By Jovanna Brinck
Courier Columnist
The 58th Annual Grammy Awards were held on Monday, February 15th. On this night, all of the greatest artists join each other to celebrate music.
The show opened with Taylor Swift performing her newest hit, “Out of the Woods.”
L.L Cool J hosted this year. When he first came out, he recalled memories of Adele, Kendrick Lamar, and Lady Gaga performing in past years.
This year, there were a lot of tributes toward past artists, both deceased and alive. First, Lionel Richie was honored as Person of the Year. Demi Lovato, Luke Bryan, Meghan Trainor, and Tyrese Gibson sang some of Richie’s hits. Demi sang “Hello” rather beautifully, and when the camera panned over to Richie, during her performance, he was shouting “Yes!” Afterwards, Lionel Richie joined the other singers on stage to perform “All Night long.” This was one of the biggest highlights of the night.
Also, acappella group, Pentatonix, and Stevie Wonder paid tribute to late Earth, Wind and Fire member, Maurice White. Miguel performed as a tribute to Michael Jackson. Lady Gaga performed a 7-minute tribute to David Bowie, in which she recreated some of his most famous performance looks. Towards the end of the award show, there was a slideshow that featured all contributors to music that have passed this past year.
With 11 nominations, Kendrick Lamar won big that night, including Best Rap Album. Meghan Trainor won Best New Artist. Taylor Swift won Album of the Year. She gave an amazing speech in which she targeted her younger female fans telling them that “there are going to be people along the way who are going to try to undercut [their] success or take credit for your accomplishments.” Then, she encouraged them to not be sidetracked and to focus on their goals. Not too many awards were broadcasted, though, and they kept mentioning awards that weren’t actually shown on the recording of the show.
There were performances by Tori Kelly, James Bay and Meghan Trainor. Adele performed her song, “All I Ask.” She had a lot of technical issues though, so her performance wasn’t the best.
Also, Justin Bieber performed “Love Yourself” and “Where Are You?” but I didn’t think he sounded too good live.
Kendrick Lamar’s performance, however, was incredible. He had scenes in jail, singing in handcuffs. Then, he was singing with dancers that resembled an African Tribe. At the end, he had a background of Africa, labeled “Compton,” where he is from. Even if you don’t like his music, you can’t argue that his performance wasn’t true art.
After, they showed a scene from the hit Broadway show Hamilton, a story about the founding fathers with R&B incorporated into the music. This show is very popular now and currently, tickets are sold out until January 2017. I’ve heard a lot about this musical since Thanksgiving but this is the first time I’ve seen any performance. Hamilton later won best musical theater album.
The show ended with a performance from Pitbull. Frankly, he wasn’t a good choice to perform for the finale because he isn’t too popular at the moment. I think that they ended this award show very badly.
Overall, this year’s Grammy’s were not too spectacular. Not too many people watched it this year. One student, Isaias Mendez-Martinez said that he turned it off before it ended because “it got too boring.” Hopefully the Grammy’s can do a better job next year.
