The Grammys happened last night. Most of us all know this by now. What did you think? We want to hear.

Personally I thought it was a bit better than last year, but still just meh. More la-la trivial pop injected into the world. However, there were a few cool moments. Or, moments that could have been cooler.

• Sir Paul McCartney with Ringo Starr: I rated Paul’s latest album in my Top 5 of 2013. Great record, great performance. And I too was thinking “…woah, the remaining 2 Beatles playing together right now!” That is, until I realized Ringo’s drums weren’t even miked. CBS really needs to learn to cut away from the drummer during drum fills if they’re gonna fake his parts.
• Daft Punk: Although I wouldn’t say I am a fan of the French duo, I will admit their performance was super fun. Shout out to the players in their band more than their namesake, though.
• Imagine Dragons & Kendrick Lamar: Ok, not a fan of either of these acts, but I give them credit for breaking the yawn-fest and performing something that made me sit up and watch. The drum thing was cool, but I’ve seen it for years from bands like Mutemath, Ours, and even Radiohead a bit. So that part seemed contrived. Regardless, it was big and energetic.
• Metallica & Lang Lang: A weird combo, but I was just so happy that a rock band was performing! After being all pumped up, I was slowly deflated as it became apparent that the piano thing was just distracting, and was actually overpowering the guitars. In the end, it just sounded like something was out of tune. Maybe it was Kirk. Nice idea, but didn’t work.
• Nine Inch Nails & Queens of the Stone Age, with Dave Grohl: Fabulous idea. Again, the mix didn’t work as Josh’s guitar seemed out of place during the NIN portion, Lindsey Buckingham’s backing vocals were drowning out Trent’s vocals, and the live drums were too apparent for a song that should stay mostly digital. Still very fun to watch. I also really loved that the pop stars and starlets actually started leaving the venue while the bands were performing. Gotta get to those after parties right!? Not to mention they kept cutting to the credits and the sponsors. At least Paul and Ringo stayed on to support, and Trent gave a “heartfelt Fuck You” later via his Twitter. If I had to sit through the mind-numbing pop crap, at least let me see some good bands at the end without interrupting it and cutting it off early.
• Steven Tyler as Jack Sparrow: yeah.

Perhaps the funniest thing I heard was from Twitter user @girltalk:

“best mashup of the night was the Delta commercial with Queens of the Stone Age”

Things I think could have been improved upon? The list is too long. But I really disliked that Pink came back to perform what was way too similar to her 2010 performance. The twirling-on-a-rope thing is cool, but it doesn’t make your song good. Plus, I’d rather see Cirque du Soleil do it. We get it, Pink, your new gimmick is to fly around to make your performance more interesting.

I also didn’t appreciate LL’s little quip about “Rappers can rock, and rockers can rap. Sometimes.” Or something to that effect.

Oh, I kinda liked the marriage idea during Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ performance. It was heartfelt, and it made me happy to watch some of those couples. Except I don’t think that song is anything noteworthy (it just has lyrics that are relevant), and if they were gonna win for something, it should have been “Thrift Shop”.  Also, Madonna was just awkward.

Overall, it was better than last year’s Grammys. But that’s not saying a whole lot. It bums me out that more people don’t watch these things in detail, and instead just go “wow!” at all the lights and famous people on the TV.

That’s my take. What did you guys think?