The 54th Grammy Awards will be remembered as a story of two women with towering, timeless voices — Adele and Whitney Houston — one representing youthful triumph and boundless possibility, the other a reminder of fresh tragedy and a life unravelled.
Adele, the 23-year-old British singer-songwriter, took home six awards including album, record and song of the year, a trophy bounty that puts a gold plating on a commercial and critical success story that has dramatically defied the grim gravities of today's economically challenged recording industry.
Adele's other victory came when she stepped to the microphone and sang a robust version of her hit Rolling in the Deep, which suggests that she is past the career scare of throat surgery that came just after Halloween and kept her mute through New Year's Day. It was her first public performance since the operation. Adele's honours for her sophomore album, 21, were juxtaposed against the dazed grief and still-raw reactions to the death of Houston on Saturday.
The Grammy broadcast began with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performing their new hard-times anthem, We Take Care of Our Own, and then host LL Cool J addressing the loss of Houston.
"We ask ourself," the rapper and actor said with the crisp tones of a Sunday sermon, "How do we speak to this time, to this day? There is no way around this. We've had a death in our family. At least to me, the only thing that seems right is to start with a prayer for our fallen sister, Whitney Houston."
It was one of the many moments of emotion during the night. The big winners included the Foo Fighters with five awards and Kanye West with four, but it was the performances — not the envelopes — that opened up the true drama of the night. Country singer Glen Campbell, who is battling Alzheimer's disease, was given a warm ovation after his engaging, high-energy performance of Rhinestone Cowboy.
Meanwhile the applause for Chris Brown's daring dance work (he performed on a hulking prop of giant cubes) may have echoed with a sense of redemption. He won best R&B album for F.A.M.E.
"First and foremost, I gotta thank God, and thank the Grammys for letting me get on this stage and do my thing," Brown said. "All my fans, I love you. We got one. Thank you."
The best new artist award went to Bon Iver, the folk-pop project of mastermind Justin Vernon, who used his time on the Grammy stage to thank "all the non-nominees who never will be here".
Although the likes of Kanye West have endorsed Bon Iver, the Midwestern act was competing against bigger names such as rapper Nicki Minaj and dance music sensation Skrillex.
"It's really hard to accept this award," Vernon said. "There's so much talent out there and on this stage. There's so much talent that's not here. ... When I started making songs I started for the inherent reward of making songs."
The three-hour show also featured cross-generational pairings, most notably a Beach Boys reunion that came bundled with the newer falsettos and harmonies of Maroon 5 and Foster the People. Brian Wilson wasn't the only 1960s legend on stage — Paul McCartney performed twice on the show.
The 69-year-old McCartney performed a new song, My Valentine, with an orchestra, Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh and jazz pianist Diana Krall. The song was written for Nancy Shevell, his new wife, and he also crooned it on their wedding day.
He was back on stage at the end of the show to perform the climatic Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End medley from the Abbey Road, the swan-song studio album by the Beatles. Springsteen, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters and Walsh joined in for the intense guitar volleys of Carry That Weight before the final line of The End brought the show to a close: "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."
The funeral feel went further with a tribute by Bonnie Raitt and Alicia Keys to Etta James, who died last month. Also, in the pre-broadcast ceremony at which awards are handed out in dozens of Grammy categories, Tony Bennett brought the parents of the late Amy Winehouse to the stage to join him as he accepted the trophy for his collaboration with the singer who died last summer at age 27.
"We shouldn't be here," Mitch Winehouse told the audience. "Our darling daughter should be here." Winehouse was one in a series of gifted female singer-songwriters who won over Grammy voters in recent years with blockbuster sales and a sense of music history.
Adele's album 21 finished as the best-seller of 2011 with 5.82 million copies sold in North America.
Her rousing hit Rolling in the Deep enjoyed the best year of sales of any song since Candle in the Wind: Princess Diana Tribute, Elton John's charity single in 1997. Adele also won best new artist in 2009, and her new shelf of trophies will make her a key figure to watch in the years to come. The drama of her night was heightened by a moment of silence — just after she started singing Rolling in the Deep she and her band paused for a long beat, which caused a flicker of anxiety for audience members fretting about her throat condition. It was just a pause for drama amid a fairly flawless night. Adele joined Beyonce as the only woman to take home six Grammys in one night.
"This is ridiculous," Adele said on accepting record of the year, and then broke into tears when 21 was announced as the album winner to cap the show.
"This record is inspired by something everyone's been through, which is a rubbish relationship," she said. "It's gone on to do things I can't tell you. ... It's been a life-changing year."
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Life's a beach
They've had their share of bad vibrations over the years, but only goodwill abounded when the Beach Boys put aside years of feuding and got back together for the Grammy Awards show.
"It was kind of a different experience," head Beach Boy Brian Wilson said backstage after he and his old bandmates performed Good Vibrations.
"The guys are brilliantly performing their vocals," Wilson added. "I'm very proud of the guys."
The band that fell apart years ago over infighting and lawsuits is also marking its 50th anniversary with a new CD and tour that will include stops in Europe and Japan. They're also recording new songs written by Wilson and Joe Thomas.
Fellow founding member Mike Love, who just a few years ago wasn't talking to Wilson, his cousin, said the new songs are "fantastic."
He added he is particularly blown away by one called That's Why God Made the Radio.
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Part of perry
Maybe Katy Perry wasn't thinking about her ex, Russell Brand, when she sang the words, "You can keep the diamond ring, it don't mean a thing anyway."
But if not him, who?
Her hair blue and dressed in what looked like a metallic superhero outfit, Perry smashed through a glass box at the Grammy Awards show as she launched into the song Part of Me.
It is to be released next month and will also be on Perry's forthcoming album, Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection.
Brand, who married Perry in 2010, filed for divorce on December 30.
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‘Human bakery'
Forget about showing off her two new Grammys, Joy Williams of The Civil Wars wants the world to know she's got a baby on the way.
"I'm a human bakery," the singer joked as she showed off her pregnant belly backstage after she and John Paul White collected Grammys for best folk album and best country duo/group performance.
"We'll be a little bohemian family by the time this baby comes," said Williams' husband, Nate, who manages the duo. "The adventure continues and so do the travels."
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Revenge is sweet
Mean, Taylor Swift's searing response to being treated badly, won Grammys on Sunday for best country song and best country solo performance.
"There's really no feeling quite like writing a song about someone who's completely mean to you and completely hates you, and then winning a Grammy for it," she said happily.
Later in the evening, she sang the payback anthem for the Grammy telecast, accompanying herself on banjo and looking a little taken aback when the audience responded with a standing ovation.
