Last Sunday night, the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California held host to music’s biggest night. The 56th annual Grammy Awards were an extravagant celebration with incredible performances from many of today’s hottest artists. And while many times awards seem to go to the wrong people, the major awards this year went to the correct people.
The biggest three awards of the night are Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year, and the voters got the winners for these three right. Daft Punk was the huge winner of the night, taking home the awards for Album and Record of the Year. While my favorite Album of the year by far was good kid, m.A.A.d city by Kendrick Lamar, it doesn’t have the mainstream appeal that other albums had. Random Access Memories, however, was basically a pop album with EDM roots, and it was by far the most complete pop album of the year. Every song from beginning to end is very good and it flows well from track to track. Plus it produced a few hits, none bigger than “Get Lucky”, which won Record of the Year.
It may have been the most universally liked song of this year. Even though it may have been over-played as time went on, the first time anyone heard that song they loved it. It’s got an amazing beat and one of the most catchy hooks of all time. It is an incredible song from the lyrics to the production, and no one can be upset with this pick.
The last major award, Song of the Year, went to Lorde for her work on “Royals”, and it’s hard to be upset with this pick too. Song of the Year is meant to go to the best songwriter of the year, and as far as popular songs this year went, “Royals” is the best written one. It’s a huge win for Lorde who is only 17 years old, and she is either being poised to be the next big thing in music, or a one hit wonder who is eventually forgotten as time progresses.
The only major snub this year was Macklemore winning the award for best rap album over Kendrick Lamar. While Macklemore’s album The Heist is not a bad album by any means, I truly believe that Kedrick Lamar’s album, good kid, m.A.A.d city, will go down as one of the best rap albums of all time. Macklemore winning that award was a slap in the face to anyone who follows rap, and even Macklemore knows this.
This is an actual text from Macklemore to Kendrick Lamar telling him how he robbed Kendrick of the award. The most amazing takeaway of the night, I think, is that K dot didn’t bring home any Grammys for what could be an album that could be talked about with Biggie’s Ready to Die, Eminem’s Marshall Mathers LP, or Nas’s Illmatic as one of the best hip hop albums ever made.
The awards are only half of the show, and if you missed the Grammys this year, then you missed some incredible performances. There was Macklemore performing “Same Love” with Mary Lambert and Madonna while almost three dozen couples, both same sex and straight, got married during the song. There was Beyoncé and Jay-Z singing their new song “Drunk in Love” where Beyoncé showed why she is still the queen of pop music and Pink singing “Try” while swinging from the rafters of the Staples Center then coming to the ground to join Nate Ruess and sing “Just Give Me a Reason” with him. And there was Taylor Swift singing her single “All to Well” while doing some weird ass, herky-jerky movements on the piano.
But the most amazing performance of the night came from Kendrick Lamar and Imagine Dragons when they sang a combination of “Radioactive” and “M.A.A.D City”. While this duo seems unlikely to mesh well, it combined perfectly and they gave one of the best live performances I’ve seen in my life. Kendrick Lamar was insanely amped up for the song, and Imagine Dragons stepped up their energy to match him. It all combined to make one hell of a performance that even made Taylor Swift get turnt up during the song.
This performance was just Kendrick Lamar telling the entire world that he’s the best rapper out right now, and he doesn’t need to win any Grammys to prove that. As he puts it in the song, “my plan B is to win your hearts before I win a grammy,” and he’s definitely done that.
The Grammys were truly must see TV this year. Awards went to the right people for the most part, and all of the artists that performed held nothing back and gave everyone watching an amazing show.
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