Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar big winners at the Grammy Awards
Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar were big winners at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Monday night.
Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar were big winners at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Monday night, as the Wyomissing, Pa., native won album of the year for 1989, and the Compton, Calif., rapper took home trophies for best rap album for his 2015 opus To Pimp a Butterfly, plus four other awards, as well as putting on the most incendiary live performance in a long-winded evening hyped as "music's biggest night."
In accepting the best album trophy, Swift pointed out that she was the first woman to win album of the year twice - she also won for Fearless in 2010 - and dedicated it to girls, warning them against "people who will try to undercut your accomplishments and take credit for your fame."
Swift also won two other awards, for best video for "Bad Blood" (which she shared with Lamar, who guested on it), and best pop vocal album for 1989.
After Swift won best album, Beyoncé presented Bruno Mars with the record of the year award for "Uptown Funk," his collaboration with producer Mark Ronson.
Lamar, who won a total of five awards, was not the only big winner at the 58th-annual edition of the awards, broadcast live from the Staples Center on CBS. Forward-thinking soul-rock band Alabama Shakes took home three, for rock performance and song for "Don't Wanna Fight," which they performed on the show, and best alternative music album for the Blake Mills-produced Sound & Color.
"Don't worry; we're going to keep going," singer Brittany Howard said, in accepting the rock song award.
As expected, Meghan Trainor was the winner of the best new artist award, beating out deserving Australian guitarist Courtney Barnett and three others. The 22-year-old singer of the body image anthem "All About That Bass" wept through her award speech.
Besides the 83 awards given out for music made from Oct. 1 2014, to Sept. 30 2015, the Grammys made Run-DMC the first rapper to get a Grammy lifetime achievement award. Others rewarded for their life's work: Ruth Brown, Celia Cruz, Herbie Hancock, Jefferson Airplane, and Earth, Wind and Fire.
The latter were honored by an intergenerational combo of Stevie Wonder and the a cappella group Pentatonix. Together they gave out the song of the year Grammy - to surprise winner Ed Sheeran - in one of the evening most winning moments.
The LL Cool J-hosted show was marked by many other tributes to music stars who have died in the past year. The surviving members of the Eagles honored Glenn Frey, with Jackson Browne standing in for the late guitarist on a sleepy version of "Take It Easy." Country crooner Chris Stapleton, who won two Grammys, including country album of the year, delivered a sorrowful "The Thrill Is Gone" with Gary Clark Jr. and Bonnie Raitt.
And Lady Gaga's much-ballyhooed tribute to David Bowie came off as cover-band dress-up karaoke, an androgynously garbed medley that disappointed in comparison to the sterling "Star Spangled Banner" she turned in at the Super Bowl.
Adele's performance of "All I Ask" from the mega-selling 25 was also a letdown, plagued by the sound cutting out and wayward acoustic guitar backing. Another bummer was the last minute cancellation of Rihanna, who did not perform due to health problems, according to TMZ.
Some other observations from the show:
Speaking for themselves: The show got serious - and seriously good - in its middle section with a double shot of theatrical hip-hop. First the cast of Lim-Manuel Miranda's runaway Broadway hit Hamilton performed live from the Richard Rogers Theater in New York, doing their showstopping opening number "Alexander Hamilton," about the "10 dollar Founding Father."
Then, after a terrific introduction by Don Cheadle - "here to speak for himself, as only he can" - Lamar lit up the Staples Center with a electrifying performance of "The Blacker the Berry," "Alright," and some new material with an assist from saxophonist Kamasi Washington, a team of percussionists and an onstage bonfire.
Next up, Hamilton got the best musical theater award everybody knew it would, and Miranda accepted it on stage in New York with a prewritten rhyme that shouted out to Tupac Shakur, the Notorious B.I.G., and the members of Philadelphia's The Roots, whose Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson and Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter produced the original cast album.
Tidal wave? When the show was well underway, news broke that Rihanna, scheduled to perform "Kiss It Better" from her album ANTI, had canceled at the last minute. According to TMZ, the singer had bronchitis and had been warned against performing.
Social-media speculation suggested the cancellation was part of a Grammy boycott by artists connected with Jay Z's streaming service Tidal. Another clue? Kanye West, who was not performing on the show, timed his announcement that his new album, The Life of Pablo, would only be available on Tidal to coincide with the Grammy broadcast.
Not so Swift start: The show kicked off with Swift, but anyone hoping she'd use the time to share the stage with Lamar reprising their team-up on her girl-squad power anthem "Bad Blood" was disappointed. Instead she delivered a bombastic version of "Out of the Woods," the latest single and one of the weakest tracks on 1989.
But fans didn't have to wait long to see the Compton rapper. The first trophy given out on the telecast was for best rap album, an award that has often unjustly been relegated to the preshow ceremony. Instead, Ice Cuba and his Straight Outta Compton-starring son O'Shea Jackson Jr. presented the win to Lamar for To Pimp a Butterfly. He seemed thrilled but kept his thank yous brief, perhaps figuring he'd have a longer speech to make later.
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