British singer Adele won all three of the biggest categories at the Grammy Awards on Sunday, taking home a total of 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 only nabbed two Grammys, including best urban album for her acclaimed “Lemonade” record, a collection so strong that Adele even 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,” she said. “And all us artists here (bleeping) adore you.
“The way you make me and my friends feel, the way you make my black friends, it’s empowering.”
Tying Adele for the most Grammys on Sunday was the late David Bowie, who also won five times including rock song of the year for “Blackstar,” 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 previous years of outstanding music had won just one 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 like 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 long 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 appropriately including the repeated lines, “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 got help from Busta Rhymes, whose opening lines called out “President Agent Orange,” before slipping into the song “We The People.”
Host James Corden alluded to President Donald Trump’ unpredictability, while actress Laverne Cox, before introducing Lady Gaga and Metallica, gave a shout out to Gavin Grimm, a young transgender man whose civil rights case goes to the Supreme Court soon.
Katy Perry gave one of the more overtly political performances of the night during her song “Chained To The Rhythm,” wearing an glittery armband that featured the word “Resist,” and ending the song in front of an image of the Constitution as she shouted out “No hate!”
The first hour of the telecast featured a cold open with Adele singing a gorgeous rendition of “Hello,” which quickly segued into the silliness of Corden arriving on stage with a series of mock pratfalls before delivering his version of an opening monologue as a rap song.
Given that the vast majority of Grammys are given before the telecast begins it wasn’t that much of a surprise that only three got handed out during this first third of the show, while in addition to Adele there were another five live performances with the Weeknd and Daft Punk one of the standouts but no one coming close to the spectacle that Beyoncé delivered.
Chance the Rapper won best new artist over a pair of country singers, Kelsea Ballerini and Maren Morris, fellow hip-hop artist Anderson .Paak, and dance music 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 that consist of Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun having stripped off their tuxedo pants on the way to the stage. Joseph explained that years earlier he’d invited Dun over to watch the Grammys with friends, and at one point they realized that everyone in front of the TV was in their underpants.
“And 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.
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