Review: 57th Grammy Awards
The Grammys,known as music’s biggest award show, attracts millions of viewers on CBS, and earns thousands of tweets and an enormous amount of social media buzz took place on Sunday night.There were so many stellar moments that took place all in one single night. The night began with a jolting performance by ACDC. They rocked the stage with a perfect medley of “Rock or Bust” and “Highway to Hell”. The members of the band shined with their alternative suit attire and members of the audience sang along with devil horn headbands to accompany the music. Next they gave out the award for Best New Artist and Sam Smith took the night’s first Grammy, which put the ceremony in full swing and set up the night for many awards to come.
Ariana Grande surprised us with a beautiful power ballad of ” Just a Little Bit of Your Heart” surprising us that there is still hope in pop teen sensation who has been accused of being a very arrogant person when it comes to dealing with her fans. Next Jesse J and Tom Jones surprised us with a rendition of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” that was later overshadowed by Lady Gaga and Tony Bennet’s song “Cheek to Cheek” from their joint jazz album. Miranda Lambert showed off her new body and sassy new single “Little Red Wagon” right after.
Pharrell later on stunned us by winning Best Pop Solo Performance for his annoyingly upbeat song “Happy”, making it known to the audience that he did not want to make his speech “awkward” and he then moonwalked off the stage. Sam Smith won his second grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album for his soulful music in “In The Lonely Hour”. The awaited performance by Kanye West overtook the stage as he sung “Only One” from the Yezzus album debuting a Adidas velvet sweatsuit and sneakers to go along with it. Madonna followed along with her song “Living for Love,” reminding everyone that she is still America’s best 80s’ pop queen that will forever reign.
Beck’s come back album “Morning Phase” won a Grammy for Best Rock Album beating out Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and U2 as well. Another anticipated Grammy went to power couple Beyonce and Jay Z for “Drunk In Love”. Right after, Ed Sheeran and John Mayer gave an amazing performance “Thinking out Loud” stirring up some awkward tension because Sheeran is Taylor Swift’s best friend and John Mayer’s ex-girlfriend. Then followed an emotion duet by Gwen Stefani and Adam Levine called “My Heart is Open,”which was written by Sia, another nominee of the night. Annie Lennox took over the stage by singing with Irish singer Hozier “Take Me To Church” and then she moved on to “I Put A Spell On You” reminding us that her glam rocker enthusiasm is still alive.
Pharell’s performance of “Happy” stirred up Twitter comments on how his outfit resembled Esteban on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody or how he looked like a bell boy from Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. Right before the Grammys came back on from commercial, Obama had a public service announcement on domestic violence towards women, followed by a slam poetry by Brooke Axtell, a domestic abuse survivor, and a serene performance by Katy Perry, that exhibited better vocals than her Super Bowl performance. Paul McCartney, Kanye West, and Rhianna sang their recently released song “FourFiveSeconds”, and Sam Smith gave a wonderful rendition of “Stay With Me” with Mary J. Blige. Later in the night, Prince presented the Album of The Year award and said “…like books and black lives, albums still matter” paying respect and tribute to the recent tragedies, such as Ferguson, that have happened recently. The whole world was shocked that Beyonce’s self-titled album didn’t win the Grammy, but instead went to Beck for “Morning Phase” and Kanye almost went and pulled a “Kanye” once again,but stopped himself. Most people thought that Kanye was against Beck’s win; however, he said that he was upset at the Academy for making the wrong choice and snubbing Beyonce.
Sia’s performance with Maddie Ziegler and Kirsten Wiig won over the night with a performance art spectacular to accompany Sia’s song. More performances by Beck and Chris Martin from Coldplay took place and then Sam Smith snagged another win (his fourth of the night)for “Stay With Me”. He beat out common songs like “All About That Bass” by Meghan Trainor and Taylor Swift for “Shake it Off” making it pretty clear that he is here to stay. The second to last performance rocked the house as Beyonce sang “Take My Hand Precious Lord” complete with a church choir to back her very clear and stellar vocals, while behind her a male cast referenced the “hands up, don’t shoot” gesture. Later on Common and John Legend joined Beyonce to sing the hit song “Glory” from the recent Oscar-nominated movie, Selma.
The 57th Annual Grammy Awards were a night of different surprises and some emotional moments that made it a standout occasion.