Critic’s Notebook: Powerful Performances — and Technical Flair — Make for a Gratifying Grammys
Daniel Fienberg
Trevor Noah presents Best Melodic Rap Performance Award
It’s only been two weeks since the Golden Globes mounted a pandemic-impacted telecast in which they were unable to successfully hook up a Zoom call — much less think of any way to refresh the stale format sufficiently to stop the post-show conversation from being about the embarrassing organization giving the award.
Since that’s where the bar was coming into Sunday (March 14) night’s 63rd Grammy Awards, it’s not enough to just say that CBS and producer Ben Winston put on a spectacularly smooth show punctuated by strong, relevant performances with just enough reminders of our precarious current moment to add poignancy.