February 13, 2012

A Prayer, a Celebration and a Coronation

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

LOS ANGELES — As the music industry struggled to come to terms with the death of Whitney Houston the night before, the Grammy Awards on Sunday appeared to crown a new queen of popular music in Adele, the British singer and songwriter who has dominated the charts on both sides of the Atlantic with her classic soul sound.

The 23-year-old singer and songwriter, whose raw vocals and searing lyrics made “21” the best-selling album last year, captured six awards, sweeping record, song and album of the year. She seemed to be a perfect champion for a beleaguered record industry: a pure, no-frills singer able to fuse heartbreak and melody and sell millions of records without outlandish costumes or titillating lyrics.

Wearing a simple black dress and classy earrings, Adele sang for the first time since vocal cord surgery forced her to cancel a tour last year. Her voice soared on her global hit “Rolling in the Deep,” and the crowd at the Staples Center here gave her a standing ovation.

But Adele had to share the spotlight with Foo Fighters, who captured five awards, and with the memory of Whitney Houston, whose death hung over the proceedings. The host of the show, LL Cool J, began the broadcast by asking the audience to join him in a prayer for Ms. Houston, and later Jennifer Hudson did a touching rendition of Ms. Houston’s hit “I Will Always Love You.”

Dave Grohl’s Foo Fighters received five awards for the album “Wasting Light” and for one of its tracks, “Walk.” The album, which was the first No. 1 album for Foo Fighters, was recorded on analog equipment in a garage and was in the running for album of the year.

“We made this one in my garage with some microphones and a tape machine,” Mr. Grohl said as the group accepted the Grammy for best rock performance. “It shows the human element of making music is what’s most important.”

In a surprise, Skrillex, the 24-year-old dubstep producer whose “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites” record was an unexpected hit, won three awards during the prebroadcast ceremony: for best dance recording, best dance-electronica album and best remixed recording.

“I can’t take this anymore,” Skrillex said as he accepted his third award. “I don’t know what else to say anymore. This is the most surreal day of my life.”

Kanye West was also a top winner, taking home four Grammys for “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” which won best rap album, and its lead single, “All of the Lights,” honored for best rap song and best rap-sung collaboration. Mr. West also took best rap performance for “Otis,” a duet with Jay-Z off “Watch the Throne” that samples an Otis Redding hit.

The awards for best alternative album and for best new artist went to Bon Iver, the indie band specializing in artsy choir-sounding songs that is the brainchild of the songwriter Justin Vernon. Mr. Vernon, who declined to perform, said, “When I started to make songs I did it for the inherent reward of making songs, so I’m a little bit uncomfortable up here.”

Some major pop stars walked away emptyhanded as the music industry seemed to reward back-to-basics artists. Bruno Mars had six nominations and gave a performance, but won nothing. Lady Gaga also failed to win.

Ms. Houston’s death — she was found dead in a bathtub at a hotel where a pre-Grammy party was held — cast a shadow over music’s biggest night.

“Tonight we ask ourselves how do we speak to this time, to this day?” the host LL Cool J said at the show’s start. “There is no way around this: We have had a death in our family.”

Then a video of Ms. Houston in her prime, singing her hit “I Will Always Love You,” played on a giant screen. The audience rose to applaud afterward.

The 54th annual Grammy Awards ceremony opened with a politically charged rock anthem from Bruce Springsteen and an upbeat pop hit from Bruno Mars, showing two poles of today’s music: the older uncompromising rocker delivering an uncomfortable truth and the flashy young pop star getting people to dance.

As the scrim went up, Mr. Springsteen’s unmistakable profile, backlighted by stark spotlights that stabbed downward, became visible. He ripped through his new song “We Take Care of Our Own,” which decries what he sees as a lack of compassion for the poor. Then Bruno Mars, dressed in a gold jacket and bowtie, channeled James Brown as he served up a funky rendition of his “Runaway Baby.”

Alison Krauss, the bluegrass singer, made history when she took the trophy for the best bluegrass album with “Paper Airplane.” It was her 27th Grammy, giving her the most of any female artist and tying Quincy Jones.

