25 Skidoo

Adele won Album of the Year for 25?  Great, I can now say I own a copy of an Album of the Year Grammy-winning LP that was released in this century! :-D 

And she also won song of the Year and Record of the Year for "Hello." She dedicated her wins to Beyoncé, who won only two of the nine Grammys she was up for; Queen Bey won Best "Urban Contemporary" [read black] Album and Best Music Video), and, fortunately, Kanye West was nowhere to be seen in the hall. 

Adele's wins shouldn't fool anyone in to thinking we're ready for a revival of sensibility and taste in popular music.  As I once pointed out on this blog, her style is a throwback to the days of 1960s British songstresses like Dusty Springfield, Petula Clark and Cilla Black, and her success has hardly helped the rest of pop return to a sixties-type standard.  (Best New Artist?  Chance the Rapper.)  But rock is still hanging in there, with Cage the Elephant, one of rock's more interesting current bands, winning Best Rock Album Grammy for Tell Me I'm Pretty.  But you know that rock is still in trouble when you realize that Bowie won four Grammys despite being dead. :-O

And Beyoncé's pornographic-Lady-Madonna-priestess schtick?  See how they run; even people who have long been in Queen Bey's corner are distancing themselves from her Grammy performance.  She might have just pole-vaulted the shark.  No wonder Kanye was nowhere to be seen.  You think he was going to try to defend that?