Grammy Awards

Unless you're the kind of music fan who enjoys reading the fine print, odds are that you've never heard of Michael Kamen. That's not to say you haven't heard him; between his film scores and the orchestral arrangements he has written for rockers ranging from Kate Bush to Eric Clapton to Metallica, Kamen definitely gets around.Tonight, in fact, Kamen is likely to be all over the 34th annual Grammy Awards broadcast (8 p.m. on CBS, Channel 11). Not only is his score for the Kevin Costner film "Robin Hood"' up for three Grammys -- Best Pop Instrumental, Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture or Television, and Best Arrangement on an Instrumental -- but "(Everything I Do)

Welcome to Mardi Gras week. Even on a Monday, Internet users have plenty to gawk at as New Orleans avoids allowing a celebration to get in the way of a shooting, the Pope resigns for the  first time since the Middle Ages, and Jack White brings down (maybe) the wrath of the FCC. Don't worry, though: A kind soul has drawn Calvin and Hobbes into real-life scenes, giving us an escape hatch into a fantasy world of talking tigers. A roundup of popular topics: || TRENDING ONLINE || Pope Benedict XVI , #Pope (Google Plus, Twitter)

We've come to expect nothing less than bloat and bombast from the Grammys. And, for the most part, that's what we got last night. Maybe that was to be expected after a year in which the most successful pop music was mostly predictable and unadventurous. But the 47th Annual Grammy Awards, hosted by a resplendently Pearl Bailey-esque Queen Latifah, carried on in that spirit. The choppy opening performances featuring the Black Eyed Peas (who used to be cool and edgy before they struck platinum with innocuous party pap)

(UPDATES with final figures and total tune-in through the telecast.) The CBS telecast of the 54th Grammy Awards Sunday was seen by an average audience of 39.91 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratrings released by the network. That's the second largest Grammy average audience in history and the largest audience for the music awards show since 1984. In 1984, TV was on another planet in a pre-fragmented media galaxy. In today's media world, the audience the Grammys drew is huge.

Los Angeles -- On the whole, Grammy would rather have been on the Streets of Philadelphia.At least that's the way it seemed last night, when Bruce Springsteen's AIDS-inspired single, "Streets of Philadelphia," swept the 37th Annual Grammy Awards. Springsteen was up for four awards -- Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, Best Rock Song, and Best Original Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television -- and won all of them but Record of the Year, which went to Sheryl Crow for "All I Wanna Do."

Ray Charles made his final album, Genius Loves Company, to honor some of the friends and artists he had loved over a lifetime. Last night, the Recording Academy returned the favor, awarding Charles eight Grammy awards, including album of the year and record of the year. The legendary musician, who died last June at age 73, won every award for which he was nominated and captured the two major awards for the first time in a six-decade career that changed the face of music. Genius Loves Company, with 2.1 million copies sold, is Charles' best-selling album.

Michael Portnoy's 15 minutes of fame lasted maybe 30 seconds.In a night marked by Girl Power, sore throats and Aretha's aria, the 40th annual Grammy Awards will also be remembered for Portnoy's unscheduled performance as the "Soy Bomb" Boy. Hired as a show extra, he crashed the stage in New York City as Grammy-winner Bob Dylan was singing "Love Sick."What the TV world saw was this string-bean of a guy dancing next to an unflappable Dylan. Monica Lewinsky could have dived onto the stage and the folk legend wouldn't have flinched.

NEW YORK -- Who said the annual Grammy Awards broadcast only serves up the expected?That certainly wasn't the case last night. In an evening that mixed predictable victories with surprising upsets, Paula Cole bested million-sellers Hanson and Sean "Puffy" Combs in the Best New Artist category, while Shawn Colvin's hit "Sunny Came Home" was named Song and Record of the Year.In an award that echoed many critics' polls, Bob Dylan's "Time Out of Mind" was named Album of the Year. "Everybody worked extra special hard, even the musicians," Dylan joked.

NEW YORK -- On the charts, 1997 was mostly kid stuff, all fluff, silliness and sentimentality.But at the Grammys, 1997 turns out to have been a very grown-up year, indeed. When nominations for the 40th Annual Grammy Awards were announced in New York yesterday, the major categories -- Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist -- were dominated by adult pop acts, including Paula Cole, R. Kelly, Shawn Colvin, Bob Dylan and Babyface.Cole, in fact, was named in all four categories.

The Irish rock band U2 cemented its position atop the music universe last night as the band swept the 48th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, winning five awards, including album of the year and song of the year. "This is really a big, big night for our band," said lead singer Bono, in a leather jacket and white cowboy hat. "There's always the possibility with rock music that it might just amount to a little more than entertainment, on occasion, and you might be able to communicate some honest feelings."

