Telecast Winners:
Best Country Album: Miranda Lambert, Platinum
Album of the Year: Beck, Morning Phase
Best New Artist: Sam Smith
Record of the Year: Sam Smith, “Stay With Me (Darkside Version)”
Song of the Year: “Stay With Me” – James Napier, William Phillips & Sam Smith
Pre-Telecast Winners:
Best Country Solo Performance: Carrie Underwood, “Something in the Water”
Best Country Duo/Group Performance: The Band Perry, “Gentle on My Mind”
Best Country Song: “I’m Not Gonna Miss You” – Glen Campbell and Julian Raymond
Best American Roots Performance: Rosanne Cash, “A Feather’s Not a Bird”
Best American Roots Song: “A Feather’s Not a Bird” – Rosanne Cash and John Leventhal
Best Americana Album: Rosanne Cash, The River & the Thread
Best Folk Album: Old Crow Medicine Show, Remedy
Best Bluegrass Album: The Earls of Leicester, The Earls of of Leicester
Best Contemporary Instrumental Album: Chris Thile & Edgar Meyer, Bass & Mandolin
Best Historical Album: Hank Williams, The Garden Spot Programs, 1950
It’s interesting that Miranda has lost 3 tonight, including one with clear Grammy favorite Carrie. When Miranda isn’t aided by label politics/support, she really lacks momentum. Wow.
This is Carrie Underwood’s seventh Grammy, and second in this category.
Sixth Grammy for Glen Campbell. He won four in 1968 and one in 1969.
Before today, Rosanne Cash had one Grammy, won way back in the mid-eighties. Now she has four!
This is Old Crow Medicine Show’s first Grammy for their own music; they shared a Grammy for Best Long Form Music Video with Mumford & Sons.
First Grammy win for The Band Perry.
Third Grammy for Chris Thile, including the one he won as part of Nickel Creek.
Awesome for Rosanne cash!
For our predictions next year, we’ll need to pay more close attention to the artists who are tagged to participate in the pre-telecast– that could have been a tip-off that Cash and OCMS would win in their respective categories.
Cash made a crack that the last time she won a Grammy, Reagan was in the White House. Which, I knew that was true, but it’s still crazy to think that she’d only ever won one Grammy prior to tonight.
Miranda Lambert and Eric Church lost their pre-telecast awards, but not to anybody that they’re up against for Best Country Album.
I’m still thinking that Lambert’s the favorite, but there isn’t a single possible winner in that category that is undeserving of the trophy, so who knows what voters are thinking?
Saying that the Academy doesn’t love Carrie’s albums because she only wins ‘vocal’ awards is a pretty big stretch, IMHO.
Since they gave Brandy Clark a performance spot, I hope it means that she will win something.
I think that the connection between performing and winning is a bit more reliable than the groundhog seeing its shadow and six more weeks of winter, but not by much!
It does make for great TV, though, when the performer goes on to lose. Remember Trisha Yearwood winning after LeAnn Rimes sang “How Do I Live”?
I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of Pharrell. Guy’s a genius.
Miranda was…not that great. Sigh.
Hmmm…I enjoyed her performance.
Yeah, as much as I love Brandy Clark, I can’t see her winning against the others in her categories. Not so soon anyway.
I liked her vocal performance more on the Grammy stage than on the album, but preferred the backing music on the album to the rockier version she did tonight.
Kanye is killing it.
It does make for great TV, though, when the performer goes on to lose. Remember Trisha Yearwood winning after LeAnn Rimes sang “How Do I Live”?
And the Dixie Chicks winning Best Country Album for Wide Open Spaces right after Shania performed. The show’s producer’s stopped arranging the show such that a nominee performed right before their category was announced following that surprise win.
I thought Miranda started off a bit timid, but she got into the performance and really sold it after the first verse. There are still so many other tracks from Platinum I would have preferred to see as a single, but I don’t think this will tank the album or anything.
Not being familiar with Kanye’s music, he had too much autotune for me and I kept wanting the melody to change up.
Jason: Three of Carrie’s songs (sung by her but not written by her) have won Best Country Song at the Grammys (Jesus Take The Wheel, Before He Cheats and Blown Away). Come again how the Grammys don’t like her ‘music’??? I don’t mean to harp on this but your statement was just plain stupid.
