I watched the Grammy’s so you didn’t have to
What’s the point of all this other than Beyonce?
By Kennedy Enns, Arts Editor
Awards season is finally coming to a close. Now that they’re finally out of the way we can stop tuning into them just to understand the eventual memes that come out of the night. That’s why everyone watches them anyway right? I would argue, the most important part of the night was whatever outfit Cee Lo Green was wearing. It’s incredibly hard to top a head-to-toe gold C3P0 inspired outfit.
As far as awards go, Adele won big by taking home every award she was nominated for, collecting five gold gramophones in total. Or, four and a half if you count the one she broke in half to split with Beyonce. This is the second time Adele has swept her categories she was nominated in, as well as the second time Beyonce has lost record and album of the year despite her critical acclaim. Even though Lemonade was universally loved by critics and fans alike, she still managed to lose to Adele’s 25. By ‘splitting’ her GRAMMY for Album of the Year with Beyonce, Adele tried to make up for yet another awards show snubbing the clear winner.
Together both Knowles sisters stole the show. Beyonce and her baby bump stunned as beaming symbols of warmth and motherhood in a gold-sequined gown, a glittering chain bikini and a headdress; looks some believe were inspired by West African Yoruba deity Oshun, goddess of fertility, motherhood, love and prosperity.
Between Bey’s other-worldly performances of “Love Drought” and “Sandcastles” and Solange’s win for “Cranes in the Sky,” the Knowles sisters proved they don’t really need awards to be the night’s winners.
David Bowie was honored posthumously with his album Blackstar, cleaning up every category it was nominated for. But he wasn’t the only artist the GRAMMY’s paid tribute to. Most notably, Prince, Leonard Cohen and George Michael were given the GRAMMY’s recognition. Adele’s performance of George Michael’s “Fastlove” got mixed reviews as she stopped mid way and needed to restart, stating, “I’m sorry, I can’t mess this up again.”
Chance the Rapper won big by taking home Best New Artist as well as Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Album. Drake didn’t do badly either with Hotline Bling alone picking up two GRAMMYs, one for best song and the other for best performance.
Twenty One Pilots won the award for Best Pop Duo for their song “Stressed Out” and accepted the awards sans pants because of an “agreement” they’d made years ago while watching the awards show in underwear. Ha ha. The whole story seemed to be a bit of a pointless attention grab.
The rest of the night I would compare to watching the ‘who gets the awards for Best Sound Editing at the Academy Awards.’ Does anyone really care who won Best Engineered Album, Classical? (It was Corigliano: The Ghosts of Versailles, if you do) No offence to any fans of jazz, latin or spoken word albums, but I think we can agree that they aren’t the focal point of the show in terms of hollywood glitz and glam and that comes with other categories.
With this year’s awards season finally coming to a close, we can look forward to all the great new media of 2017, and the eventual snubs from this year too.
