Adele And Foo Fighters Clean Up At The 2012 Grammy Awards

With just the Album of the Year left to announce at tonight's Grammy Awards (February 12, 2012), Adele and Foo Fighters were neck and neck as the evening's champions. It was no surprise, though, when Adele finished the evening taking home perhaps the most coveted of the awards. She cried as she took to the stage, hugging the host, LL Cool J and Diana Ross, who presented her with the award. She made an emotional speech, punctuated with one of her typically down-to-earth comments: "oh, I've got snot!" Earlier, when she collected her prize for Record of the Year, Adele seemed stuck for words. "This is ridiculous," she said, collecting her fourth award of the evening. She did, however, find the words to thank "every radio programmer and broadcaster" who had helped the record to become a success.

Behind Foo Fighters and Adele, there was room for other artists to snap up the remainder of the awards. Skrillex surprised many by taking home three Grammy awards, though he missed out on the Best New Artist award, which would have been his most controversial award. That honour went to Bon Iver, who also won Best Alternative Music Album. And Taylor Swift enjoyed a successful evening, taking home two Grammys and performing live. Her performance seemed popular, though it was definitely more sedate that the display put on by Nicki Minaj, whose bizarre 'Exorcism of Roman' performance, complete with faux-Cockney accent, saw her elevated from the stage on a platform, appearing to levitate. She certainly seemed to be making up for any disappointment felt by Lady GaGa's relatively sedate behaviour.

And bizarre though it was, it may well have been better-received than Rihanna's performance with Coldplay. Neither act seemed completely comfortable on stage and both Rihanna and Chris Martin seemed to have tuning issues. The truly significant performances of the evening, though, came from Adele and Jennifer Hudson. Adele performed 'Rolling in the Deep', the first time that she has performed live since undergoing surgery on her vocal cords last year. But Jennifer Hudson's tribute to the late Whitney Houston, singing 'I Will Always Love You' definitely stole the show. Whitney Houston died tragically yesterday at the age of 48 and the atmosphere at the Grammy awards appeared visibly sombre as a result of the loss of one of the music industry's greatest talents.