Hi, my name is G-Lock, and I am a Madonnaholic. My latest obsession is Madonna's performance at the 2006 Grammy Awards. I cannot stop watching it or referencing it. Forgive me.

Even though Confessions on a Dance Floor was released too late to be eligible for this year's Grammys, Madonna was granted the coveted opening performance slot. (Overexposure be damned! There is an album to promote!) In a culture that is moving at the speed of light, Madonna's show-stopping performance at Live 8 last July, a showcase for the trifecta of workhorses Like a Prayer, Ray of Light, and Music, had already become a distant memory and represented the last time most American audiences had heard her sing live.

When it was announced a few weeks ago that Madge would be performing with the Gorillaz, a band fronted by animated characters, eyes rolled.
I heard the word "desperation" a few times.
A little stab at relevancy never hurt anyone, least of all Madonna, the woman whose enviable career has suffered no shortage of premature pronouncements of death.
The Gorillaz were up for Record of the Year (a category Madonna is no stranger to, having been nominated in 2001 for Music) for their popular "Feel Good Inc." and a mash-up with Madge's latest worldwide dance smash, Hung Up, sounded like a fun and technically interesting concept.

Whetting my appetite for the big event on February 7, I submerged myself in the Sorry video.
This made me nervous for the Grammys.
With the first few viewings of the video, I was concerned that Madge had lost her mojo and had created a derivative work that was in essence ripping herself off.
Besides the overt "continuation" of the Hung Up video (which itself took some time to warm the cockles of my heart), there are recognizable elements of, among other things, Music, American Life, Me Against the Music, and Nothing Really Matters, in addition to shout-outs to Xanadu, Kylie Minogue, ABBA, Boogie Nights, and Christina Aguilera's "Dirrty."
Not so off the subject, "Dirrty" inspired its director and photographer/former F.O.M. (1999's Rolling Stone shoot was incredible!) David LaChapelle to investigate krumping with the awesome documentary Rize, whose influence – and even Rize krumper "Miss Prissy" – have been all over Madonna's Confessions promotion.

After I calmed myself down and rationalized that there are only so many times one can reinvent the wheel – and fold one's arms or wag one's fingers in a video – I started to appreciate the linear nature and sheer giddy vibe of the two companion videos.

Plus, there is no denying that Madonna herself looks absolutely fabulous and is lovingly photographed.
While I had envisioned a more melancholic video to match the tune, I don't fault director and choreographer Jamie King for slavishly riding the disco wave for his first shot at the helm, kowtowing to Madonna's leotard- and yoga-crazed showboating.
Mindless fun is great once in a while; not every video will match the lofty heights of Bedtime Story, Like a Prayer, or Bad Girl, but perdoname for wishing something groundbreaking will once again knock us on our asses.

I don't believe this makes me a terrible fan, but, if it does, uh, Sorry. Being critical is the mark of a sensible fan.

Any doubts were wiped away, anyway, when the Grammys started. As soon as the Gorillaz popped up on the screens as three-dimensional computer-generated figures, I knew Madonna would somehow work her way among the characters. Not until the real De La Soul came on stage in front of the screens and cued the female computer-generated figure to hop onto a digitized stool did I comprehend how the song would segue from "Feel Good Inc." to Hung Up. So far, it had been a novel presentation of a song I can declare I barely knew. But, really, I wasn't tuning in for the Gorillaz or De La Soul.

And then the animated girl started strumming a familiar dance beat and the silhouette of Madonna rose up from stage left, eliciting the live audience's anticipatory cheers. When the lights on the computerized Madonna faded up, she was a vision (those thighs! that skin!) and the Gorillaz nearly disappeared from the camera.

This pre-recorded segment was, of course, lip-synched. Hindsight being 20/20, naturally Madge wouldn't open the Grammys just mouthing words, daring to pass off lip-synching as the real deal for discriminating American audiences.
As we all know, the computer action soon morphed from curio to balls-out live action. But not before a little playful interaction with Madonna's neat wend around the animated performers, complete with an air kiss.

For the umpteenth time, Madge gave the big middle finger to detractors by donning her "show girl" hat and getting to what she does best: live performances.
Everything that didn't work in the Sorry video worked here: the flip 'do, tinged a more strawberry blonde hue, has been ironed to differentiate it from the album launch phase (no one has reinvented her hair more than Madge!) and acts as a timestamp for the era; the New Wave aerobics leotard has been jazzed up with a corset, a subtle lilac in the purple Confessions vein; the disco ball imagery is more vibrant out of the flat constraints of a video; and the familiar dance moves have precluded any chance of rickety missteps. It all looked effortless.

Like a lot of you had voiced, I have been suffering from Hung Up choreography fatigue. It was revelatory and momentous at last November's MTV Europe Awards. Madonna-obsessed fans on the Internet, however, watched the routine get retread at least a half a dozen times thereafter, in appearances through Europe and Japan.
Trimmed of its fat and enhanced by Madonna's remarkable vocal prowess at the Grammys, the showpiece was refreshed. Notice how she pulls the microphone away from her mouth during one of the finale's "hand rolls" to demonstrate that, indeed, she is singing live.

One rumor that she did not dispel, unfortunately, were those relating to her problems with Guy. She came unaccompanied to the Grammys. No shrinking violet, at least she could sing a line like "Don't cry for me / 'Cause I'll find my way" – to Guy? To the world? – while looking flawless, teasing the crowd with her hands on hips, licking her lips. What marital problems?

As to how she looks, haters are crying that Madonna should "act her age." Any level-headed answer to that would lead us all back to my column last year that decried trying to put Madonna in a chronology box. Why, at the Super Bowl a few days earlier, Mick Jagger, fifteen years Madonna's senior, spastically flaunted his sinewy bod in skintight clothes for the energetic halftime show and yet very few people declared it age-inappropriate. A wee bit hypocritical and sexist.

Madonna looked great, got the crowd revved up, might have goosed Confessions sales, and clearly had a blast doing it. Why begrudge that? Watch the clip again – and again – and you will see her smile knowingly at the end of the performance.

Now maybe I should take my own advice and watch Sorry again… But first I need to watch her on the Grammys again. I have a problem. I'm forever Hung Up.