Two unconventional acts, French electronic music DJs Daft Punk and New Zealand teen Lorde, took home the top Grammy awards on Sunday in a night that rewarded robots and newcomers, and recognized marriage equality.
In a first for the Grammys or any big US awards show, thirty-three couples, both same-sex and straight, were married by singer Queen Latifah, to the Macklemore & Ryan Lewis gay rights anthem, Same Love.
Madonna emerged in a white suit and cowboy hat to conclude the singing ceremony with Open Your Heart.
Photo: AFP
The music industry’s glamorous gathering also saw the two surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, come together for a rare joint performance coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the British group’s breakthrough on US television.
The quirky robotic duo, Daft Punk, scored the double win of Album of the Year for Random Access Memories, and Record of the Year with the summer dance hit Get Lucky, featuring Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers.
Rodgers praised the French DJ duo for creating their electronic music album using live music recorded on to analogue tape, calling it “a labor of love.”
Photo: Reuters
“The fact that they decided to put this much effort into the music and bringing in musicians, they had this incredible vision and they believed they achieved something greater by doing that,” Rodgers said backstage.
Formed in the early 1990s by Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, Daft Punk were pioneers of the electronic dance music phenomenon that has recently swept the US mainstream pop industry.
It was impossible to know what the two masked musicians thought about their big win because they choose not to speak as part of their act.
Lorde, 17, won the Grammy for Song of the Year with her breakout hit Royals, sharing the award for songwriters with Joel Little. They triumphed over the writers behind Katy Perry’s Roar and Bruno Mars’ Locked Out of Heaven, among others.
“Thank you to everyone who has let this song explode because it has been mental,” said Lorde, whose real name is Ella Yelich-O’Connor, known for a gothic esthetic that goes against the sexy, scantily clad norm of young pop artists.
The Recording Academy also anointed Seattle-based rapper-producer newcomers Macklemore & Ryan Lewis with the Grammy for Best New Artist and three other awards in rap categories.
“Before there was any media, before there was any buzz about us, before there was a story, there was our fans and it spread organically through them,” said Macklemore, whose real name is Ben Haggerty, as he accepted the Best New Artist award.
With their homage to marriage equality, the duo also presided over the biggest dramatic moment of the night, the ceremony in a cathedral-like setting, an initiative that Queen Latifah hoped would be emulated across the rap genre.
“I hope this is inspiration to all the rappers out there and hip hop artists out there that they can continue to tackle any subjects you want,” Queen Latifah, said backstage, before her power to marry in California expired at midnight.
The 56th Grammy Awards, the music industry’s top honors handed out by the Recording Academy across 82 categories, also rewarded a crop of newcomers in several genres.
Kacey Musgraves, 25, won Best Country Album with Same Trailer Different Park, while alt-rockers Imagine Dragons won Best Rock Performance for Radioactive.
“This last year has kind of just blown up,” said Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds, dusted in the red powder from the band’s high-octane performance with rapper Kendrick Lamar.
There was also 71-year-old McCartney, who teamed up with former members of grunge rock band Nirvana, including Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, to win Best Rock Song for Cut Me Some Slack.
“It was magic for me playing with these guys,” McCartney said. “I found myself in the middle of a Nirvana reunion and I was very happy.”
With McCartney at the piano and Starr at his drums on Sunday night — in a surprise reunion — the two played a new song, Queenie Eye,” a catchy tune that hearkened back to the Beatles’ trademark hits.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was