The closing number of last night’s 2014 Grammy Awards was quite a spectacle, if you had the stamina to stay tuned in after three-plus hours. Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, Lindsey Buckingham, and Dave Grohl performed a medley of songs, including NIN’s “Copy of A,” a fitting song for an evening of much cultural appropriation and song-swapping.
And then their performance was promptly cut off by the program’s closing advertisements.
Any viewer wishing to see the performance had to deal with the scrolling ads of Delta and the Hilton, which seemed odd, considering the show takes breaks for sponsors what seems like every minutes. Trent Reznor in particular voiced his opinion on Twitter:
Music's biggest night... to be disrespected. A heartfelt FUCK YOU guys.
— Trent Reznor (@trent_reznor) January 27, 2014Was this the Grammys trolling the bands? Or was it, as Recording Academy Neil Portnow explained, simply that they thought of the closing number as a “jam” (shudder)?
In a 2011 interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Reznor voiced other opinions about the Grammys, including that they’re “rigged.” But is that really a surprise?
Photo via monophonic.grrrl/Flickr