Mary J. Blige, with a successful comeback, a best-selling album and a leading eight nominations, looks poised to emerge from the Grammy Awards as the night's big winner.
But then again, Mariah Carey was in much the same boat last year. And look what happened to her. Carey led the nominations in 2006 for her "The Emancipation of Mimi" album, yet won only in the R&B categories, not the coveted Record of the Year, Album of the Year and Song of the Year categories. U2 was instead the big winner of the night, with five awards.
Are the Grammys trying to mend their reputation of being a sucker for chart-topping pop acts while overlooking "important" artists? Certainly, over the years they have been accused of being pitifully out of touch with music fans and music trends.
To wit: the Grammys started in 1959 but didn't have a category for rock and roll until 1962. The awards ceremony weren't broadcast on TV until 1971; and the most recent oversight: a hip hop album didn't win Album of the Year until 1999, when Lauryn Hill cleaned up.
Who did the Grammys reward in its formative years? Artists such as Henry Mancini, Glen Campbell, and Frank Sinatra. And Grammy members got excited about such new artists as Robert Goulet, José Feliciano, and The Swingle Sisters. (Single who?)
The Grammys presented a glimmer of forward thinking in 1965 when they handed out Best New Artist to a spunky little band named The Beatles. But it wasn't until 1968 that a rock band ever won Album of the Year. The Beatles' seminal "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" took it by beating out such old favourites as "My Cup Runneth Over" by Ed Ames, and "Ode to Billie Joe," Bobbie Gentry (Again, who?!)
It's not only the Grammys' questionable taste that angers many music fans; it's their confusing selection of categories. The Awards currently have 108 categories within more than 20 genres of music -- many of which blend together together.
For example, who defines what is Rock and what is Metal? (Metallica has won in both categories). What exactly is Alternative? (That award has been handed out to such polar opposites as The Beastie Boys and Coldplay). Why did it take until 1989 to offer a Rap category? And why in the world did DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince win it?
Award organizers were so uncomfortable with the category back in 1989, they handed it out during the pre-show ceremony, not the televised broadcast. Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince, Salt-N-Pepa and L. L. Cool J all responded by boycotting the show entirely. To try to keep up with the times, organizers do try to change up or rename the categories, some times less successfully than others.
The four big categories have remained the same: Album of the Year, Record of the Year (which goes to the best single of the year), Song of the Year (which goes to the songwriter) and Best New Artist. But other categories have just left us scratching our heads.
A Grammy was handed out for Best Disco Recording in 1980 -- and never handed out again. (For the record, Gloria Gaynor and her producers won for karaoke fave "I Will Survive"). Best Reggae Album began to be awarded in 1985 -- 10 years after "I Shot the Sheriff" and four years after Bob Marley died.
The Best Polka Album category began in 1986 (when someone must have noticed a surge of interest in polka). Jimmy Sturr & His Orchestra has won it 15 of the last 20 years. Canada's own Walter Ostanek has managed to steal the prize only three times.
But of course, the Grammys' worst misjudgment of all time has to have been the awarding of Best New Artist to Milli Vanilli in 1989.
The pop duo was topping the charts with catchy if somewhat insipid ditties that we all now know they never actually sang. Four days after the scandal broke, Grammy organizers sheepishly retracted their award -- a first, and a move they thankfully have never had to repeat.
Here are a few other unforgettable Grammy moments:
* Jennifer Lopez's name become forever locked into the minds of viewers of the 2000 Grammys, when she arrived on the arm of Puff Daddy - as he was then known -- wearing a taped-on Versace dress cut down to there.
* Bob Dylan's otherwise unmemorable performance at the 1998 Grammys took a turn for the bizarre when a man with "Soy Bomb" scrawled across his naked chest leapt onto stage to dance before security whisked him away.
* Eminem's embrace of gay icon Elton John after their performance of "Stan" at the close of the 2001 Grammys was seen as a landmark by many -- and just plain cringe-worthy to the rest of us.
* Justin Timberlake apologized at the 2004 Grammys for the Super Bowl "nipplegate" fiasco one month before. Janet Jackson was notably absent from the show that year.
* When 2004's Best New Artist award was handed to Evanescence, 50 Cent, fellow nominee and odds-on favourite, leapt onto the stage and snatched away the trophy. A few seconds later, he handed the statue back to singer Amy Lee before gleefully leaving the stage.
* Metallica offered a mesmerizing performance of their song "One" in 1989 and seemed poised to win the first-ever Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance award. They were as shocked as anyone when flute-lovers Jethro Tull took home the award. (Metallica won the following year.)
* In 1991, many music fans were stunned with Nirvana's groundbreaking "Nevermind," album was passed over for Best Alternative Music Album in favour of R.E.M.'s radio-friendly "Out of Time."
* Sinead O'Connor became the first to refuse a Grammy after she was awarded Best Alternative Music Performance in 1990. She said she wanted no part of the awards show's commercialism.
* Christopher Cross became in 1981 the first performer to win the Big Four at a single ceremony: Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist. As the music legend goes, the advent of the video age was not kind to Cross in the following years and he dropped off the music radar.
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