U2, Green Day garner top Grammys
It wasn’t Mariah’s night after all.
U2 was the upset big winner at last night’s Grammy Awards, taking home album of the year honors for “How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb” and best song for “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own.”
Punk-pop band Green Day won record of the year for “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and hip-hop soulman John Legend pulled in the best new artist award.
In a night that marked the re-emergence of funk-rock legend Sly Stone, Carey – the oddsmakers’ favorite for her 5.1-million-selling “The Emancipation of Mimi” – was shut out in the four major categories. The pop-R&B diva did grab three awards, as did rapper-producer Kanye West and country fiddler Alison Krauss.
Upon winning best song, the famously self-effacing singer Bono said: “If you were afraid this was going to go to our heads, it’s too late.” Later, he thanked his fellow album of the year nominees and was at a rare loss for words: “I don’t know what to say. This has been a big, big night for our band.”
It wasn’t supposed to work that way. Last year, Carey earned the respectability that has evaded her throughout her career by coming back from the ignominy of 2001’s “Glitter” with “Emancipation.”
Displaying an oversized diamond ring on her right hand and an overabundance of cleavage, Carey performed her creamy ballad “We Belong Together,” praised the Lord on “Fly Like A Bird,” and even got to make her debut in an ad as Intel’s newest pitchwoman.
West, who won best rap album for “Late Registration,” rap solo performance for “Gold Digger” and rap song for “Diamonds From Sierra Leone,” quipped, “Imagine being my publicist, how hard that’s got to be.”
Legend beat Stevie Wonder and Jamie Foxx, among others, in winning R&B vocal performance for his solo piano hit, “Ordinary People.”
Other multiple winners included Stevie Wonder, the Chemical Brothers and 90-year-old jazz guitarist Les Paul, who missed the awards due to illness but received props from Green Day’s Billie Jo Armstrong.
U2’s five Grammys included rock album and song for “City of Blinding Lights.”
Former “American Idol” winner Kelly Clarkson won pop vocal album for “Breakaway” and pop vocal performance for her powerhouse hit “Since U Been Gone.” In accepting the latter award, Clarkson broke down and apologized for “crying again on national television.”
The show’s most hotly anticipated performance segment, by far, came with a multi-artist tribute to Sly & the Family Stone.
After a medley of hits sung by young stars such as Fantasia, Joss Stone (no relation), Van Hunt and tattooed white-soul boy Devin Lima, as well as Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Sly himself appeared in public for the first time since 1993. Dressed in a silver space jacket and sporting a towering blonde mohawk, his appearance was a visual treat. But musically, all Stone did was tap on his keyboard and contribute to the group vocals on “I Want To Take You Higher” before disappearing again as quickly as he arrived.