Guy Graham Babylon, a Grammy Award-winning musician and former New Windsor resident, who was a keyboardist with Elton John's band for more than 20 years, died of arrhythmia Sept. 2 at Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, Calif. He was 52. Mr. Babylon, who had been a member of the North Baltimore Aquatic Club when in high school and still enjoyed competitive swimming, was stricken while swimming and was pronounced dead later at the nearby hospital. Elton John, who was unable to attend Mr. Babylon's funeral that was held Sept.

Chris Brown is out on bail - and out of Doublemint ad campaign for now Los Angeles authorities are continuing to investigate what took place between R&B singer Chris Brown, one of the biggest-selling performers in pop music, and his girlfriend, pop singer Rihanna, after the pair were seen enjoying themselves at the annual pre-Grammy party hosted by Clive Davis. Both singers were scheduled to perform at Sunday night's Grammy Awards but did not appear. Instead, Brown, 19, was being booked on suspicion of making a criminal threat stemming from an assault on Rihanna, 20, according to the Los Angeles Times.

She was a continent away, but that didn't stop troubled British soul-singer Amy Winehouse from being the main attraction at last night's Grammy Awards as she took home five awards, including best new artist. But the singer herself struggled to live up to the preshow hype as the visibly jumpy 24-year-old labored through shaky but stirring performances of "You Know I'm No Good" and her signature smash "Rehab." In a towering rose-accented beehive and a black ruffled minidress, she hit a few ragged notes before a supportive audience in a London club.

She generated almost deafening buzz last year, but industry insiders, pop culture bloggers and pop music fans weren't just going on about Amy Winehouse's music. Sure, her sound -- a self-consciously retro blend of vintage Motown beats and punchy Stax horns overlaid with wry, self-penned lyrics -- stood out. It was all showcased on Back to Black, the British star's American debut, which is up for the album of the year award on tonight's 50th Annual Grammy Awards show. Behind Kanye West, who leads with eight nominations, the blue-eyed soul sensation is up for six shiny gramophones, including record and song of the year for her ironic hit "Rehab."

THE POLITICAL SCIENTIST LANGDON WINNER HAPpened to be driving across the country in June 1967 -- just days after the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. "In each city where I stopped for gas or food -- Laramie, Ogallala, Moline, South Bend -- the melodies wafted in from some far-off transistor radio or portable hi-fi," he would write. "For a brief while, the irreparably fragmented consciousness of the West was unified, at least in the minds of the young." Forty years later, former Beatle Paul McCartney will attempt to re-create that spirit on Tuesday, when Starbucks hosts a 24-hour "worldwide listening party" with his new CD, Memory Almost Full, set on repeat at more than 10,000 locations in 29 countries.

The Dixie Chicks may not have been ready to make nice, but last night, band members showed they weren't above gloating -- at least a little -- as they accepted five honors at the 49th annual Grammy Awards, including record of the year, song of the year and best album. The super-trio was snubbed by many country fans and radio stations after lead singer Natalie Maines made disparaging comments in 2003 about President Bush. Taking the Long Way, last night's winning album, was ignored by the Country Music Association at its November awards ceremony.

YOU KNOW THE Grammys are on shaky ground when viewers would rather watch pitch-challenged amateurs on American Idol than multi-platinum, even legendary superstars. With recent ratings shrinking, the event advertised as "Music's Biggest Night" has become progressively smaller. The 49th annual Grammy Awards, airing live tonight, face myriad struggles: infinite audience fragmentation, competition from a glut of televised celebrity spectacles and the over-saturation of a pop culture whose disposability rivals Kleenex.

Critics may carp that the Grammy Awards are overly commercialized and under-representative of musical quality, but one thing they're not is predictable.Just look at this year's ballot. Even though the artists earning the most nominations were all women -- Lauryn Hill, Sheryl Crow, Shania Twain and Madonna -- this year's Grammy race is more about genre than gender, as most of the major nominees owe their success to having crossed over from a pop pigeonhole to the anything-goes mainstream.That may be why the Grammy guessing game has grown harder in recent years.

YOU KNOW THE Grammys are on shaky ground when viewers would rather watch pitch-challenged amateurs on American Idol than multi-platinum, even legendary superstars. With recent ratings shrinking, the event advertised as "Music's Biggest Night" has become progressively smaller. The 49th annual Grammy Awards, airing live tonight, face myriad struggles: infinite audience fragmentation, competition from a glut of televised celebrity spectacles and the over-saturation of a pop culture whose disposability rivals Kleenex.

Hips don't lie, Shakira famously sings, but they've sure helped her win accolades, as the Colombian sensation scooped up a field-leading five nominations for the seventh annual Latin Grammy Awards, announced yesterday in New York. The belly-dancing singer-songwriter was the only artist to be named in the song, record and album categories, for her Spanish-language CD Fijacion Oral Vol. 1 and its reggaeton-tinged hit "La Tortura." This marks a triumph for Shakira's bicultural and bilingual music-making strategy, crowning her the most completely adapted crossover performer in contemporary pop music.