Mary,
Maybe not stupid, but more like misinformed?
Madonna’s performance was fun.
Beyonce lost Best Urban Contemporary Album to Pharrell, so I’m feeling a bit more confident about picking Beck for Album of the Year. Though it does look like Sam Smith may very well sweep…
Sam lost Pop Solo, so I don’t think a sweep is for sure there.
Mary, how do you explain Carrie not being nominated in Country Album even one time by the Grammys?
Jess … plenty of country performers who have won vocalist awards haven’t had their albums nominated by the Academy. The fact that Carrie’s ALBUM hasn’t been nominated doesn’t mean the Academy doesn’t like her MUSIC (as evidenced by the 3 song awards). It just means they don’t believe an entire album has been worthy of nomination, which is totally different than not liking her music.
Leann … I will accept misinformed. Woefully misinformed.
Mary, you are like a panini up in here. Why are you so pressed?
Onto other news, Miranda did get an Album win so good for her. It also means the current single and any future singles won’t be eligible next year. Eric Church’s singles will be eligible, though. I doubt I will ever get the logic behind Grammy rules.
Since they brought the genre album awards in back in 1995, tracks from the winning album were no longer eligible the following year. This mirrors the general category, where the same rules apply.
Interestingly, I think if you win a genre album award, you can still have a track from it nominated in the general category the following year, as long as it didn’t win album.
Sometimes it works out better for the artists to lose the genre award. As mentioned upthread, Shania Twain lost country album for Come On Over. But she won Country Female and Country Song the same night, then won both categories again the following year with tracks from the same album. She wouldn’t have been eligible if the album had won. End result was Come On Over won four Grammys in the end. Winning by losing does happen sometimes!
What in the heck was Miranda trying to do? She failed miserably at trying to be Carrie. Miranda cannot rock out well at all. Her performance was awful as well as the song. We laughed our butts off watching her. Embarrassing.
Miranda Lambert might get the trifecta – Album win at Grammys, CMA’s and ACM’s.
Doesn’t happen too often. I think the last one might have been Dixie Chicks’ Fly. Maybe the only one? George Strait’s Troubadour and Kacey Musgraves’ Same Trailer Different Park noth came close, but the CMA’s didn’t go along.
Karen,
I definitely don’t agree that Carrie’s cornered the market on being able to “rock out.”
I don’t think Miranda’s trying to be Carrie or vice versa. Honestly, there are so few major female artists right now that there’s not much overlap between them in terms of style or sound.
Kevin, my point is that I don’t understand why someone winning Country Album rules tracks ineligible but losing Country Album does not. That rule seems inconsistent. I think the logic is that if something wins Country Album (or Pop Album or whatever), the songs from it have already won a Grammy. That make sense, but then logically it also means that if an album was nominated for Country Album all of the tracks from it have been nominated before.
In terms of the general category, I think tracks are only eligible for Record of the Year the next year if they are from an Album winner. Green Day did that with “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” the year after they won Rock Album. Alanis got in Record with “Ironic” the year after Jagged Little Pill won Album. Record of the Year is basically “Single of the Year,” so they still let songs into that one. I don’t know why they don’t let them in Song, too, though. Again, it’s inconsistent logic.
I know we’re well in the throes of the Miranda backlash, and I do think that her management team’s aggressive campaigning for the country industry awards is largely to blame for that.
But I’m pleased Platinum won. The Outsiders was the weakest of the five nominees, but it’s still a very good album and would have been a far better winner than either of the albums Lady Antebellum won for. But Platinum is an excellent effort by an artist I’ll admit I was concerned had already peaked three albums back. It’s stylistically fearless but still acutely aware of the genre’s history, and Miranda’s unique point-of-view informs a well-written batch of songs that consider the disconnection between a private life and a public persona and that account for her desire to balance her artistic and her commercial interests.
Dierks is a perennial bridesmaid at the awards shows, which really is a shame. I’m hopeful that “Say You Do” continues to gain traction at radio and could maybe sneak into Song of the Year at the CMAs. Though he’ll likely have to contend with Church’s “Talladega.” As Kevin said, it could ultimately play into their favor at the Grammys next year that their albums lost.
I agree with Kevin. I don’t think Miranda was trying to be Carrie and I think the female artists are doing much better about sounding unique from each other than the males are.
