The 56th annual Grammy Awards took place on January 26, 2014. Opening the show was Beyoncé and Jay Z who wowed the crowd with their hit “Drunk in Love.” Later while accepting his own Grammy for the best Rap/Sung Collaboration with Justin Timberlake for “Holy Grail, Jay Z said he was going to tell his daughter that he got her a gold sippy cup.
17-year old Lorde became one of the youngest winners ever of a Grammy in the Best Pop Solo Performance. Many had commented that Lorde was sure to win the Best New Artist category, but she did not get a nomination.
Winning the top song of the year was “Royals” for songwriters Universal Music’s songwriters Joel Little & Ella Yelich O’Connor.
The unique sounding French Electronic music “Random Access Memories” won album of the year for Draft Punk. Draft Punk along with Pharrell and Nile Rodgers were also named the pop/duo group performance of the year award for “Get Lucky.”
Winning the award for best metal performance was Black Sabbath for “God Is Dead?”
Queen Latifah, who was sworn in a few hours before the Grammy’s, married 33 couples during the performance of “Same Love.” Many of the couples were same sex, as this song has become one of their anthem songs. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis sung the song with Madonna singing along in places. After the brief ceremony, then Madona performed her hit “Open Your Heart.”
While Macklemore and Ryan Lewis were not married during the Grammy’s they did manage to sweep the Rap category winning the Best Rap Song with “Thrift Shop,” the best rap performance, and “The Heist” took best rap album of the year.
The 56th annual Grammy awards show was the second most watched Grammy’s ever.