After the incredible rendition of the National Anthem at this past Super Bowl, I was curious to see/listen to Lady Gaga’s tribute to David Bowie at yesterday’s Grammys.

The current music scene, to me anyway, is akin to watching a foreign movie without subtitles…For the most part I don’t understand it at all.  (Get off my lawn!!)

After the show was nearly over I headed to YouTube and found the Lady Gaga tribute in its entirety (this morning, however, I’m seeing the tribute has been washed from YouTube and, instead, we get plenty of reviews of it).

My thoughts on what I saw?

I didn’t like it much.  In fact, I shut it off after a couple of minutes.

Don’t get me wrong, I know Lady Gaga put a great deal of effort into the production and she certainly tried hard to get as many of Mr. Bowie’s “hits” presented in bit sized fashion as quickly as she could.  It is also obvious she has a great deal of admiration for Mr. Bowie.  I’ve always felt that she, and Madonna for that matter, are among the artists who most directly copied/adapted David Bowie’s evolution of style into their acts.  Though they may have copied Mr. Bowie in that respect, they also brought powerful songwriting/singing skills to the mix which allowed them to not just copy Mr. Bowie’s style but also find their own and soar in their own directions.

Having said that, the Lady Gaga tribute was…it was cheesy.

That word screamed to my mind as I watched all I could handle before turning it off after a minute or two.  Despite the great makeup and clothing and computer graphics what you had was basically a “best of” version of David Bowie’s hits/styles and it felt too curt and rather…depressing.

By giving us small samples of his songs while changing clothing every few seconds to mimic some Bowie style, it felt like we were getting some Vegas version of Mr. Bowie’s career.  It was not unlike seeing Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees do The Beatles in the dreadful Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band movie.

Please understand, I’m not a Lady Gaga “hater”.  I’ve heard some of her popular songs on the radio and, frankly, like them for the most part even though I’m hardly into today’s music “scene”.  I also recall hearing her on Howard Stern a while back, singing a couple of her songs with only her piano to accompany her and was blown away by how good she sounded.  Hell, as I mentioned above, I absolutely loved her National Anthem rendition.

But the Bowie tribute simply didn’t work for me.

Of course, YMMV.