In the country field, Taylor Swift took two awards for her song “Mean,” and the Civil Wars, a new folk duo, took best country duo performance for the Appalachian sounding single “Barton Hollow.” They also won best folk album for their debut album with the same title. “I just lost a bet,” joked John Paul White, as he and his Civil Wars partner, Joy Williams, accepted an award.

There was a bittersweet moment when Tony Bennett, the veteran jazz singer, won a Grammy for his duet “Body and Soul” with Amy Winehouse, the British singer who died of alcohol poisoning last summer. Mr. Bennett’s album “Duets II” also won best traditional pop vocal album.

Standing beside Mr. Bennett, Ms. Winehouse’s parents accepted the award on her behalf.

“We shouldn’t be here,” her father, Mitch Winehouse, said. “Our darling daughter should be here. Those are the cards we are dealt.”

He added: “Long live Whitney Houston. Long live Amy Winehouse. Long live Etta James. There is a beautiful girl band up there in heaven.”

In jazz, Chick Corea won two Grammys for “Forever,” his album with the bassist Stanley Clarke, taking best instrumental jazz album and best improved jazz solo for the track “500 Miles High.” Paul McCartney took a Grammy for best historical album for a deluxe edition of “Band on the Run.”

Chris Brown completed a remarkable comeback just three years after his arrest on assault charges during Grammy week nearly derailed his career. He took best R&B album for his CD “F.A.M.E.”

The ceremony this year was marred by a controversy over the recording academy’s decision to cut or consolidate 31 categories, bringing the number of awards down to 78, from 109.

Contending that the Grammys had become bloated and too easy to win in some categories, the trustees, led by the recording academy’s president, Neil R. Portnow, eliminated separate awards for male and female singers and did away with individual awards for genres like Latin jazz, Hawaiian music, zydeco and American Indian music. The board also combined contemporary and traditional awards for blues, folk and world music.

Critics have charged the cutbacks hurt musicians working in less lucrative genres and had the effect of discriminating against some ethnic minorities. Latin Jazz musicians have led the protests, filing a suit in New York, submitting a petition to the academy with 23,000 names and organizing a rally on Sunday outside the Staples Center.

In the end, only a handful of musicians showed up to protest the cuts, gathering about three blocks north of the Staples Center and chanting “Que viva la diversidad,” or “Up with diversity.” Bobby Sanabria, a Latin percussionist said: “The Grammy Awards are not what it used to be. Now it’s a dog and pony show for the mega stars. It used to be about excellence in music."

Mr. Springsteen’s “We Take Care of Our Own” was one of the few nods in the show to politics. Most of the more than a dozen acts, many of them performing in Las Vegas-style productions, were chosen by producers to paint a broad and exuberant picture of today’s popular music, giving time to its many strains and trying to draw links between its past with its present.

Maroon 5 and Foster the People, both nominated in the pop group performance category, joined the surviving members of the Beach Boys to sing “Good Vibrations.” It was the first time in decades that the founding members of the seminal California group — Mike Love and Brian Wilson — performed together. (The 50-year-old band has said it will release a new album and go on tour this year.)

On the country side, the Band Perry and Blake Shelton sang a tribute to Glen Campbell, then joined Mr. Campbell on “Rhinestone Cowboy.” Mr. Campbell has Alzheimer’s and has said he will retire from touring this year.

The recording academy has labored in recent years to make the Grammy Awards show more entertaining, pushing for elaborate performances, like Nicki Minaj’s “Roman Holiday” that evoked “The Exorcist.” . Only 10 of the 78 awards are presented on television, speeches are kept short and the show’s longtime producer, Ken Ehrlich, has made it a point to do unusual collaborations, throwing together artists from different generations and genres.

The strategy has worked. Ratings have shot up for the last three ceremonies, and last year more than 26.5 million viewers tuned in, giving the awards ceremony its best night in a decade.

About 12,000 members of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences vote to determine the winners among the nominees, who are chosen in an early round of voting from among 17,000 entries. All the voting members have roots on the creative side of the business, as musicians, producers, songwriters and engineers. They must have at least six creative or technical credits on commercially released tracks. As a group, they are unpredictable, and they have often chosen albums perceived by industry insiders as high-quality recordings over popular albums that sell well.