The 2014 Grammy Awards.

Last night (26/1/13) the 56th Grammy Awards took place in Los Angeles, California, US. To be honest I'd forgotten all about this. Fortunately though the Grammys paid Twitter to have their hashtag trending worldwide throughout most of Saturday (25/1/14). Curiously though Twitter forgot to mention that they'd been paid to promote the Grammys which might have led to some people getting the entirely false impression that these awards for the American music industry are in someway important.

The 2013 Grammys were of course heavily dominated by Rihanna. Firstly she appeared at the ceremony with Chris Brown and in doing so formally declared the resumption of their relationship to the public. Secondly Rihanna performed a buttock clenchingly awful tribute to Bob Marley which was the US showcasing all that it hoped to achieve through Rihanna's upcoming Diamonds World Tour especially in places such as Mali. Even as recently as December 2013's nominations ceremony the plan seemed to be for the 2014 ceremony to act as something of a celebration of the triumph of the Rihanna operation. For example Rihanna's mentor and owner of the Diamonds World Tour promoter Live Nation Jay Z was nominated for nine awards and Rihanna's torch song to the British Monarchy "Stay" was nominated for best song.

As the 2014 ceremony approached the mood began to change dramatically and the main objectives of the ceremony became a last-gasp effort to trick South American nations into agreeing to an extension of the Diamonds World Tour while at the same time providing the Grammys with an opportunity to publicly distance themselves from the Rihanna operation.

The attempt to trick the Americas into the Diamonds World Tour was subtle, brief and actually ended up being largely abandoned. The idea was that awarding Rihanna best album for "Unapologetic" during the pre-show event would hook Rihanna's South American fans into watching the show in the hope of seeing Rihanna appearing on stage to accept the award for Stay. What the fans would actually have seen is Beyonce and Jay Z opening the show by performing together. During that performance and the acceptance speeches of any awards that Jay Z might win subsequently Rihanna was meant to be sitting in the audience looking really p*ssed off. The idea was that this would fuel rumours that Jay Z's mis-management of Rihanna's career stemmed from some sort of feud between Rihanna and Jay Z's wife rather then being a product of a US intelligence operation. In order to find out exactly what was going on with this feud South Americans would be tempted to discuss with Live Nation the possibility of bringing the Diamonds World Tour to their country. In the end Rihanna ended up snubbing the ceremony by not attending.

If this was a tactical move it was a good one because it is the sort of hint Rihanna needs to be giving to indicate that she is no longer participating in the operation against her. I am though a little worried that it was not as co-ordinated and decisive as it needs to be. For example Rihanna is rumoured to be appearing on the US news show "Good Morning America" on Wednesday (29/1/14). This comes on the morning after US President Obama's big State Of The Union (SOTU) speech which will dominate the morning news agenda. That speech is to be attended by survivors of the Boston Marathon Bombing and is rumoured to focus heavily on US immigration reform which Obama failed to enact during the previous legislative session despite it being one of the main objectives of the third leg of the Diamonds World Tour. So by agreeing to appear on Good Morning America Rihanna seems to be sending the message that she is happy to participate in the operation against her. This of course directly contradicts the message Rihanna sent at the Grammys.

The Grammys attempt to distance themselves from the Rihanna operation along with Jay Z and Live Nation played a much larger role in the ceremony. Firstly Jay Z was openly snubbed. Although he was nominated for nine awards Jay Z only ended up winning two awards and he had to share one of those (Rap/sung collaboration) with Justin Timberlake. Along with Eminem Justin Timberlake is another one of my long-standing assigned pseudonyms.

Secondly the awards in the Rap/Hip Hop category which you would normally associate with Jay Z and artists signed to his record label was dominated by Macklemore. Although it wasn't specifically a racial issue the first thing you notice about Macklemore is that they are white meaning that they do not fit into the traditional stereotype of a Rap/Hip Hop artist.

Also rather then constantly going on about how much marijuana they smoke, their b*tches, their Rolex's and their Lamborghini's Macklemore's lyrics are much more politically or socially conscious. For example their big song of 2013 "Same Love" is all about gay marriage while their big song of 2012 "Thrift Shop" mocks the rampant materialism of Rap/Hip Hop culture by boasting about second hand clothes from a thrift or charity shop.

Finally I'm ashamed to admit that I have inadvertently played quite a large role in Macklemore's sudden success. During 2012 London Olympics I made one of my usual Tuesday night trips to the pub creating a lot of tension about what would happen to my home in my absence. In a moment of inspired, drunken brilliance I broke that tension by referencing the Dolly Parton song "Bargain Store." Shortly afterwards Macklemore's debut Thrift Shop started getting really heavily promoted as the US attempted to gauge international reaction to my unexpected brilliance.

To reinforce the message that their social consciousness marks the apart from other Rap/Hip Hop artists Macklemore went on to perform Same Love during the ceremony accompanied by Madonna. Part of that performance saw 34 couples - some gay, some straight - actually get legally married.

