1 When it came to feminism, it was all mouth and trousers
Well, this is awkward. Yes, the white roses worn by Lady Gaga, Janelle Monáe, Kelly Clarkson and the like were potent symbols of solidarity with the Time’s Up movement. Yes, you’d have to be iron-hearted not to have welled up at the massed, women-only rendition of Praying led by Kesha, the American singer who has accused her former producer, Dr Luke, of physical, sexual and emotional abuse (which he denies).
But where were the female winners? Alessia Cara, the Canadian singer-songwriter, was the only woman to receive a main award, winning best new artist. New Zealander Lorde, in particular, can consider herself hard done by. Was Bruno Mars’s funky but anodyne 24K Magic really a better album than her darkly creative Melodrama?
2 The decline of rock has not been overestimated
When the award for best rock performance goes to a dead, decidedly non-rocking octogenarian (Leonard Cohen), it tells you everything you need to know about the health of commercial guitar music. Before we get letters: yes, the metal scene is resurgent, but it exists in its own dimension, happily divorced from what many of its fans would call the MSM.
3 Pop and hip-hop rule the roost
As rock slips from view, pop and hip-hop have confirmed their position as the two superpowers of mainstream music, in the form of Mars (winner of six Grammys) and Kendrick Lamar (four). Yet the two men couldn’t be more different — while Lamar is challenging, innovative and deeply political, Mars is slick, derivative and utterly uncontroversial. He’s like an Ed Sheeran who knows how to dance. And dress. But it’s Lamar who’ll be remembered in decades’ time. The Los Angeles rapper is only 30, but he has already released at least three classic albums.
4 Potus is the new 007
Just as any actor who looks suave yet dangerous in a tuxedo is automatically anointed as the new James Bond, so any celebrity with charisma and eloquence is now being lined up as the next president of the United States. First there were calls for Oprah Winfrey to run for the White House after her moving speech at the Golden Globes. Then, collecting an award on Sunday night, Lamar proclaimed: “Jay for President.” Jay-Z in the Oval Office — could it happen? Rappers have been speaking out about political issues for decades, but rarely have their views — on issues from the incumbent president to the police treatment of black men — chimed so strongly with swathes of the mainstream. Pop artists remain largely apolitical. You certainly can’t imagine Mars running for president. In reality, Jay-Z is about as likely as Winfrey to run. But stranger, oranger things can happen. And Beyoncé would make one hell of a first lady.
5 Bono has learnt to keep his ego in check . . .
Who’d have thought it, the messiah of stadium rock acting as a glorified backing singer for Lamar during his performance of XXX.? It’s almost as if Bono has realised that he’s not the most important person in the world.
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6. . . and James Corden has learnt to keep his gob in check
At Corden’s last hosting gig, a black-tie charity event in October, he spectacularly misjudged the public mood in the wake of the Weinstein scandal, offering such side-splitting zingers as: “Harvey Weinstein wanted to come tonight, but he’ll settle for whatever potted plant is closest.” People weren’t happy, including the film-maker Asia Argento, who tweeted: “Shame on this pig and everyone who grunted with him.”
This time Corden reined it in, leaving the best gags to others, most memorably Michael Wolff, whose scathing book about the Trump White House, Fire and Fury, was read out by John Legend, Cher and one Hillary Clinton. Trump had “a long-time fear of being poisoned, one reason why he ate at McDonald’s,” Clinton read, with a mile-wide smirk on her face.
7 Elton just can’t retire from saving people
Last week Elton John announced that he will retire from playing live shows after an epic world tour finishing in 2021. He may find it harder to relinquish his role as the celebrity world’s unofficial agony uncle. Princess Diana, Michael Jackson, George Michael and Robbie Williams have been recipients of his advice on the pressures of fame and drug and sex addiction (some more willingly than others; Lily Allen once told Elton to f*** off when he commented on her drunkenness at an awards ceremony).
Next on Elton’s list could be Miley Cyrus, with whom he duetted at the Grammys on a rendition of his Seventies favourite Tiny Dancer. “I look at Miley Cyrus and I see a meltdown waiting to happen,” he was reported to have said in 2013. That was the same year, lest we forget, in which Cyrus twerked with Robin Thicke at the MTV VMAs.
At the Grammys, gone were the crotch grabs and intrusive foam fingers, replaced with a classy red dress and a restrained loll over Elton’s piano. Elton’s duet with Eminem at the Grammys in 2001 presaged an extended bout of counselling from Elton, whom the rapper credited with helping him to quit his drug addiction. Perhaps Cyrus’s godmother, Dolly Parton, a friend of Elton’s, asked him to have a quiet word, or organise a low-key duet in front of millions? Or perhaps, God forbid, Cyrus is fine without an Elton intervention?
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8 As presentations go, less is more
A slimmed-down set of awards meant we were spared some of the endless, preposterously niche categories in which the Grammys once specialised. Best Tejano album and best surround sound album, anyone? Thought not.
9 Ed Sheeran doesn’t get out of bed for fewer than three awards
These Grammys weren’t exactly a disaster for Sheeran, who won for best pop solo performance and best pop vocal album. Yet that doesn’t seem to have been incentive enough for him to attend the ceremony. Could this, whisper it, be the first sign of diva-ishness from the famously ego-free Suffolk troubadour?
10 Lorde was stitched up
Another A-lister who declined to perform at the ceremony was the unjustly snubbed Lorde (see above). The Kiwi star preferred to let her dress do the talking. It featured an excerpt from the artist Jenny Holzer’s Inflammatory Essays stitched on to the back. “Rejoice! Our times are intolerable,” it read. “Take courage, for the worst is a harbinger of the best. Only dire circumstance can precipitate the overthrow of oppressors. The old and corrupt must be laid to waste before the just can triumph. Contradiction will be heightened. The reckoning will be hastened by the staging of seed disturbances. The apocalypse will blossom.”
Here’s to the Grammys 2019, if there is one!
Grammy awards 2018: The winners
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Best pop vocal album Ed Sheeran — Divide
Divide Best traditional blues album The Rolling Stones — Blue & Lonesome
Best rap/sung performance Kendrick Lamar — Loyalty
Best new artist Alessia Cara
Best pop solo performance Ed Sheeran — Shape of You
Best rap album Kendrick Lamar — Damn.
Song of the year Bruno Mars — That’s What I Like
Record of the year Bruno Mars — 24K Magic
Album of the year Bruno Mars — 24K Magic
Best country album Chris Stapleton — From a Room: Volume One
Best pop duo/group performance Portugal. The Man — Feel It Still
Best rock performance Leonard Cohen — You Want It Darker. Best rock song Foo Fighters — Run Best rock album The War on Drugs — A Deeper Understanding
Best alternative music album The National — Sleep Well Beast
Best comedy album Dave Chappelle — The Age of Spin and Deep in the Heart of Texas
Best R&B performance Bruno Mars — That’s What I Like
Best traditional R&B performance Childish Gambino — Redbone
Best R&B song Bruno Mars — That’s What I Like
Best R&B album Bruno Mars — 24K Magic
Best rap performance Kendrick Lamar — Humble
Best rap song Kendrick Lamar — Humble
