Wow, and when I posted how much I liked Norah Jones's album last summer, I thought I was on to an obscure cult classic.

Too bad Springsteen didn't win much. Norah's record isn't that much better than The Rising. But I think the voters (a) were a bit turned off by the long and hard campaign waged by Bruce and Sony Records, and (b) are so desperate as an industry to show they're still relevant that they didn't want a guy in his 50s in the spotlight too long. Bruce will now feel wronged, and in a few years he'll get some prizes for lesser work. If he gets depressed, he can just look at Dustin Hoffman, who gave the performance of 10 lifetimes as Ratso Rizzo in "Midnight Cowboy," then watched the Oscar go to John Wayne for "True Grit" because his was overdue.

It makes little difference, anyway. But congratulations to Norah.

Another learning experience from the Grammy show: I finally sat through an entire song by Eminem. Why doesn't he just paint his face black, so that the exploitation will be as literal as his revelations about his psychological problems?