The big prizes may have gone to old favorites, U2, to young New York singer Alicia Keys and to depression-era blue grass music, but perhaps it was words rather than music that may linger in the memory from the 44th Grammys ceremony in Los Angeles.
Michael Greene, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, whose 13,000 voting members chose the winners, used the occasion to launch a broadside against internet piracy, which he described as "a life and death issue" for the music business.
In a controversial address, Greene claimed that "the most insidious virus" of piracy was now out of control on a "world wide web of theft and indifference." He warned that many artists, including the newer ones, were in immediate danger of being "marginalized out of business." Some members of the audience booed him but there was applause as he called for government help to stamp out international piracy. Another war seems in the offing.
The main business of the evening, however, belonged to U2 who walked off with the record of the year for Walk On and gave a series of rambling acceptance speeches for their four Grammys until drowned out by the orchestra.
Singer Bono told a friendly Staples Center crowd that it was a relief to win after being nominated for eight awards. "Being Irish, if you got eight nominations and no awards, they wouldn't let you back in the country," he said. "So this is a public safety issue."
The young chanteuse Alicia Keys was the big solo winner of the night, winning both the best new artist and the song of the year awards. She was finally rendered speechless when she won the latter award with Fallin', one of her five Grammys.
But perhaps the most surprising triumph came for those behind the album that accompanied the Coen brothers' film, O Brother Where Art Thou?
They took five Grammys, including the album of the year, for which they beat both U2 and Bob Dylan. The 75-year-old banjo picker Ralph Stanley won the male country vocal for O Death, a song from the album, his first Grammy. Producer T Bone Burnett saw the awards as a triumph as many country stations have ignored the album.
There was success for British act Sade who won the best pop vocal album with Lovers Rock, for Fatboy Slim with best short form video for Weapon of Choice, and, perhaps most spectacularly, for Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra who won both the classical album and opera album categories with Berlioz's Les Troyens.
Eric Clapton won the best pop instrumental performance for Reptile, and Jeff Beck the rock instrumental performance for Dirty Mind.
OutKast were the main winners in the rap categories, with Stankonia winning best album and Jackson winning the best performance award.
Lenny Kravitz won a fourth consecutive Grammy for male rock vocal, beating Eric Clapton and also Bob Dylan, though he picked up the Folk award.
In the spoken word awards, George Carlin won the comedy album prize and Quincy Jones the album category with Q, his autobiography.
There were also wins for some names who might not immediately be associated with the event: Mel Brooks won two awards for his hit musical The Producers and novelist Walter Mosley shared the album notes Grammy for his sleeve notes to Richard Pryor's compilation album.
As with all public events in the US these days, echoes of Sept. 11 were never far away.
Tony Bennett and Billy Joel sang New York State of Mind and country star Alan Jackson performed his anthem about the attack, Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning?
Security was tighter than ever. But compere Jon Stewart did manage some jokes on the issue, claiming there had been a security alert backstage when ZZ Top, the Texan band famous for their exotically long beards, were mistaken for the Taliban.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located