Commentary: 56th Grammy Awards might upstage past ceremonies

Shelby Lum
Thu, 09 Jan 2014 04:43:17 +0000
Campus, Daft Punk, grammy awards, grammys, lang lang, metallica, san francisco symphony orchestra, stevie wonder

Electronic duo Daft Punk is scheduled to collaborate with R&B singer Stevie Wonder at the 56th Grammy Awards Jan. 26.
Credit: Courtesy of MCT

When Justin Timberlake called for rapper Jay Z to get out of his chair at the 2013 Grammy Awards and join him onstage for “Suit & Tie,” he arguably snagged the best performance of the evening.

Sure, Taylor Swift’s Alice and Wonderland-esque “We are Never Ever Getting Back Together” was cute, and the “A-Team” duet with Ed Sheeran and Elton John was nice, but none of the other collaborations made quite the same impression as the Jay Z / JT duo. The dapper pairing made the performance look all that much more debonair.

Here we are, a year later, and the coordinators at the Grammy Awards are in the lovely position of having to one up themselves. Enter Daft Punk and Stevie Wonder.

The French electronic music duo’s “Get Lucky” was only possibly eclipsed by Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” over the summer, and the 56th Grammy Awards will mark Daft Punk’s first televised performance since the 2008 Grammys with Kanye West and their first live show since the release of “Random Access Memories.” Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers are scheduled to join the iconic masked DJs (as would be expected for a “Get Lucky” performance), but how Wonder has found a home in that equation will be interesting.

He’s an R&B legend. Daft Punk is an electronic legend. In theory, that could be better than Justin and Jay Z.

“Details of the performance are still being worked out,” Ken Ehrlich, executive producer of the Grammys, told The Independent. “It will be a collaborative and celebratory stage performance that honours their multi-nominated music.”

Clearly the robotic pair don’t take their performances lightly, and the show with cameo appearance from Wonder might be their last for awhile. So why not go out with a bang and bring in coveted music legend Wonder?

Word of other performers are trickling in, including Lorde, Katy Perry, Kendrick Lamar and Metallica. Juxtaposing Lorde’s Grammy debut, Metallica hasn’t taken the stage at the award show in more than two decades, and the metal band doesn’t plan to take back the stage alone.

Pairing with Chinese concert pianist Lang Lang, the performance won’t be the band’s first with a more classical artist and could ever so slightly be reminiscent of “S&M,” Metallica’s album with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

Add Thicke to the docket, whose infamous escapade on the stage with Miley Cyrus at the VMAs earned him a first-class ticket to the front of tabloids, and the evening is looking to top last year’s performance.

Maybe another foam finger-clad Cyrus will charge the stage with Thicke. Maybe.

The 56th Grammy Awards are slated for Jan. 26 in Los Angeles at 8 p.m.