The weirdest — and Jew-iest — moment from the Grammys
A Grammy award Image by Getty/GABRIEL BOUYS/Staff
By PJ Grisar January 27, 2020
In a largely somber Grammys — brimming with mourning, green skulls and a profusion of fire — there was one outstanding moment of unexpected (if unintended) levity. In a star-studded and treacly musical theater montage, Camila Cabello, Cyndi Lauper, Common, Ben Platt and a crew of arts high school students serenaded departing Grammys producer Ken Ehrlich, who has been running the show for four decades. They sang “The Body Electric.”
That tune, from the 1980’s film “Fame,” was penned by Michael Gore (né Goldstein, the brother of singer Lesley Gore) and Dean Pitchford, and boy does it show its age with its clunky collision of strings, horns and — duh — electric instruments.
Somehow, a fictional class of arts high school students’ senior recital, with its inexpert clash of Apollonian and Dionysian forms, descended on music’s biggest stage. It only got stranger, as alumni from the film provided cameos, Gary Clark Jr. supplied a guitar lick and ballerina Misty Copeland pirouetted by in a canary-yellow dress. Pianist Lang Lang and Jewish violinist Joshua Bell provided classical contributions.
Were there dance students in primordial mesh outfits that aped Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring?” Of course. Did Common come on stage in a reflective green suit to rap about Walt Whitman like your “hip” high school English teacher? Sure. Will high school English teachers across the country be showing their students this clip in a misguided effort to make the arts relevant? Almost certainly. And that makes sense, seeing as the stated theme of this pageant was arts education.
“The Body Electric” was a better choice, surely, than Gore and Pitchford’s title track for “Fame,” which callowly crows the egoistic ambition to be a household name. If there’s a tension in the earnestly populist message of “The Body Electric” (which states “we will all be stars,” rather than “you will remember my name”) and the more fame-forward nature of the Grammys, it’s one that made the showcase all the more effective. Here, a group of established artists — some of whom are still perceived as cool — sloughed their dignity for five minutes of unadulterated cheese to plug the importance of arts programs.
It’s hard to think of a better medium to deliver this message than the mess of styles that is the song. It speaks to the overall quality of pre-collegiate art while jibing with the naive effort to save it in much of the U.S.
Sadly, the arts will continue to face the brunt of school budget cuts, no matter how many celebrities in spangly outfits gesture to its essential nature. Still, whether or not this was virtue signaling, it made for a refreshingly odd moment that sacrificed viewer interest for a brief, shining moment of lunacy.
If Ken Ehrlich asked for this, we’re sad to see him go #KeepTheGrammysWeird.
PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture fellow. He can be reached at [email protected].
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