The 44th annual Grammy Awards was held last night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Much to my delight, U2 and Alicia Keys deservingly won in most categories they were nominated in. The soundtrack for "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" also garnered several awards making it the only other soundtrack to have won that many Grammys since "The Bodyguard". As far as performances go, U2 started the show with a rousing performace of "Walk On" and then Christina Aguilera, Pink, Mya and Lil' Kim performing "Lady Marmalade" in their outrageous ladies of the evening costumes with Patti Labelle (the original singer of that song back in the 70s) wailing the song to the end. Train was up next performing "Drops Of Jupiter", backed by a string orchestra. Alejandro Sanz dueted with them real fine ladies of Destiny's Child with a Spanish number. N'Sync started off with "Gone" before breaking into "Girlfriend" featuring Nelly. Alicia Keys' performance was one of the most looked forward to and she definitely didn't disappoint. Who would've guessed she'd do the tango to "A Woman's Worth"! Dave Matthews Band did a rather sombre performance of "The Space Between" and Nelly Furtado performing "I'm Like A Bird" with Steve Vai backing on the guitars. "Cool!" was the first thing she uttered upon accepting her Grammy! India.Arie's, who sadly got totally shut out from any awards in all 7 nominated categories, performed her hit song "Video" before the show ended with some gospel song. John Stewart hosted the show this time around.

Certainly good show throughout and certainly refreshing to the ears, especially after being bombarded with crass bubblegum pop over the airwaves day after day.