The 52nd annual Grammy Awards came and went last night and, as usual, music’s “biggest night” was pretty tame. Unlike the MTV Video Music Awards, the Grammys are when we’re supposed to take music seriously. Madonna can’t kiss Britney on stage or writhe around seductively in a wedding dress. Diana Ross can’t grab ‘Lil Kim’s boob. Kanye West definitely can’t interrupt Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech.

So while the Grammys are sort of like the nerdy older sister of music awards shows, we did notice a theme running through many of the evening’s theatrical performances: Blame it on Glee if you want, but musicals are suddenly cool again — and it’s clear most of the artists who performed last night were inspired by some of the Great White Way’s best. Here, we list our fave five performances from the Grammys and the big, brash musical numbers that may have inspired them.

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1. Brace yourselves for VMAs déjà vu: the roster of performers for the 52nd annual Grammy Awards on January 31 now includes nominees Green Day, Lady Gaga, and Pink. [via MTV]
2. Karen O and T Bone Burnett‘s respective scores for Where The Wild Things Are and Crazy Heart are ineligible for a Best Original Score Oscar nomination due to the Academy’s wack-job rules. Brian Eno (The Lovely Bones) opted out of the race altogether. [via TwentyFourBit]
3. So oldie-but-goodie Van Morrison didn’t welcome home a new baby last week. It was just a hacker trick. [via Vulture]
4. For the guy you know who has every line of Clerks memorized: The Kevin Smith iTunes app. [via CinemaBlend]
5. The Roots are looking for someone to design a logo for their annual (and epic) Jam Session. [via Limewire]

Bonus link: Titles From The Baby-Sitters Club: The College Years Series.

It is no secret that trade publication Billboard is painfully irrelevant. However, its latest “Artists of the Decade” list cannot be debated — it has been objectively compiled. Never mind the fact that Billboard equated “Artists of the Decade” with “the 20 music stars with the best performance on the Billboard 200 albums chart and the Hot 100 over the last ten years.” We let this happen, at least when we still bought CDs. After the jump, explanations on how Creed, Nelly, Nickelback, and others snuck into the Top 20 most-sold albums of the decade list.

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Every month Yahoo Japan chooses five new Western releases as their “must buy” picks — because evidently “buy” and “music” are two words that Japanese listeners still use together without adding “I can hardly remember when I used to.” Mysterious.

But what piques our interest even more: What Western music do the Japanese think is worth buying? After the jump, multilingual Flavorwire contributor Doug Schrashun is here to translate the scoop from Japan for the rest of us.

Brace yourselves — Christina Aguilera made the cut.

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Two pop stars, two new albums, two similar concepts. Would you believe that they share the same parent label? Pink’s album dropped on October 28th, Britney’s is due on December 2. If you were their teacher, who would you accuse of cheating on their homework?

Thanks Alex, for the tip.