2002 Grammy Watch

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  • Record of the Year: “Walk On,” U2
  • Best Song: “Fallin’,” Alicia Keys
  • Rock Song: “Drops of Jupiter,” Train
  • Rock Performance by a Duo or Group w/ Vocal: “Elevation,” U2
  • Album of the Year: “O Brother, Where Art Thou? – Soundtrack,”
    Various Artists

  • Pop Performance by Duo or Group w/ Vocal: “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of,” U2
  • Rock Album: “All That You Can’t Leave Behind,” U2

Check out photos of U2 at the Grammys. Video is available at U2audio.com, mp3 and video at U2outloud.com. U2achtung.com have mp3’s as well.

RTE correspondent reports from Washington. (Real Audio)

Big Music from Wales

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In their hey day, Welsh band The Alarm suffered from U2 comparisons. There wasn’t an interview, or review, that wouldn’t mention their Irish contemporaries. Though succesful in their own right, they didn’t quite make it, and the band fizzled out at the start of the 90s. Now front man Mike Peters has reformed the band as The Alarm 2000 (though apparently without any of the other original members), they’ve toured and have recorded a live album which is reviewed on PopMatters.com. Ten years have passed, and nothing has changed – they’re still being compared to U2: While they’re even less likely to be the next U2 now than they were 15 years ago, their style of arena rock has aged fairly well even considering their tendency to lean on heavier production.

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U2 up for sweeps?

PageSix.com Celeb News predicts: Brace yourself. Because tonight, an 800-pound, broom-toting gorilla named U2 is out of its cage, and it’s gonna sweep all seven of the awards it’s up for.

Meanwhile, Grammy.com reports from the rehearsals: … Bono adding some extra rhythm guitar muscle to the sound as he delivered his lead vocals. He received some heavenly vocal support from a choir lead by gospel talent Kirk Franklin. It was the Edge who worked with Franklin to make last-minute decisions on how to integrate the sounds of the choir and band. There’s an illustration of the band at Grammy.com, made by S.D. Barber, which you can have a better look at on his own website.

Filling a god shaped hole

It’s Grammy time, and Twincities.com’s pop music writer Jim Walsh predicts tomorrow’s headline, looking back at 2001, and the record that became its soundtrack: You wake up every morning somewhere between Caring Deeply and Totally Giving Up. You like pop music, and you love what U2’s Bono said about it (‘Pop music often tells you everything is OK, while rock music tells you that it’s not OK, but you can change it’), which is one reason why you hope U2’s anti-rat-race, reality-based opus to optimism, ‘All That You Can’t Leave Behind,’ wins some of the eight Grammys it’s nominated for tonight.

Critical, celebratory, and cool

But enough of Bono worship and politics, it’s time for some mutual masturbation. We hadn’t yet seen the excellent Womanfish.com’s (a site with a voice and a vibe we like) lovely editorial: ‘U2Log has become an indispensable source of U2 news, speculation, and just plain stuff. Back in April, U2Log published a notice about this site, Womanfish. I had just returned from the second San Jose show, and I posted an mp3 of Kite from that show. That was Kite’s debut. I did not realize how wide U2Log’s influence was, but in about 10 days, I got about 14,000 hits.

Thanks, Mark, and thanks for keeping us up to date with all the new mp3s on your site. This week’s Concert of the Week: New York, 1981.