Grammys’ Low Notes Ring Out in Many Instances

Given the events of the Grammy Awards--an attack by scenery on Vanessa Williams, the interruption of Shawn Colvin by an unscheduled rapper, Bob Dylan’s unexpected “Soy Bomb� dancer, and Aretha Franklin’s unfortunate foray into opera--maybe Barbra Streisand’s absence is best explained by surmising that she was psychic, not sick.

RUDI LOGAN

West Hollywood

As The Times’ investigative pieces and the Grammys themselves showed this week, it’s about time the recording academy took a close look at its own operations.

In Wednesday’s show, it was an absolute disgrace that security was so lax we had to watch some slovenly-haired, glassy-eyed, mumbling and incomprehensible Marilyn Manson look-alike all but ruin the lovely interpretive dance number by that “Soy Bomb� guy.

JOHN CORCORAN

Calabasas

The praise that Robert Hilburn has given Bob Dylan over the years may indeed be well-deserved. But the fact is, as both Tom Hatten on radio and Hilburn’s colleague Howard Rosenberg in print said Thursday, Dylan cannot be understood. (Hatten advocated English translation above the stage, as at foreign-language opera.)

I’ll be damned if I could understand more than a few words at the Grammy show and that inaudible mumbling has been the case at the several performances I’ve seen on TV.

GORDON COHN

Long Beach

I don’t care if Bob Dylan’s “Time Out of Mind� won a Grammy. I still think it’s a great album.

FRED JANSSEN

Long Beach