Much a-BLIGED, GRAMMYs!!

Wow, ok, so the queen of R&B Mary J Blige is the huge front-runner for the 49th Grammy Awards with 8 nominations. She got 2 (Song of the Year, Record of the Year) out of the four biggies (Song of the Year, Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Best New Artist) but it was shocking that with so many noms she didn't get an Album of the Year nod. No more drama, my arse. Oh, there should be DRAMA, baby! Anywho, as Rox had predicted the Dixie Chicks cleaned up with an egg-basketfull of Grammy nominations (5 total), including Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Record of the Year! (FYI, the difference between Song of the Year and Record of the Year, you ask? Pull up a seat and Rox will inform: Song of the Year goes to the songwriter(s) where Record of the Year is a "performance" category and goes to the Artist (so, since the Chicks' "Not Ready to Make Nice" was performed and written by all of the Chicks then they get nominations for both Song of the Year AND Record of the Year, both are for single tracks whereas Album of the Year is for, you guessed it, an album/CD). Rox got 4 out of the 5 Best New Artists correct -- I predicted James Blunt, Chris Brown, Carrie Underwood, KT Tunstall and Corinne Bailey Rae. Well, to everyone's surprise not only did KT NOT get a Best New Artist nod (she only got one for her performance of "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree") but a relative unknown, Imogen Heap, got a nod (now, mind you, I L-O-V-E Imogen who used to be the lead singer of an obscure Brit group called Frou Frou). Check her out -- you'll recognize her song "Hide & Seek" from Grey's Anatomy recently. Anywho, overall I loved the noms (although I wish Xtina would have gotten more -- love that album -- and congrats to Madonna for three more nominations although they are in Dance Recording for "Get Together," Dance Album for "Confessions on a Dancefloor" and Long Form Video for the, dare I say, quite boring "I'm Going to Tell You a Secret"!). Rox hopes that the Chicks will come home to roost on GRAMMY night in February 2007! Congrats to all the nominees in all 5,824 categories (actually there are "only" 108 categories!!). For a complete list of noms you can check out www.grammy.com. Rox on!!