Beyonce lost out to Adele in the big three categories but still managed to pick up the Grammy for Best Urban Contemporary Album and for Best Music Video respectively. She also performed two tracks from her album, Lemonade and made quite a statement with her stage presence.
ForeignEditorial
Adele and Beyoncé each stole the show in their own unique way.
Vox.com
Every year, the biggest stars in music get together to watch each other perform, walk a red carpet, and balance an armload of golden gramophone statuettes. And every year, the actual presentation of Grammy awards becomes less and less important. Though the Recording Academy hands out 84 categories’ worth of awards every year, only the biggest get handed out during the show, and even those get pressed for time.
Instead, the biggest night in music is about performance, be it in a musical number, behind a podium, or on the red carpet. The 59th Annual Grammy Awards, held on Sunday night, weren’t the best performance the music industry has ever put on.
The pacing was off, there were plenty of poorly timed jokes, and there were more mistakes than moments of gold. But no matter how good the show is, the Grammys are always one of the most talked about nights in music.
So let’s take a look at the night through its most instantly iconic and most utterly uncomfortable moments.
Grammy sweep: Adele won all five Grammys for which she was nominated including the big three nods - Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year.
Winner: Adele
Adele cried no fewer than three times at the Grammys on Sunday. For the second time, she took home three of the big four Grammy awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Album of the Year. Adele also won all three of the major awards in 2012 for her 2011 album 21. And this year’s Grammys, in all aspects, revolved around Adele. The opening shot of the night was her singing ‘Hello’, and the final shot was of her hugging her producer Greg Kurstin.
Had she not won almost every major award of the night, though, the biggest moment of the show would have still revolved around her. Adele was supposed to sing a slower-paced, more emotional version of George Michael’s ‘Fastlove’ in tribute to the singer, but no more than five bars into the song, she stopped the performance, saying that she had to, “get this right,” and she started the performance over again. CBS bleeped out her response to the mess-up, but she could be seen mouthing an f-bomb. It was a moment of perfectionism and displayed the humility that she would continue throughout the night.
In what will probably become the most talked-about moment of the night, Adele claimed that she could not accept the award for Album of the Year, saying that she thought the award belonged instead to Beyoncé for her stunning album Lemonade. Earlier in the night she told Beyoncé from the stage, “I want you to be my mommy.”
Adele did not actually hand over her gramophone to Beyoncé during the ceremony, but her acknowledgement that Beyoncé was yet again shut out of the big four Grammy categories, despite creating an incredible work of art, was an important, considerate, and seemingly sincere thing to do. Her intentions will almost certainly be questioned and dissected in the next few days, but Adele has never been a very good actress, and her shock and immediate deference to Beyoncé’s work certainly shows appreciation and reverence.
Winner: Beyoncé
There are very few rooms where Beyoncé isn’t a winner. Despite losing out to Adele on her major nominations for the night, Beyoncé still put on an incredible show during her performance to close out the telecast’s first hour. She started the set with a hologram interactive of her, her daughter Blue Ivy, and her mother interacting in various poses that represented fertility, femininity, and regality. She wore a halo of gold reminiscent of Pacheco’s 1621 Immaculate Conception painting of the virgin Mary, surrounded by dancers wearing halos of their own. Beyoncé was showered with flowers as she sang two of Lemonade’s slower songs: ‘Sandcastles’ and ‘Love Drought’.
“Women like her cannot be contained,” Beyoncé’s voiceover said at the beginning of the performance, and she definitely could not be at this year’s Grammys: She took home Best Urban Contemporary Album and Best Music Video, and when Adele professed how much she loved Lemonade from the stage, Beyoncé’s eyes shone with tears. Though she may have lost the big three awards to Adele, nothing about Beyoncé’s behavior could label her a loser.
Winner/Loser: political commentary
For the first two-thirds of the Grammys, every single political reference was halfhearted at best. Paris Jackson started off the night’s blithe political references with a reference to #NODaPL. Laverne Cox referenced a future Supreme Court case. Katy Perry wore an armband with the word “Persist” and stood in front of the preamble to the Constitution projected on a wall. The president of the Recording Academy even called on the president and Congress to “update music laws” and “support the arts.” All of these movements, no matter how well-intentioned, felt fairly empty during such an otherwise glitzy night.
Then, in one of the most riveting moments of the night, Anderson Paak joined A Tribe Called Quest for a performance bedazzled with political statements. Standing on the center stage, the group thanked “President Agent Orange” for the Muslim ban and had backup dancers knock down a wall onstage.
The group ended the performance with raised fists; “Resist. Resist. Resist,” was chanted as the set ended, concluding the show’s only outwardly political statement with real heart and guts.