Rolling In the Deep

I didn't watch the Grammy Awards last night - I tend to avoid awards shows these days, they're so boring - but I have heard that the impromptu Whitney Houston tribute was very nicely done.

The biggest story, of course, was Adele sweeping the awards she was up for, winning Album Of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album (21), Record Of the Year ("Rolling In the Deep"), Song Of the Year (ditto), Best Short Form Music video (again, the same song),and Best Pop Solo Performance ("Someone Like You"). It's official: In popular music, it's cool to be British again.

And despite the continuing war against rock and roll from rappers, trendies, and demographically driven radio conglomerates, rock pushed back at the Grammy ceremonies. In addition to Whitney Houston, another departed soul's spirit - Kurt Cobain's - was felt when his ex-Nirvana bandmate Dave Grohl's band the Foo Fighters won four awards, for Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance for "Walk," Best Hard Rock/ Metal Performance ("White Limo") and Best Rock Album - Wasting Light, which, if not for Adele , might have had a chance of winning Album of the Year. It's times like these you learn to live again, indeed.

The biggest surprise came from the alternative folk rock band Bon Iver, who won the Best Alternative Album Grammy for their self-titled LP. That's not the surprise; despite Madonna's insistence from 1990 that alternative music is music that's not popular, Bon Iver, from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, turned out to be popular enough (popular enough with the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, anyway) to take home the Best New Artist award, beating out Nicki Minaj, who records music that is very popular. Take that, Madge!

Of course, an earlier collaboration between Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon and hip-hop star Kanye West (!) obviously helped the band's cause.

However, the Best New Artist Grammy is a curse - only rare acts like the Beatles and Crosby, Stills and Nash have survived it - so I hope Vernon and his bandmates don't end up losing by winning. :-(