The 56th annual Grammy awards took place Jan. 26, hosted once again by LL Cool J. Much like recent years, the performances dominated the presentation of awards, resulting in some ill-advised onstage collaborations and un-televised major categories.
Despite this, the show still managed to accomplish the difficult task of giving the dominant genres their fair share of attention and balancing between young chart-toppers and old legends.
The night kicked off with the most outright sexualized performance of the evening, which saw Beyoncé and Jay Z sing their new hit “Drunk In Love.” Immediately following was the Best New Artist, in which Macklemore and Ryan Lewis had their first of three wins that night.
Next up was Lorde performing her smash hit “Royals,” a song that would go on to win her the trophies for Best Pop Solo Performance and Song Of The Year later in the evening. After a performance from fellow youngster Hunter Hayes, Daft Punk won Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for “Get Lucky,” the first of five Grammys the pair took home that evening.
A slew of performances followed, including Katy Perry’s fiery witch-like take on her new single “Dark Horse,” and an instantly forgettable combination of Robin Thicke and Chicago.
Keith Urban and Gary Clarke Jr. managed to steer things back in the right direction by trading solos over Urban’s “Cop Car” before Best Rock Song Of The Year went to the remaining members of Nirvana and Paul McCartney for their hard-hitting Sound City collaboration “Cut Me Some Slack.”
Next up was Taylor Swift as we’ve never seen her at the Grammys. Sitting at the piano with a basic backing band, her run through “All Too Well” was both low key and powerful and was the best performance of the evening thus far.
After an acrobatic performance from Pink and Nate Ruess, Ringo Starr kicked off the first half of the Beatles tribute and the Best Rap/Sung Collaboration went to Jay Z and Justin Timberlake for “Holy Grail.”
Imagine Dragons and Kendrick Lamar took to the stage next in what on paper looks like a mismatched combination, but in practice turned out shockingly well.
After the heaviest performance of the evening, country newcomer Kacey Musgraves settled the crowd down again, only to be brought back to their feet for the reunion everyone had been waiting for, with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr playing Macca’s new single “Queenie Eye.”
Following Bruno Mars taking Best Pop Vocal Album home, half of the legendary country supergroup The Highwaymen reunited with guests to set the stage for Musgraves to win Country Album Of The Year. Another highlight performance featured the “Get Lucky” crew jamming their hit with Stevie Wonder in a flashy recording studio setting.
Metal finally got its due when Metallica performed “One” with Lang Lang later on in the evening, but were upstaged when Macklemore and Ryan Lewis brought Queen Latifah and Madonna onstage to anoint the marriages of 33 couples during their performance of pro-equality hit “Same Love.”
The romantic mood was brought to a halt with Billie Joe Armstrong and Miranda Lambert’s tribute to Phil Everly, followed by Daft Punk taking the ultimate prize for Album Of The Year, the first time an EDM album has won. Last but not least, Dave Grohl, Josh Homme, Lindsay Buckingham, and Trent Reznor rocked through the credits with tracks from the new Nine Inch Nails and Queens Of The Stone Age albums.
With Daft Punk, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, and Lorde dominating the evening, pop music certainly overruled any notion that rock, rap, and country might get any love in the general categories from voters. Nonetheless, you couldn’t help but feel that most of the winning acts deserved the golden sippy cup.
