The crowd was electrified on Feb. 8 at the 57th annual Grammy Awards that took place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
The show, hosted by LL Cool J, included many performances from well-known artists such as Katy Perry, Kanye West, Rihanna, Usher and many others. Older viewers were surely thrilled by the opening act, ACDC, who played the classic song “Highway To Hell” from our parents’ glory days.
Sam Smith stole the show by taking home four awards, including Best New Artist, Best Pop Vocal Album, Song of the Year and Record of the Year for his hit song “Stay with Me,” performed live with Mary J. Blige.
Rock artist Beck, whose only relevance to this generation is his appearances on the animated series “Futurama,” surprised everyone by winning Album of the Year over Beyoncé for his album “Morning Phase,” which also won Best Rock album.
After the announcement, Kanye West pretended to jump on stage and protest the win, sending us all back to 2009 when he interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech.
The show took a more serious tone when Usher performed the song “If It’s Magic” as a tribute to singer Stevie Wonder, who joined him on stage during the performance. President Barack Obama also made an appearance on the broadcast to introduce his “It’s On Us” campaign to end sexual abuse on college campuses.
Katy Perry, donned in all white, gave an angelic performance to her song “By the Grace of God,” following domestic abuse survivor Brooke Axtell’s introduction to the performance by telling the story of her abusive relationship.
While the show’s overall mood was a bit depressing, Pharrell livened the mood a bit when he came on stage dressed as a bell hop and performed his hit song “Happy,” which won him the Grammy for Best Pop Solo Performance.
In the rap music category, Kendrick Lamar won Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song for his hit “I,” and Eminem took home Best Rap Album for “The Marshall Mathers LP 2.” Miranda Lambert took home Best Country Album for her work “Platinum” and performed her song “Little Red Wagon.”
Weird Al Yankovic, who I didn’t was still alive, took home the award for Best Comedy Album. Other stand-out performances from the show included Hozier’s performance of his hit single “Take Me to Church” and a duet from Adam Levine and Gwen Stefani to the song “My Heart is Open.” Ed Sheeran also performed his new song “Thinking Out Loud” with John Mayer on guitar and background vocals, and Kanye West performed his song with “Fourfiveseconds” Rihanna and Paul McCartney.
The show was brought to an end with a moving performance by Beyoncé, who sang the song “Take my hand Precious Lord” as background dancers raised their hands to symbolize the “Don’t shoot” movement brought on by the alarming amount of police brutality that has been brought to the public’s attention over the last few months a final performance of the Golden Globe-winning work “Glory” by Common and John Legend from the film “Selma” ended the show.