Almost all of the performances tonight have been excellent. The Grammys were great last year, too.
Church’s album more “rock” than Beck’s by several orders of magnitude.
Church sounded awful. Nearly every one of those high notes was at least a quarter-pitch flat. Singing with conviction is great and all, but singing with conviction and correct pitch is even better.
Clark, on the other hand, sounded flawless, and Yoakam’s harmonies were fantastic. I wish she had performed “Pray to Jesus” if only because so few of the performances have kicked up the tempo even a little bit. But she made good on that opportunity: I hope the ACMs follow suit and let her perform, but I seriously doubt they will…
I actually missed Church’s performance, but I agree regarding Brandy’s and Dwight’s! They were great, though I wouldn’t have minded a bit riskier of a song on the Grammys from her. “Pray to Jesus” or “Take A Little Pill” would’ve been fun.
Jess … I am not ‘pressed’. I thought one could state one’s opinion in here. Was I wrong? I was simply responding to those who addressed me directly. Dial it down a notch or 12.
Mary, I made a statement that wasn’t even directed to you, and you called it “stupid” and then in another post called it “woefully misinformed.” It was only after those 2 posts that I addressed you specifically, and you think I am the one who needs to take it down a notch? You remind me of one of those people on ‘reality’ shows who “isn’t here to make friends” and “keeps it real” when that is all really code for being rude to people to make yourself feel better.
Meanwhile, Beck’s win in Album is about 20 years late.
Brace yourselves, everybody. The onslaught of “Who is Beck?!??!?!” posts on social media has begun. I’m starting to feel old (and I’m in my early 20s).
Congrats to Jonathan for his prediction!
Jess … my ‘stupid’ comment wasn’t directed at you for crying out loud. It was directed at Jason comment, who I believe I named in my initial post. The fact that it came after your post doesn’t mean it was in response to yours. You’re comparing me to ‘reality show’ people, overreacting when I wasn’t even talking to you initially, and you call me rude? WOW
I just saw that Martina McBride has never won a Grammy. She’s had 14 nominations. Is that for real? The Grammys really do differ from the CMAs and ACMs. Lol
I recorded the show last night and fast forwarded this morning to see ML, Church and Brandy. The last was by far the best. Brandy should have won both Country Album and new artist.
@ Jason,
Regarding Madonna, give me a break. If anything, she could’ve taken the artists 1/2 her age over her knee and broken them like peanut brittle!
Great performance, awesome song, and as close as I’ve seen her get to what her live shows are like on an awards show number. The only thing I didn’t like was the camera work, but her performances are on a scale that are difficult to edit correctly without a lot of practice. It’s beyond the scope of what you’d normally see on an awards show. It was like there was so much going on, they didn’t know where to point the camera!
She really is without peer as a pop performer. When Beyonce or Pink are still doing big production numbers in their fifties, it will be because Madonna blazed the trail, as she always does.
Of course, she’ll be in her 70’s then and people will be saying she’s too old to be doing whatever she’s choosing to do then!
I’ll have to say that even my husband who has no particular affinity for Madonna thought that her performance was pretty impressive.
I heard Dierks Bentley say he had been nominated I believe 12 or 13 times for a Grammy! Has he ever won? Wow! It’s hard to believe Martina has never won a Grammy.
Taylor Swift’s Fearless won Best Country Album from the CMA’s Grammys, and ACMs. It also won the all-genre Album of the Year Grammy. Thus, it holds the distinction as the most awarded album in country music history.
So if Miranda Lambert wins the ACM album of the year, she’ll be the first artist since Taylor Swift to win all three categories for one album. With her ACM album of the year track record, only her not nominated Keroscene never won, she has as excellent a chance as any to make the sweep.
Quote by Jason:
I have to admit I also really liked Kanye West’s solo performance. It’s too bad he had to yet again steal the spotlight from someone who deserved to have a moment..
Yes, a real travesty on Kanye’s part, especially since, because Beyoncé’s wins probably push her ahead of Aretha Franklin in terms of the most decorated female artist in Grammy history, his rant was, to me, a case of him pulling the race card. That may be a very tough and controversial thing to say, but I stand by it.
