MUSIC NEWS: FEBRUARY 14, 2017
GRAMMY - RATINGS
Did you watch the Grammys on Sunday? Turns out you had a lot of company _ at least more so than in recent years.
The Nielsen company reports the show pulled in 26-million viewers this time around. That's a four-per cent increase over last year.
But that was a pretty small hill to climb, seeing that last year's Grammys represented the smallest Grammy audience since 2009. The Sunday audience was the largest gathering of Grammy viewers since 2014.
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FRANK OCEAN - GRAMMYS
The spitting match between Frank Ocean and the Grammy people continues. Ocean didn't make his album available for Grammy consideration because he has a beef with the awards' voting system. The fight flared up again when Grammy producer Ken Ehrlich ripped Ocean's performance at the 2013 Grammys. Ehrlich told a Rolling Stone podcast Ocean had a ``faulty'' vision for the performance. Ocean clapped back on his Tumblr blog blaming the flawed 2013 performance on ``technical difficulties.'' He also said if you want to talk ``faulty'' _ how about the album of the year Grammy given to Taylor Swift over Kendrick Lamar last year. A Grammy rep didn't return a request for comment on the Ocean-Ehrlich verbal war.
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ADELE - BEYONCE
To many music fans, they'd appear to be rivals _ at least when it comes to competing for top awards. But the Grammys showed that Adele and Beyonce are more fellow musicians than combatants. Adele won the Grammy for best album with ``25'' _ but she says for her money, Beyonce's ``Lemonade'' should have won. And Adele says Beyonce is the ``icon'' of her whole life. Adele expressed something many of Bey's fans might be wondering when she asked what the former Destiny's Child lead singer would have to do to win a best-album Grammy. ``Lemonade'' didn't go totally unnoticed; it won for best urban contemporary album.
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GRAMMY - FLUBS
By now, everyone has heard about the Adele flub that caused her to drop an F-bomb and do a ``take two'' on her tribute to the late pop star George Michael. But that wasn't the only slip up at this year's Grammys. One of the Grammys Adele got appeared to break on stage as she accepted it. But by time she came backstage, all five of her Grammys looked intact. Then, there was the dead mic during the duet between Lady Gaga and James Hetfield; Hetfield's couldn't be heard through most of the song. After the performance, Hetfield kicked his mic stand over and threw his guitar in anger.
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(The Associated Press)
