Posted by After what felt like 12 hours of watching the 50th Grammys celebrations, Usher and Quincy Jones walked out on stage and… and… presented an award. That’s it. No Michael Jackson and no Thriller celebration.
Something should have told me to move on, early, after not hearing one thing about Jackson or any type of a 25th anniversary tribute on the night of the show. Nor was there any mention during the voiceovers before each commercial break.
However, according to a Grammy commercial (see below), there must have been at least some type of negotiations about a Thriller tribute at some point in time.
Needless to say the many, many…many Jackson fans who were watching are now questioning just what happened or if anything really was supposed to happen in the first place.
Here are just a few of the early comments coming in by fans who are probably running to the internet after the show to express their views:
"That totally sucks that there was no Thriller tribute!! And Herbie Hancock? Who the hell is he?", one MJEOL forum poster writes.
Another frequent poster writes, "So pissed, I just got off a huge shift and hoped to see MJ and there’s not even a mention?"
"They advertised a Thriller Tribute purely for ratings", one poster has already begun to speculate.
I can’t wait (sarcasm) until the ‘usual suspects’ start popping up proclaiming that this is, of course, all Michael Jackson’s fault because, according to them, it’s always his fault when they don’t get what they want.
But stepping back and taking a look at the facts (as of this writing), neither Jackson nor anyone on his behalf ever announced he would be at this year’s Grammy awards.
There was never any confirmation from anyone on Jackson’s side that he would even be at the show, let alone be involved in a Thriller25 tribute. What threw everybody off was that Grammy commercial uploaded to youtube.
The show itself was ok. Everybody was there; people whom I haven’t seen in ages including Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner and Little Richard. Somebody even dusted off Cher and threw her up there to intro Beyonce and Tina Turner’s performance.
Seriously, none of that was why I was watching the show.
I wanted to see some finger snapping, moonwalkin’, Thriller-jacket wearing artists paying tribute. I wanted to hear some "hee-hee"-s, "shumone!"-s and "ow!"-s set to the backdrop of one of the most influential Jackson albums ever.
Ah well. Jackson’s Thriller25 is scheduled to be in stores Feb 12 and features artists like {tag Will.i.am}, {tag Akon} and {tag Kanye West}.
-MJEOL