IB on Grammys

MAGNA CARTA...HAIL MARY? In his latest column, posting Friday morning, I.B. Bad asks: Will Grammy principals Neil Portnow, Ken Ehrlich and Jack Sussman be able to lure Beyoncé, the reigning queen of pop culture with a still-growing album that has broken 1.5m in just four weeks—and such a mega-draw that her last tour was red-hot with no new music behind it? Could there possibly be a Mr. and Mrs. Carter moment on the 1/26 telecast? That will happen only if Jay Z is willing to look past the disrespect he was shown by the secret committee with this year’s nominations, who seem to have been afflicted with a bout of collective insanity. Longtime Grammy watchers can’t remember another year like this one, when so many obvious candidates were overlooked in the categories they were expected to dominate. In a related matter, if CBS is paying $60m for the show and the labels are being made to shell out as much as $500k per performance, wonderers are wondering where all the money is going. (1/16a)