Blog Posts by Paul Grein

(photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage)It's strange, but somehow fitting, that Whitney Houston died the day before the Grammy Awards. Houston was, for many years, a Grammy queen. In February 1986, when Houston was just 22, she sang her #1 hit "Saving All My Love For You" on the telecast, and moments later won her first Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female. (The presenter was her cousin Dionne Warwick, which undoubtedly made the moment all the sweeter for her.)

Photo by John Chiasson/LiaisonIt's strange, but somehow fitting, that Whitney Houston died the day before the Grammy Awards. Houston was, for many years, a Grammy queen. In February 1986, when Houston was just 22, she sang her #1 hit "Saving All My Love For You" on the telecast, and moments later won her first Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female. (The presenter was her cousin Dionne Warwick, which undoubtedly made the moment all the sweeter for her.)

Seven months later, that brief performance on the Grammys brought Houston an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program. It was the first time that someone had won an Emmy for a performance on a Grammy telecast. It was an indication of what a huge impact Houston had made in a very short time, that even the TV community wanted to show its support.

Two of this year's Grammy finalists for Producer of the Year, Paul Epworth and Ryan Tedder, worked on Adele's 21, which is all but certain to dominate the awards. Epworth produced "Rolling In The Deep" and "I'll Be Waiting." Tedder did the honors on "Rumour Has It." This is the first Producer of the Year nomination for both men.

Epworth also produced several tracks on Foster The People's Torches, which is nominated for Best Alternative Music Album, as well as Cee Lo Green's "No One's Gonna Love You." Tedder produced a broad range of songs, including Gavin DeGraw's "Not Over You," Colbie Caillat's "Brighter Than The Sun," Beyonce's "I Was Here" and Jennifer Hudson's "I Remember Me."

Close your eyes and you'd swear it was 1987. Madonna has the top new entry on this week's Hot 100 with "Give Me All Your Luvin," which she performed at the Super Bowl with Nicki Minaj and the irrepressible M.I.A. And five Michael Jackson songs enter the Hot 100, albeit in their Glee cover versions from last week's MJ salute. The highest-ranking is "Smooth Criminal," which pops on at #26.

"Give Me All Your Luvin'" sold 115K copies, which allows it to enter Hot Digital Songs at #7. That's not bad considering it had just three days to amass sales. But it's not great either, given that about 1,000 times that many people watched Madonna perform the song at the Super Bowl. In truth, we may need a few weeks to see if this is going to make it in a big way or not.

Foo Fighters is very likely to leave Staples Center on Sunday with the Grammy for Best Rock Album. This would mark the fourth time they've won that award, which would extend their lead as the act with the most wins in the category's 18-year history. The band is nominated for Wasting Light, which in April became its first #1 album. The album is also a finalist in the overall Album of the Year category.

The band's only album since 2000 not to be crowned Best Rock Album was 2005's In Your Honor (which lost to U2's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb.)

The Beach Boys will perform on Sunday's Grammy telecast in a special performance with Maroon 5 and Foster The People. The Beach Boys never won a Grammy (if you can believe that), but they were voted a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001. Maroon 5 and Foster The People are competing this year for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, a category the Beach Boys should have ruled in the 1960s. Maroon 5 is nominated for "Moves Like Jagger," its chart-topping collabo with Christina Aguilera. Foster The People is nominated for its catchy pop smash "Pumped Up Kicks."

Sunday's telecast will mark the first live performance in more than two decades for the Beach Boys: Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston and David Marks. (Two founding members have passed away: Dennis Wilson drowned in 1983. Carl Wilson died of cancer in 1998.)

Three weeks after making one of the most disparaged musical performances in Saturday Night Live history, Lana Del Rey enters The Billboard 200 at #2 with her first full-length album, Born To Die. The album does even better in the U.K., where it opens at #1.

Del Rey performed two songs on SNL on Jan. 14. Brian Williams, the anchor of NBC Nightly News, called Del Rey's performance "one of the worst outings in SNL history." (Remember when they covered actual news on the news?) On Saturday, Kristen Wiig parodied Del Rey on a Weekend Update sketch.

Sometimes, controversies and setbacks strengthen the bond between an artist and their strongest supporters. It will be interesting to see what happens next in this drama.

Chris Brown will perform on the Grammys on Sunday, just three years after his career nearly derailed when he assaulted his then-girlfriend Rihanna on the eve of the 2009 Grammys, where he was scheduled to appear. It has been a remarkably swift comeback for Brown; the latest example of an artist surviving a career set-back that might, in another time, have permanently kept him on the fringes.

Brown will perform with deadmau5, David Guetta and Lil Wayne in a segment highlighting dance/electronica music. The performance will take place in an outdoor tent adjacent to Staples Center.

In addition to his performance, Brown is expected to win his first Grammy for Best R&B Album for F.A.M.E. By one account, the album's title stands for Forgiving All My Enemies. But is Brown's fans who have been forgiving. F.A.M.E. has sold 822,000 copies, which is more than twice as many as Brown's previous album, Graffiti. That album, which was released just 10 months after the assault, has sold just 355,000 copies. That constituted a big drop-off from Brown's first two albums, both of which have topped the 2 million mark in U.S. sales.)