By Gabriella DePinho
IHA NEWS EDITOR

The 57th annual Grammy awards was held Sunday night, on February 8th, in Los Angeles, California.

Social media sites were full of buzzing fans as the red carpet began and as the show went on.

The show opened with a performance from AC/DC. Throughout the night there were performances from stars of all kinds and collaborations between many different artists.

Some interesting collaborations included Rihanna, Kanye West, and Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga and Tony Bennet, Hozier and Annie Lennox, Sam Smith and Mary J. Blige, Beck and Chris Martin, and Ed Sheeran with John Mayer and ELO. Some solo performances included Kanye West, Ariana Grande, Pharrell, Madonna and Juanes.

Other stars sang for a cause; Katy Perry sang “By the Grace of God,” after a video PSA of Obama speaking out against domestic violence against women and a speech from Brooke Axtell, a victim of domestic violence. Beyoncé performed “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” and then introduced John Legend and Common, who performed “Glory” from the Selma soundtrack.

Their performance was the most political with the chorus of men behind Beyoncé putting both their hands up, which was and still is the symbol for the Ferguson protests with the chant “Hands up. Don’t Shoot” and footage from Selma played behind them. Prince, before presenting the Album of the Year award, even made the comment, “Like books and black lives, albums still matter,” touching on the subject.

Out of 83 Grammy winners some of them are listed here:

• Record of The Year: Stay With Me (Darkchild Version) – Sam Smith
• Album of The Year: Morning Phase – Beck
• Song of the Year:  Stay With Me (Darkchild Version) – Sam Smith (co-written by James Napier, William Phillips, and Sam Smith)
• Best New Artist: Sam Smith
• Best Pop Solo Performance: Happy (Live) – Pharell
• Best Pop Vocal Album – In The Lonely Hour – Sam Smith
• Best Dance Recording: Rather Be – Clean Bandit feat. Jess Glynne
• Best Rock Song – Ain’t It Fun – Paramore (song writers: Hayley Williams and Taylor York)
• Best Rock Album: Morning Phase – Beck
• Best R&B Performance: Drunk in Love – Beyoncé feat. Jay Z
• Best R&B Song: Drunk in Love – Beyoncé feat. Jay Z
• Best Urban Contemporary Album: Girl – Pharrell
• Best Rap Performance: I – Kendrick Lamar
• Best Country Solo Performance: Something In The Water – Carrie Underwood
• Best Country Album: Platinum – Miranda Lambert

From the list above it is easy to see that Sam Smith was a big winner last night, taking home four out of six of the Grammys he was nominated for, and upon winning Record of the Year Smith said, “I want to thank the man who this record is about, who I fell in love with last year. Thank you so much for breaking my heart because you got me four Grammys!”

A surprise winner was Beck for Album of the Year, who seemed just as shocked as the public when he was announced the winner, beating out Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, Pharrell Williams and Beyoncé.

Kanye West faux-stormed the stage, but then went and sat back down, which was reminiscent of the 2009 VMA incident (in which he stole the microphone out of Taylor Swift’s hand and claimed Beyonce should have won the award instead). However, while Kanye sat back down he did make a statement later in the night that he wasn’t kidding when he did that.

Kanye West’s statement was:

“I don’t even know what [Beck] said. I just know that, the Grammys, if they want real artists to keep coming back, they need to stop playing with us. We aren’t going to play with them no more. ‘Flawless.’ Beyoncé’s video. And Beck needs to respect artistry, he should have given his award to Beyoncé. At this point, we tired of it. What happens is, when you keep on diminishing art, and not respecting the craft, and smacking people in the face after they deliver monumental feats of music, you’re disrespectful to inspiration. We, as musicians, have to inspire people who go to work every day, and they listen to that Beyoncé album, and they feel like it takes them to a different place. And then they do this promotional event, and they’ll run the music over somebody’s speech, the artist, because they want commercial advertising. We aren’t playing with them anymore. And by the way, I got my wife, my daughter, and I got my clothing line, so I’m not going to do nothing that would put my daughter at risk, but I am here to fight for creativity. That’s why I didn’t say anything tonight, but you all knew what it meant when ‘Ye stepped on that stage.”

Racism against black citizens has been a major topic in the news and media in the past year and Kanye intended for his action and comment to bring attention to its presence in the world of music, especially the Grammy awards, and was addressed by the aforementioned Beyoncé, Common and John Legend’s performance.

To read the entire list go to: http://www.grammy.com/nominees and to see photos go to http://www.grammy.com/photos