Beyoncé, Swift win big at Grammys

Country-pop singer Taylor Swift won album of the year for Fearless, but Beyoncé was the even bigger winner last night at the 52d Annual Grammy Awards as the R&B superstar captured a record-setting six awards.

"This has as been an amazing night for me," said Beyoncé, who won song of the year for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)." She broke the record of five she had held along with Alison Krauss, Norah Jones, Amy Winehouse, and Alicia Keys.

Swift took home four golden gramophones. "Oh my God, our families are freaking out in their living rooms right now," exclaimed the elated 20-year-old. "All of us, when we're 80 years old and we're telling stories over and over again, and annoying our grandchildren, this is the story we're going to be telling, that we won the album of the year Grammy in 2010."

Southern alt-rock family band Kings of Leon were the surprise winners for record of the year for "Use Somebody." "We're a little drunk," singer Caleb Followill said. "But we're happy drunks."

A "Ladies Night" theme with Beyoncé, Swift, and fellow multiple-nominee Lady Gaga was struck early on. Gaga kicked off the show with "Poker Face," which won a best dance recording Grammy, dressed in a glittery green butterfly outfit.

Gaga, whose debut disc The Fame also won electronic/dance album, was joined by Elton John on her "Speechless" and his own "Your Song," with lyrics altered to express "how wonderful life is when Gaga's in the world."

After winning song of the year, Beyoncé threw herself into an over-the-top performance of Sasha Fierce's "If I Were a Boy" mashed up with Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know," featuring military-uniformed dancers.

Swift showed up minutes later to pick up her first on-air trophy, best country song for "You Belong With Me."

"I just keep thinking back to when you're in second grade and you sing at your talent show the first time and people joke around and they say, 'Oh, maybe we'll see you at the Grammys someday,' " the pride of Wyomissing, Pa., told the crowd at the Staples Center. "That just seems like an impossible dream. I just feel like I'm standing here accepting an impossible dream right now."

Stephen Colbert was the first host on stage, and the Comedy Central comic set a standard of ironic excellence. "We're here to celebrate what I consider our most precious right," he said. "The right of celebrities to congratulate themselves."

Colbert thanked British megaselling phenom Susan Boyle, whose album came out too late for the awards.

"Justin Timberlake may have brought the sexy back, but Susan Boyle sent it away this year," he quipped. "Goodbye, sexy! Your industry was saved by a 48-year-old Scottish cat lady in sensible shoes."

Colbert won the Grammy for best comedy album for A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All! "This is a Christmas album, so obviously I want to thank Jesus Christ for having such a great birthday," he said. When he asked his daughter, "Am I cool now?" she nodded.

Affable Atlanta country jam band the Zac Brown Band beat a middling field that included MGMT, Keri Hilson, Silversun Pickups, and the Ting Tings - and for some inexplicable reason did not include Lady Gaga - to win best new artist.

Early on, every performance was glitzy and outrageous. Green Day's "21 Guns," was the dullest of the bunch, using the cast of the stage version of the pop-punk band's American Idiot rock opera. The Black Eyed Peas, which won three awards, did a futuristic robo-funk-rap medley of "Imma Be" and "I Gotta Feeling."

And Doylestown's own Pink - nee Alecia Moore - literally rose above the crowd with her performance of "Glitter in the Air," which she sang while spinning upside down hanging from a trapeze, Cirque du Soleil style.

Even that paled in comparison with the 3-D tribute to Michael Jackson, featuring footage that was meant to accompany "Earth Song" on Jackson's planned This Is It concert tour. Lionel Richie paid tribute to the King of Pop, and Smokey Robinson, Celene Dion, Usher, Jennifer Hudson and Carrie Underwood belted out the eco-anthem. Beyoncé and Rihanna, in the crowd, had to settle for looking cool in 3-D glasses.

In the telecast's YouTube moment, Jackson's two eldest children, Prince Michael, 12, and Paris, 11, accepted a Lifetime Achievement award for their father. "Our father was always concerned for the planet and humanity," Prince Michael said. "Through all of his songs his message was simple: Love."

After all that excitement, the telecast slowed down, with a grandiose "Bridge Over Troubled Water" duet dedicated to Haiti earthquake victims that featured Mary J. Blige and Andrea Bocelli.

With 109 Grammy categories this year, there were a lot of trophies to go around.

Jay-Z won three awards, and Eminem won two, including rap album, for Relapse. R&B love man Maxwell won his first two Grammys - R&B album for BLACKsummer'snight and R&B vocal for "Pretty Wings," which he sang in the evening's classiest performance. Astoundingly, Neil Young won his first-ever Grammy, for the packaging of his Neil Young Archives box set.

Philadelphia composer Jennifer Higdon won the Grammy for classical contemporary composition for Percussion Concerto, performed by the London Philharmonic. One of her early successes, it was co-commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony and the Indianapolis Symphony.

"I hope this encourages other orchestras to take a chance and commission new music," Higdon said by phone last evening.