LOS ANGELES - Despite a few sour notes, Wednesday's Grammy show was sweet music to ears weary of that tired refrain: safe, soft, salable.
In R&&B, hipness hopped into view. In country, twang got teeth and in pop, dues payers got their due. The most thrilling was longtime pop underdog Bonnie Raitt, whose diligence, integrity and devotion to roots music finally yielded a long overdue smash album and a night of peer adoration.
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Style over sound: Pop stars take canned music on tour
May 25, 1990
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Read their lips: What you see may not be what you hear. "Is it live or is it Memorex?" is a valid question as pop stars increasingly use lip-syncing and prerecorded tapes to enhance shows.
Is live pop dying? Hardly, but as concerts are more lavishly staged, forcing singing and musicianship into minor roles, musical fudging is mounting. The phenomenon, scarce in hard rock, is proliferating in dance-oriented pop, where videos, not stages, are the launching pad and proving ground. Press and promoters cite New Kids on the Block, Milli Vanilli, George Michael, Cher, Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson.
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Fighting the power; Public Enemy's polemics with a beat; Militant rap racks up record sales
July 6, 1990
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RICHMOND, Va. - "Rap is Headline News," says Public Enemy leader Chuck D.
"I call myself a dispatcher of information. I got 60 minutes to do it on an album, then it's over. How much teaching can you do in 60 minutes? I name important people, places, dates and I spark enough curiosity so the listener can begin the search and the research."
SALISBURY, Md. - "Go Hammer. Go Hammer. WHOAAA," scream 4,400 fans at the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center.
With a spark of light, rapper M.C. Hammer appears. For the next 1 1/2 hours, he and his 30 dancers, singers, musicians and a disc jockey, create near hysteria with their high-voltage pop/rap. Clad in his trademark wide-leg "diaper" pants, Hammer breaks into furious dance steps, limbs flailing like a scarecrow in a windstorm. He spins, runs, crawls, moonwalks sideways.
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Leading the 2 Live Crew; Dog-tired but not docile, Luke raps on
Aug. 13, 1990
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NEW YORK - "I'm worn out," says Luther Campbell, the embattled leader of Miami's trash-rapping 2 Live Crew, preferred target of pro-censorship forces. The battle is depleting Campbell. Exhaustion and flu forced him to suspend a recent tour, and ongoing legal assaults have bruised his spirit.
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Mad About Mozart; A symphony of tributes for the 200th anniversary of his death; His works speak to the 20th century
Dec. 13, 1990
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NEW YORK - He's hot. He's sexy. He's dead.
In fact, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's death in Vienna at age 34 nearly 200 years ago started a bigger posthumous cult than any other musician in history, even Elvis Presley or Jim Morrison - who was similarly proclaimed hot, sexy and dead by Rolling Stone magazine.
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In Grammy's golden glow; Music stars share fanfare with troops
Feb. 21, 1991
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NEW YORK - Quincy Jones finally did it for himself.
"I can't believe this," said the obviously moved super-producer at the Grammy Awards Wednesday night. "I've been in this academy since 1958 and this is the first time I even dared to think about having a Grammy under my own name."
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Jones heads list of deserving winners
Feb. 21, 1991
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NEW YORK - Wednesday's Grammy show produced a respectable winners circle despite an overwhelming number of mediocre contenders.
Grammy perennial Quincy Jones swept the awards with six wins, bringing his career total to 25 and making him the top non-classical winner. His Back on the Block, featuring an array of rappers, jazz legends and soul crooners, won in the weak album field and took a stunningly diverse host of races, including R&&B duo, jazz fusion, rap group and instrumental arrangement.
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'Truth or dare'; Has Madonna finally gone too far?; Polling fans and don't wanna-bes
May 10, 1991
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Dare we utter the word?
Mmmmmmm ...
Mmmmaaaaa ...
Madonna?
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Success comes calling; More doors are opening for country's stars; Big deals, movie roles beckon
June 3, 1991
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Garth Brooks wheels around Nashville in the same red pickup he had before he got a recording contract - only now it has a phone that rings every mile or so.
Reba McEntire, a former rodeo barrel racer, ponders 10 movie scripts that arrived after her recent performance at the Academy Awards.
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Michael Jackson; Is he still a thriller? Superstar's 'absence didn't hurt'
Nov. 25, 1991
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These are dangerous times for Michael Jackson.
Absent from the pop scene since 1987's Bad, history's most successful recording artist is reemerging to controversy, mixed reviews and a radically altered pop landscape.
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The Judds' last bow; An emotional end to an 8-year duet
Dec. 4, 1991
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MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - As Naomi Judd was being driven to meetings before the Judds' farewell concert tonight, she passed Rutherford County Hospital, where an accidental needle stick may have caused the disease that has forced an end to her concert career.
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A year in the mix; Diversity tops the pop music charts; Sales rush ends '91 on a high note
Dec. 26, 1991
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In 1991, pop music went every which way but belly-up, thanks to a late-year sales boost and a welcome turnaround in quality.
The year was defined by diversification. Hybrids abounded, giving birth to such unwieldy classifications as funk/metal/rap/rock. Formerly incompatible genres like country and hiphop were suddenly next-door neighbors on Billboard's album chart, which dropped the "pop" from its heading to accommodate variegated consumer tastes and increasingly blurred boundaries.
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A classic night for Natalie Cole
Feb. 26, 1992
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NEW YORK - This year's Grammy show took an interminable three hours and 58 minutes. But that's nothing compared to how long it took Unforgettable to be remembered.
The 1951 classic revived by Natalie Cole's high-tech duet with her late dad Nat King Cole, was voted song and record of the year.
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Grammys play it sweet and safe
Feb. 26, 1992
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The Grammys get the bronze for slalom. Music's most prestigious, least daring awards show took a few sharp turns but never veered far from the middle of the road.
Natalie Cole's Unforgettable tribute to dad Nat King Cole was the sentimental favorite, winning the triple crown: album, record and song.
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The message from the streets; Rappers find themselves role models
May 11, 1992
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In the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots, you might think folks would turn to the wisdom of Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X.
But a USA TODAY survey of 245 arrested in L.A. found that rappers tied civil rights leaders as their heroes.
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The Cyrus virus; Hot new star has fans in a fever
July 7, 1992
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NEW YORK - Billy Ray Cyrus, that Achy Breaky Heart throb, is sunning on a hotel balcony. Bare-chested, just as his screamy steamy fans would like him.
He's relishing every ray. "Sometimes I feel like a wilting flower," he says of his follow-the-dot race from one concert stage to the next. "But if I get a little sun in me I come right back to life."
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Funk's Red Hot ticket; Sex fuels Chili Peppers' musical fire
July 16, 1992
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BURBANK, Calif. - "I can't imagine not having this outlet in my life," says a momentarily pensive Anthony Kiedis, singer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. "I'd be scrambling like a frightened mouse to find a new way to express myself."
