Adele sweeps 59th Grammy Awards to be big winner

The 59th Grammy Awards ceremony was held in downtown Los Angeles Staples Center on Sunday, with British songstress Adele dominating the award.

Adele swept the top prizes of song and record of the year for her soaring ballad "Hello" and album of the year for her third album "25."

Adele took home a total of five Grammys, winning in the pre-telecast ceremony for best pop vocal album for "25" and best pop solo performance for "Hello."

Adele set a Grammy history Sunday to be the only artist to win album, record and song of the year twice. In 2012, she won these three big awards with her second album "21."

Adele debuted at Grammy in 2009. At the 51st Grammy Awards in 2009, Adele received the awards for Best New Artist. Up to now, she has 15 Grammy Awards.

Her five wins were quietly matched by late David Bowie, whose album "Blackstar" and its title track, won the best rock song, the best rock performance, the best alternative music album, the best recording package and the best engineered non-classical album.

Bowie died Jan. 10, 2016, at age 69. In his over five decades career, Bowie got 12 Grammy nominations and he only got one award in 1985 before this year.

Beyonce, who had a leading nine nominations heading into this Grammy, wound up winning just two -- the best urban contemporary album for "Lemonade" and the best music video for the song "Formation."

Even Adele seemed genuinely surprised when she took home the record and album of the year prizes, spending much of her acceptance speeches heaping praise on Beyonce.

"My dream and my idol is Queen B," she said to Beyonce on stage, "I adore you and you move my soul every single day."

Earlier in the show, when Beyonce won the best urban contemporary album, she read from a pre-written speech, saying she created "Lemonade" as "a body of work that would give a voice to our pain, our struggles and our darkness and our history, to confront issues that make us uncomfortable."

Twenty-three-year-old Chance the Rapper won the best new artist, the best rap album for "Coloring Book" and the best rap performance for "No Problem."

The Ohio duo of Twenty One Pilots won the Grammy for the best pop duo performance for their hit "Stressed Out".

The award for the best country solo performance went to 26-year-old songstress Maren Morris. She won the prize for her debut single "My Church".

She gave special thanks to her fans, saying, "Thank you for giving me the most incredible year of my life."

Running roughly three hours and 45 minutes, the Grammy ceremony was hosted by James Corden.

In recent weeks, the question running through the music business was whether the Grammys would become a spot for political complaints, in the way that Hollywood seized the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild awards for strong statements against the Trump administration.

Corden answered this question at the beginning of the ceremony in a quick-fire rap, saying, "Live it all up because this is the best and with President Trump, we don't know what comes next."

Source: Xinhua