Adele took it all home on Grammy night
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Adele performs "Rolling in the Deep" during the 54th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday. She took home six awards, including Record and Album of the Year.
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From the moment the nominations were announced, the 54th Grammy Awards had an air of predictability. It was to be a night to celebrate Adele's stunning achievement on her sophomore album, "21."
That all played out as expected, but with the joy over Adele divided between tears for one of the past century's great singers, Whitney Houston, whose death on Saturday at a Beverly Hills hotel shocked the world.
"To me, the only thing that seems right is to begin with a prayer," rapper/host LL Cool J said at the outset of the show, before doing just that, quite beautifully, and introducing a vintage performance of Ms. Houston singing "I Will Always Love You," a mountain Jennifer Hudson would later have to climb.
In her heyday, Ms. Houston was honored with six Grammys. That was the number an emotional Adele took home Sunday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
The 23-year-old British star, born Adele Laurie Blue Adkins, pulled off one of the biggest nights in Grammy history, winning six awards, including a sweep of the top three categories (Album, Song and Record of the Year), the first time that's been done since Eric Clapton did it in 1993.
Her album "21," the product of a painful breakup, debuted at No. 1 in February 2010 and has held that top spot for 19 nonconsecutive weeks. It was the biggest-selling album of the year at more than 6 million copies. It won Album of the Year and Pop Vocal Album, besting the likes of Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars.
The album's first single, "Rolling in the Deep," won Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Short Form Music Video.
"That's Paul Epworth," she said, excitedly accepting the song award with her co-writer. "He's the best producer in the world and he brought me out of my SKIN to write this record."
For the heartbreaking second single "Someone Like You," Adele won Best Pop Solo Performance. "My life changed," she said, "when I wrote this song, and I felt it before anyone heard it."
Based on her performance of "Rolling in the Deep," we all should be joining with her in thanking the doctors "who brought my voice back," as she said.
Adele couldn't win Best New Artist, because she already did that, three years ago. All signs pointed to dynamic rapper/singer/Super Bowl-halftime performer Nicki Minaj, but it went instead to ambient indie-rock Bon Iver, whose Justin Vernon seemed to be fearing the backlash already.
First Published February 13, 2012 12:14 am
