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A look at some of the 2014 Grammy Award nominations shows me this: The style Frank Sinatra perfected is something top stars today strive towards, but because they usually fall short, it teaches me that the hip, cool, suave bad boy persona The Voice invented isn’t as easy to pull off as some seem to think.
On Sunday January 26th the 56th Grammy Awards will be shown live on CBS. The Awards began in 1958 and Frank Sinatra had already reached the peak of music popularity twice before that date, yet he still managed to rack up a whopping eleven trophies with over 30 nominations.
One of the highlights for me occurred in 1994 when U2’s Bono, rich with descriptive loquaciousness, introduced The Chairman of the Board – referred to as the Chairman of the Bad by a respectful Bono – for his Grammy Legend Award. A visibly moved Sinatra addressed the audience, his wife Barbara and let people in on a bit of Rat Pack style. He thanked, joked and looked eager to perform. This speech even made a recent top ten craziest speech list because the show’s producers cut him short.
Let’s get back to my introductory paragraph. Justin Timberlake, with his own Rat Pack-esque style, is up for an award with Mirrors. Robin Thicke, another attempting that infamous controlled-cool, is being recognized with Blurred Lines. But what’s really noticeable is the countless other nominees that realize that some bad behavior can bring your name attention, except, for them, the line is blurred between what’s okay and what is going too far. Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber and more seem to be certain that you can’t stay current without a tarnished image – it’s just too bad they can’t seem to tell the difference between a little tarnish and actual damage.
In 1994 Frank expressed an interest in getting to know that year’s successes and were he backstage at the Grammys. Sunday, were he there in flesh rather than spirit, I’m certain he would have had a few words of advice for today’s young stars.