Obviously gay marriage is still a very hot topic within US domestic politics and touches on the wider issue of gay rights that are going to be a major issue at the winter Olympics that will shortly be held in Russia. Madonna has already got in quite a lot of trouble with the Russian authorities through a series of self-serving publicity stunts involving gay rights and the Pussy Riot case that had a strong undercurrent of gay rights.

Finally this spectacle of a mass wedding is very much the signature of South Korean cult leader Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church (The Moonies). Since its inception in 1954 the Unification Church has been used as a way for the religiously free South Korea to counter the influence of the aggressively atheist Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Therefore for this stunt caused a lot of controversy and provided lots of grounds for discussion about whether the Grammys should be formally endorsing relationships in this way. From there it is not a huge leap to a discussion about whether the Grammys should have formally endorsed Rihanna and Chris Brown's relationship at the 2013 ceremony.

The massive insult to Jay Z and the Roc Nation family though came in the form of Lorde who won best pop solo performance and song of the year for "Royals" which she went on to perform during the ceremony With the hook "Every song's like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on the timepiece, jet planes, islands, Tigers on the gold leash" this song is quite clearly mocking the rampant materialism of Rap/Hip Hop culture and Beyonce (Queen B) is specifically name checked. Coming from a native of New Zealand which is a very active member of the UK Commonwealth Realm and target of the Diamonds World Tour the chorus "And we will never be Royals" sounds a lot like the old guard having a jolly good laugh at Jay Z, Beyonce, Rihanna and the entire Roc Nation family's expense.

So as they say; "Success has many parents but failure will forever be an orphan." Perhaps Jay Z might want to record a song about it.


16:40 on 27/1/14 (UK date).

Edited at around 10:55 on 28/1/14 to add: I've still not watched the Grammys in the traditional sense but I should mention a couple of things that caused controversy but had nothing to do with the events main theme.

Firstly US heavy metal band Metallica performed "One" alongside Chinese classical pianist Lang Lang. Apart from forcing China to take an interest this seemed intended to send the message that the US fully supports and is happy to unite with the type of authoritarian capitalism that China practises. For example the Terminator films are not really about robots from the future, they're an allegory about authoritarian capitalism and its effects on the human race. Therefore the 'metal' the resistance are constantly fighting are actually authoritarian capitalists. All the first world war imagery used in the performance seemed to be a reference to the conflict in Syria which has become as grindingly pointless as the first world world. With the Geneva II talks going it seems everything the US does at the moment has to reference Syria in someway in order to exert pressure on the delegates.

Then there is Katy Perry whose performance of "Dark Horse" featured lots of Gothic imagery such as bubbling cauldrons and witches broomsticks. This prompted members of a Christian rock band who were in attendance to walk out after labelling the performance as "Satanic." It clearly wasn't and being quite intelligent Katy Perry has dabbled before in this dark/depressive imagery probably most famously in the video for "Wide Awake." Also Katy Perry seemed to be a large influence behind the "Ghetto Goth" phase that her close friend Rihanna went through just before the third leg of the Diamonds World Tour that was recorded in the video for "What Now."

The problem was that during her performance Katy Perry's dress lit up to reveal a rough red cross on her chest. This symbol of the Knights Templar who were a secretive group of elite knights during the time of the medieval crusades - the sort Navy SEALs of their day. Due to their habit of supporting apocalyptic and lunatic groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) some of the wilder reaches of the Internet believe that the Knights Templar still exist and have infiltrated the highest reaches of the US Establishment and intelligence community. As such Knights Templar imagery is quite a good way of visually promoting discussion about US intelligence involvement in the music/entertainment industry.

As we all know there are certain people who are famous because they are extremely talented and really hard working. Then there are other people who are only famous because they get, shall we say, a lot of help to make them that way. Katy Perry obviously fits into the first category but over the summer of 2013 US intelligence tried to claim ownership of Katy Perry by getting Edward Snowden to release details of the PRISM spy program just as Katy Perry was releasing her Prism album. At the time Katy Perry was working to promote that album in Australia and the Snowden presentation caused a lot of problems between Australia and neighbouring Indonesia where they still periodically burn women for being witches. So by ending her performance by appearing to be burnt at the stake as a witch Katy Perry was expressing her displeasure at all this.

Sadly Katy Perry didn't do herself any favours by referencing the Knights Templar which is also the name of an extremely violent Mexican drugs cartel who operate in the Michoacan state. So violent are the Mexican Knights Templar that local residents have recently formed local militia groups in an effort to drive them out leaving the Mexican government and military effectively as peacekeepers in a war zone. So by referencing the Knights Templar Katy Perry did manage to put herself in the middle of the arguments about US immigration and South American drugs policy. It is no coincidence that the day after the Grammys the Mexican government announced that it had captured one of the leaders of the Knights Templar cartel.

(Originally Posted on 27/1/14).