Whitney Houston’s Death Casts Shadow on Grammys

Adele Adkins got her due. Her manuscript “21,” about what she called “a balderdash relationship,” spotlighted a big, soulful voice and intelligent marks that spoke to both heartsore teenagers and Motown-loving parents, offered some-more than 6.3 million copies in a United States. It was no warn that Adele won all 6 of a awards she was nominated for.

And when she started “Rolling in a Deep” a cappella, vouchsafing her voice flow into a arena, she was authoritative, not abrading her voice yet basking in a song’s melancholy accusations. In one of her many acceptance speeches, she thanked her throat doctors.

But a genocide of Ms. Houston, who was a prior generation’s big-voiced pop-soul black before she became a self-destructive open spectacle, hung over a awards show. LL Cool J, a show’s dynamically preacherly host, done his digression a prayer, followed by a challenging Grammy opening shave of Ms. Houston. Later, Jennifer Hudson sang a brief, deferential “I Will Always Love You,” wisely subsidy off imitating Ms. Houston’s bravura peaks.

Alicia Keys and Bonnie Raitt, singing “Sunday Kind of Love” with bluesy beauty in a scheduled reverence to Etta James — another good RB thespian who recently died — also mentioned Ms. Houston. So did Bruno Mars in a center of a kinetic, James Brown-style opening of his “Runaway Girl,” finish with a split.

Current country’s polarities were represented by Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson singing “Don’t You Wanna Stay,” radically a energy ballad, and Taylor Swift singing her bluegrass-flavored, Grammy-winning strain “Mean” on a determinedly country set. The Band Perry and Blake Shelton played Glen Campbell hits before Mr. Campbell himself, pang from Alzheimer’s illness and about to retire, done “Rhinestone Cowboy” his valedictory, finale with a yodel.

The Grammys always essay to strech mixed generations. This year’s uncover enclosed a reunion of a surviving, once bitterly divided Beach Boys after some-more than 20 years. They are not boys anymore, yet Brian Wilson’s voice still mustered some sad pain during a intricacies of “Good Vibrations”; collaborations (with Maroon 5 and Foster a People) were unnecessary. The year’s uncover also demonstrated a Grammys’ approval of how many electronic dance song has taken over pop.

This was a Grammy telecast directed for a mass audience. Performances in reduction renouned genres — exemplary music, jazz, gospel — were relegated to a preshow webcast, where many of a 78 awards were also handed out. The show’s performances enclosed mint and aged material, not partial of these Grammys’ eligibility duration of Sept. 1, 2010, to Sept. 30, 2011.

Bruce Springsteen, a E Street Band and a fibre territory non-stop a uncover with his robust new single, a belligerent defence for care as a kind of patriotism: “We Take Care of Our Own.” Nicki Minaj, yet close out of swat Grammys by Kanye West with and but Jay-Z, achieved a universe premiere of her “Roman Holiday” in a full-tilt prolongation series like a Broadway instrumentation of “The Exorcist.” Paul McCartney (whose reissue of “Band on a Run” won best chronological album) crooned “My Valentine,” an sexual ballad from his latest album, with Diana Krall on piano and Joe Walsh on guitar.

There was some-more stream stone from Katy Perry, behaving “Part of Me” in a skin-tight sci-fi costume; recently divorced, she pointedly sang a line “You can keep a solid ring.” Foo Fighters, who mopped adult a stone and tough rock/metal awards, bloody their Beatles/Springsteen/grunge amalgam “Walk” (named best stone performance) in a tent outward a Staples Center. Accepting a endowment for “Walk” — from “Wasting Light,” an manuscript available in a garage of a Foo Fighters’ leader, Dave Grohl — Mr. Grohl announced “The tellurian component of creation song is many important.”

But a awards also gave primary time to a increasingly programmed, fake sound of stream pop. Dance-club beats and flashing lights surrounded a twitchy dance routines of Chris Brown (who had a best RB album) and of Rihanna, whose “We Found Love” gave way, unfortunately, to her mopey partnership with Coldplay, “Princess of China” — yet not before she shouted, “Make some sound for Whitney!” Even a Foo Fighters took partial in an electronica shred (along with Chris Brown and Lil Wayne) with David Guetta and Deadmau5, dual of a disc-jockey-programmer-producers who sounds have done outrageous inroads into a tip 10. The Foo Fighters played their choppy, intense “Rope,” segued into a bar remix of “Rope” by Deadmau5 and afterwards some jarring dubstep.

But a uncover finished with a critical oldie. Mr. McCartney, switching instruments as needed, and his rope achieved a shutting miscellany from a Beatles’ “Abbey Road,” and during a peak, Mr. Springsteen, Mr. Grohl and Mr. Walsh assimilated them, trade rounds of mad guitar — an out-of-date luminary jam.