British singer Adele won all three of the biggest categories at the Grammy Awards on Sunday, taking home five trophies, including album of the year for “25” and record and song of the year for “Hello.”
While many had predicted this year would be a battle between Adele and Beyoncé, in the end Queen Bey, whose performance during the show was a standout, nabbed only two Grammys, including best urban contemporary album for her acclaimed “Lemonade” record, a collection so strong that Adele used her final speech of the night for album of the year to sing the praises of Beyoncé.
“My artist of my life is Beyoncé, and this album to me, this ‘Lemonade’ album, is so monumental and so well-thought-out and so beautiful and soul-baring,” said Adele, who also won the same three big categories for her previous album, “21.” “And all us artists here (bleeping) adore you.
“The way you make me and my friends feel, the way you make my black friends feel, it’s empowering.”
Tying Adele for most Grammys was the late David Bowie’s “Blackstar” album, which also received five Grammys including rock song of the year for the title track of his final album, released two days before his death in 2016. It was a long-overdue celebration of the artistry of Bowie, who, in more than 50 years of outstanding music, had won just one competitive Grammy.
Chance the Rapper, who benefited from a rule change that made streaming releases eligible for Grammys, won three awards, including best new artist.
The overarching theme of much of the night at times felt as if it was the loss of so many artists over the past year. Singer John Legend and musical theater star Cynthia Erivo did a lovely version of the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” during the In Memoriam slideshow, and earlier the Grammys staged two lengthy tributes to the late George Michael and Prince.
Of the two, the Prince tribute connected most powerfully, with his proteges in the Time starting off with “Jungle Love” and “The Bird,” two songs co-written by Prince and featured in his movie “Purple Rain,” followed by Bruno Mars and his band blazing through “Let’s Go Crazy,” Mars resplendent in a Prince-ly purple sequined jacket with a flouncy white shirt, channeling the spirit of the late star in his vocals and his guitar soloing.
Adele, whose performance last year was plagued by sound problems, came out to sing Michael’s “Fastlove” during his segment of the show and once again had problems, swearing – it’s kind of her thing – and then asking to restart the song, saying, “I can’t mess this up for him.” Once she got going, it was beautiful, the song’s chorus aptly including the refrain, “I miss my baby.”
Throughout the telecast there were scattered political comments, though nothing as blunt as Meryl Streep’s speech during the Golden Globes. A Tribe Called Quest, with help from Busta Rhymes – whose opening lines called out “President Agent Orange” for spreading evil throughout the land – performed “We the People.”
Katy Perry gave one of the more overtly political performances of the night during her song “Chained to the Rhythm,” wearing a glittery armband with the word “Resist” and ending the song in front of an image of the U.S. Constitution as she shouted out “No hate!”
Chance the Rapper won best new artist over country singers Kelsea Ballerini and Maren Morris, hip-hop artist Anderson .Paak and dance duo the Chainsmokers. He later won best rap album for “Coloring Book.”
Twenty One Pilots accepted their award for best pop duo/group performance for “Stressed Out” with more humor and, um, less pants, the duo of Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun having shed their tuxedo pants. Joseph said that years earlier he and Dun had watched the Grammys with a group of friends all just in their underpants.
“Josh turned me, and we were no one at the time, and he said, ‘If we ever win a Grammy, we should receive it just like this,’” Joseph explained.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7787 or plarsen@scng.com
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
