Grammy Awards

Los Angeles City Council members have spent much of their time in recent weeks mulling the city's budget woes and the possibility of layoffs, but budget-tightening only goes so far when it comes to gala events such as the Grammy Awards. The council agreed Tuesday to waive $124,163 in city fees associated with the Grammy Awards, which will be held on Feb. 8 at the Staples Center.

The rehearsals for the 51st Annual Grammy Awards could be considered the calm before the storm of the ceremony -- except, well, they haven't been all that calm and rain has been falling on Staples Center for days. The show will air live on the East Coast on Sunday night on CBS and, with an unprecedented 24 musical numbers, the producers are struggling mightily with a dizzying number of moving parts and compelling subplots.

Award shows typically manufacture their "anything can happen" aura, but on Sunday night the 51st annual Grammy Awards delivered the real thing with canceled performances, a star nominee in police custody, a lingering song-theft controversy and the unforgettable sight of British-born star M.I.A., a nine-months-pregnant single mom-to-be, prancing across the stage on her due date. Oh, and there were some trophies handed out.

If the apocalypse is here, we might as well enjoy it. Stomp down the doors of your comfort zone. Hook up with unlikely new friends. Get noisy. Have a party before the flames consume us all. That seemed to be the prevailing attitude during the 2009 Grammy Awards telecast Sunday night. Times are beyond tough for the music industry and cultural endeavors in general.

Here is a list of Grammy winners in the major categories, as announced Sunday by the Recording Academy. For a complete list of winners, go to TheEnvelope.com.

This year's Grammys parties, downsized because of the economy, made for more intimate affairs -- and tighter guest lists. So tight that Ne-Yo got turned away at his own midnight breakfast get-together Saturday at the Kress club in Hollywood. As one bouncer put it: "Right now, the fire marshal is God!" The R&B star, who would go on to win two awards, returned later to make a brief cameo at the event, where a mobile McDonald's served up waffles, grits and vanilla iced coffee.

There's been an understandable amount of head-scratching and second-guessing in some quarters over the shortage of Latino and Latin American musical artists presenting trophies at the Grammys earlier this month. Musically, CBS' 3 1/2 -hour broadcast on Feb. 8 reflected what Times pop critic Ann Powers called "the great wide mess of styles and sounds that fill the marketplace," including artists as dissimilar as Neil Diamond and Lil Wayne.

Pierre Cossette, the avuncular old-school talent agent, manager, music mogul and Broadway producer often called the father of the Grammy Awards telecast for persuading nervous TV executives to put "longhairs with high heels and makeup" on a live national broadcast in 1971, died Friday. He was 85. Cossette, who had suffered in recent years with congestive heart failure, died at Barrie Memorial Hospital in Montreal, not far from his family's summer home in St. Anicet. "He had a rough few years medically, but his spirit and sense of humor never left him," Ken Ehrlich, the longtime Grammy Awards producer, said Friday shortly after learning of Cossette's death.

The most talked-about pre-Grammy happening is now officially sanctioned by the Recording Academy. The annual industry buzz event/party hosted by music-biz veteran Clive Davis is, for the first time in its 30-year history, a Grammy-endorsed affair. The Recording Academy said Tuesday that it was partnering with Sony Music's chief creative officer to host the annual dinner and concert, held the night before the Grammys on Feb. 7 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Davis' party has had a reputation in recent years for introducing younger mainstream talents such as Alicia Keys, Mario and Maroon 5. The party has also seen an influx of "American Idol"-bred artists, with Fantasia, Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood given showcase slots -- artists signed to the J Records label Davis founded.