In this year’s case, though, it was a White artist (Beck) winning Album of the Year, and Kanye being sore about it and saying that Beck should have “given” that award to Beyoncé. At the very least it was classless behavior of him, and, I’m going to say it again, at its worst a blatant pulling out of the race card.
Unless I’m missing something, Kanye did not say anything about the Grammys being racist. He said that they don’t respect true art/creativity or whatever. I, however, have seen the media interpreting/translating what he said to meaning that it was about race. But I think that if Kanyey wanted to call out race, he would be direct about it, since he’s not afraid to say it when he thinks it, as proven by him directly sayig that George Bush doesn’t care about black people. I’m not a Kanye fan, but I don’t think he was pulling the race cardin this situation, but simply being so arrogant that he thinks his opinion of who should win awards is important enough for him to shout it from the rooftops.
I just couldn’t help but correct Erik above because it’s Alison Krauss who is the most decorated female artist in Grammy’s history. :)
I stand corrected re. most number of Grammys by a female artist.
My opinion about Kanye’s rant being a cast of him pulling the race card (Beck being White, Beyoncé being black), however, isn’t going to change.
I’m with Leeann. Kanye is very candid about race and he would call the Grammys out specifically for that if he thought it was a racial issue.
The argument he’s making has more to do with the Grammys rewarding traditionalism over innovation, which has been a valid criticism of the general categories for as long as they’ve been giving out Grammys.
Given that the Grammys were originally created to honor “real music” over that upstart rock-and-roll garbage, it’s not a surprise that they’re still struggling to get it right, though I think they’ve gotten a lot closer in the last twenty years by changing the nomination process for the big four categories.
Let me add that “pulling the race card” is one of the most condescending phrases that exists. It’s easy to say that when you have the luxury of not wanting to talk about how race impacts your life experience, because your privilege allows that. Being black affects every aspect of life in America for a black person. They’re not “pulling the race card” when they bring that up, any more than women are “pulling the gender card” when they point out the double standards that they need to deal with in their daily lives.
@ Jason,
Madonna’s legacy is women being the dominant voice in popular music. Not fancy set designs.
So many artists, male and female, attempt to replicate the spectacle element, but the more you have going on around you, the stronger the personality in the center has to be. Madonna can command that attention and focus. Annie Lennox can, too. But it’s a rarity these days.
There’s also still a desire to anoint only one way for a woman to age appropriately. Notice there’s been a lot of talk about Madonna vs. Annie Lennox, but none about whether AC/DC should still be wearing schoolboy shorts, Prince should still be dressing in crazy outfits, or Paul McCartney trying to stay relevant by recording with younger artists.
Kevin said exactly what I wanted to say about the term”race card”, but didn’t say for some reason, probably because I didn’t want to continue the debate when it was stated that the opinion “isn’t going to change.” But since Kevin made the excellent point that I wanted to make, I’ll go ahead and say that I agree that the term “race card” is an offensive/condescending/dismissive term. It’s like saying that somebody is pulling out a trick, which is being dismissive of something as real as racism. And, again, in Kanye’s case, if he wanted to call out racism, he would not be shy about doing it. Just because a black person disagrees with an organization about that a decision that they made that involved a black and a white person does not automatically mean that it has to be about race, especially if the person doing the disagreeing hasn’t said anything about race.
One point I would like to make is that the Grammy. Awards should be about quality , not innovation. Innovation is a value – neutral word as innovations can be, and often are , bad.
I think the big I justice was that Roseanne Cash’s album wasn’t nominated in the Open category. It was both excellent and innovative
I’ve heard both Beyonce’ s album and Beck’s album. While I liked Beck’s album better, neither struck me as anything special, especially when it came to the lyrics.
Hmmm…I’m surprised that you’ve heard the Beyoncé album, Paul!
I love the Cash album, but I never thought of it as innovative.
I have a large collection so I have some rock & R&B as well as much jazz and classic pop.
I also have grandkids and nieces and nephews that range in age from 8 to 30, so I sometimes listen to their music. My 18 year old niece has everything by Beyoncé and Mariah Carey (as well as some other stuff) so I’ve heard everything by both artists. A have a brother-in-law who likes Beck. I don’t dislike Beyoncé (I do dislike Mariah Carey who seems to shriek everything) but I’ve heard better female R&B singers