Music just doesn’t have a hold on me like movies do. Which is weird cause I have over four hundred songs on my iPhone so I clearly like listening to it. But most of it involves either musical scores or just pop culture hits from films/television. So the idea of a museum of music sounded pretty boring to me initially. Luckily Los Angeles is hosted to a pretty cool museum of the sort thanks to The Grammys. The GRAMMY MUSEUM is what you think it is: a look at the history of one of the biggest awards an entertainer can receive. I’ll go into my full thoughts on the place a little later but for now enjoy what there is to offer right near the Staples Center.
Entrance
Like the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Grammy Museum has numerous plaques on the sidewalk. In this case they showcase the big award winners for each year. Kinda neat and it shows how our culture was musically for that certain year. By the way: Evanescence winning Best New Artist in 2004? Yikes.
Daft Punk costume greeting
An Award for me!
A model of the very first Grammy.
A very ugly Hawaiian shirt owned by Elvis
An incredibly awesome outfit for Ray Charles
Various flutes, ukuleles, and other native music
Ravi Shanker
Michael Jackson
Taylor Swift “22” notes
Gramophone/Phonograph records
Record and 8-track
A VERY cool idea of a room. They took live performances of people like Beyonce and put filters to showcase how they would sound throughout the ages. So it starts with an 1800s Gramophone and ends up with 5.1 surround sound. Pretty darn cool and the ONLY way to listen to Dave Matthews Band.
George Carlin
Alright…not sure why TV scripts are in a GRAMMY museum but whatever
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The next series of images revolves around a showcasing of Frank Sinatra for his 100th birthday. If you are reading this you have until Mid-February of 2016 to see some of these rare artifacts. If you are reading this past February 2016 then you missed out on some fascinating relics of a great entertainer.
A viewing of THE HOUSE I LIVE IN, the short film Sinatra starred in 1945 to combat racism and anti-semitism
Apparently Frank was an artist and these are some of his work he would do on his down time. He’s not too bad of an abstract artist if I may say so.
Memorabilia of early Sinatra films
Films starring Sinatra and Martin
Golden records, awards, and various memorabilia
Memorabilia of older Sinatra films
Capitol Records microphone and “Nice N’ Easy” music sheet
More gold records, his Grammys, and an Oscar
NOT his Oscar from the movie FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. He won a special award for his THE HOUSE I LIVE IN short.
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So that is a small taste of what the Grammy Museum showcases. It’s a pretty interesting building although I think it is a bit small for my tastes. It’s the history of the Grammys and not music so that might account for it. But if they could somehow expand a bit and showcase more that would be a bit ideal. There is a ton of other stuff though including instruments, theaters, and various devices to showcase some amazing performances throughout American history of music. If you are in the area, or say maybe going to a Lakers/Clippers game this is a very nice pitstop along the way.
Oh, Movies 