury.” It was just what the show needed, mostly because it made Nikki Haley crazy. Fun stuff.
So much interest in Lorde, the New Zealand pop star who became famous with the song “Royals” three years ago.
Despite an Album of the Year nomination for “Melodrama,” an album that shouldn’t have been nominated in the first place, Lorde is not performing at the Grammys.
Various reports say she wasn’t offered a solo spot on the show. I’m told she wasn’t offered any spot. This, after Republic Records pushed to get “Melodrama” nominated despite very low sales– only 160,000 copies since its release last June. “Melodrama” was a non starter.
But then Lorde made headlines recently, after her nomination, when she decided to drop Tel Aviv from her next tour. She’d been influenced by anti-Israel forces like Roger Waters, who are endorsing anti-Semitism by bullying artists into not performing in Israel. They should be ashamed of themselves.
I wrote then that there would be repercussions for Lorde, who is 21 and is probably not much of a world scholar. So she’s flown 8,800 miles with her parents and she’s not on the Grammys. Big surprise. She can sing, you know. She appeared on stage for MusiCares on Friday singing Fleetwood Mac’s “Silver Spring.” She sang at another event, too. She came last night to Clive Davis’s dinner as the date of producer Jack Antonoff, who just broke up with Lena Dunham.
So why isn’t Lorde on the Grammys– even though she’s one of the few female nominees? I think you got the answer.
Meantime, Lorde posted a Tweet last night as she was off to the Clive Davis dinner:
