Golden Globes, People’s Choice, Emmys and Oscars; and that’s merely the tip of the iceberg. January and February of 2017 was jam-packed with awards ceremonies happening almost one right after the other. Then again if you noticed the names then you’ll catch on quick that these awards are primarily for visual media – films, television shows, documentaries, and so on. Well just this Sunday February 12, a couple days shy of Valentines, it was the music industry’s turn to give out props as the 59th Annual Grammy Awards kicked off in Los Angeles’ Staples Center.
When British chanteuse Adele opened the evening’s festivities with her hit 2015 song “Hello”, it set the tone for one “storyline” of the Grammys for this year: a clash of singing Titans between Adele and Beyoncé. And they’re not the only threads happening there.
Well-deserved wins
Also included in the evening’s production numbers, Queen Bey didn’t let the fact that she’s got twins on the way stop her from giving a quality performance on stage. While definitely limited in the range of energetic motions, Beyonce still managed to wow audiences with her double serving of “love Drought” and “Sandcastles” from her latest album “Lemonade”, which was also in contention for a lot of the Grammy categories this year.
Ultimately however, despite the Queen topping everybody with nine different nominations, Adele managed to edge her out by claiming the top awards including ‘Record of the Year’, ‘Song of the Year’ and ‘Best Solo Pop Performance’ (“Hello”), followed by ‘Album of the Year’ and ‘Best Vocal Pop Album’ (“25”). Essentially she swept all five categories she got nominated in, while Beyonce took ‘Best Urban Contemporary Album’ and ‘Best Music Video’ (“Formation”).
Among the other fortunate Grammy awardees, pop duo Twenty One Pilots took away ‘Best Pop Duo/Group Performance’ for their song “Stressed Out”, and celebrated the win in style. Member Tyler Joseph told the story of how he and partner Josh Dun during their early musician days had watched a past Grammy Awards at home in their underwear.
They made a quirky promise then to received their first future Grammy in that, so they did. Thankfully they were formally dressed up top. ‘Best New Artist’ went to the appropriately stage-named Chance the Rapper. Beyonce’s sister Solange also scored with ‘Best R&B Performance’ for “Cranes in the Sky”, something their mother was definitely proud of.
Musical numbers and tributes
Speaking of Adele, she came back on stage for a tribute to the late George Michael with her rendition of “Fastlove”, which she stopped midway after a musical flub only to start from the very beginning, with a touching “I can’t mess this up for him”. There were further tributes throughout Grammy night, to the Bee Gees, Prince, and other musicians who died in 2016, all from a wide assortment of artists.
