The Best And Worst Dressed (And Most Heavily On Drugs) At The 2014 Grammy Awards

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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The Grammys are fucking terrible and everybody knows it. That being the case, I have to applaud the annually-televised confirmation of what is not cool for staying so relevant in the decades since the Internet made music free. While I watched basketball and waited for the west coast telecast, I saw what I thought was an inordinate amount of east coasters tweeting about the ceremony, ruining all the good jokes. I’m a cool guy Internet writer, which means I haven’t heard any mainstream music since I was 13 and, even then, only by accident, so a lot of this show was new to me. What makes the Grammys compelling after all these years? Is it the "Sara Aurora Borealis had an album this year? And it’s nominated for Album of the Year?" surprise factor? Maybe it’s the intrigue of seeing the day’s hot, young stars, then seeing 90-year-old Madonna and hoping the day's hot, young stars are wise enough to age gracefully and won't die clinging to whatever Madonna is currently clinging to.

The boring, obvious take would be to say the Grammys have remained relevant by addressing the social issues of our time. But the only interesting thing about that is imagining Middle America getting super hyped on the 26 country performances and then immediately feeling betrayed by the public endorsement of gay marriage. Dude, Timberlake, Bieber, Miley and Kanye weren’t even at the Grammys, so I’ve already spent more time thinking about the event than I will until next year when I’m still so poor that I have to watch this shit again on behalf of Four Pins. So, let’s just look at the clothes and talk about which singers we want to smang in the safety of knowing that not enough females read this site to call me out on my errant objectification.

Angelo Spagnolo is a writer living in Portland, Oregon. Read his blog here and follow him on Twitter here.

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Taylor Swift

First, like every girl I follow on the social medias said, Red was an awesome album and that’s basically the criteria for winning a Grammy, so good for her on that. More importantly, a while back there was a bit of Internet debate wherein my black friends didn’t understand why we think T-Swift is bomb dot com. I’d counter with a, "Why is Kevin Hart funny?" but soon enough virtual reality sex sims will allow you to be John Mayer or Jake Gyllenhaal or whatever creepy old guy and look down at Taylor’s exquisitely penciled cat-eyes smiling up at you from the zipper of your Visvim jeans as she proceeds to wrap her lips around your microphone, and you’ll understand without having to think of a Kevin Hart argument to begin with.

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Katy Perry

KP went super obvious with her music-themed, couture dress, but I was more stoked on her performance outfit because it reminded me of my favorite wrestler, Kane. But really, I was just thinking about Katy’s GQ cover, and laughing at a text from my homebro Jesse saying he was jealous of John Mayer (this fucking guy again) for "getting to t'fuck those knock knocks."

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Skrillex

Skrillex didn’t even win any Grammys this year. Uh, did the voters not hear the Spring Breakers soundtrack? I guess Skrilly is about as #relevant these days as that tired CDG Play sweater #burn.

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Lupe Fiasco

Lupe emerges from behind a fake potted bamboo in the corner. He sidles up next to the first important looking person he spots, an old man who might be a label executive but is actually just Austin Mahone’s grandpa. “Hey,” Lupe says, almost inaudibly, startling the old man. “Remember The Cool?” he says, his words balancing uneasily on the line between question and command. "What? No, who are you?" replies the man. Lupe backs up, disappearing once again into the crowd.

Okay, this pic is from last year, but, like, c'mon, this is absolutely fucking incredible.

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Pharrell Williams And Hat

Pharrell wore his stupid hat seen round the world because it's the size of the fucking Moon and everybody already made all the good jokes and funny photoshopped memes about it, but the real joke will be in, like, two months when you see your favorite street style icon rocking this bullshit. You may even start to think it would actually be kind of cool to wear a stupid fucking hat like this. It isn’t. So don’t. Pharrell has earned a lot more leeway than you because Lord Willin'.

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Lang Lang

Many props to former Complex and current GQ blog pro Jian DeLeon for getting to perform with Metallica. I didn't even know he the played piano!

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