The 58th Grammy Awards, 2016

The Grammy Awards were a week ago so here are a few of the key winners and a little overview of the night.

Album of the Year

Winner: 1989 - Taylor Swift

Sound & Color - Alabama Shakes

To Pimp A Butterfly - Kendrick Lamar

Traveller - Chris Stapleton

Beauty Behind The Madness - The Weeknd

Best New Artist

Winner: Meghan Trainor

Courtney Barnett

James Bay

Sam Hunt

Tori Kelly

Best Rock Album

Winner: Drones - Muse

Chaos And The Calm - James Bay

Kintsugi - Death Cab For Cutie

Mister Asylum - Highly Suspect

.5: The Gray Chapter - Slipknot

Best Rock Performance

Winner: Don't Wanna Fight - Alabama Shakes

What Kind Of Man - Florence & The Machine

Something From Nothing - Foo Fighters

Ex's & Oh's - Elle King

Moaning Lisa Smile - Wolf Alice

Record of the Year

Winner: Uptown Funk - Mark Ronson Featuring Bruno Mars

Really Love - D'Angelo and the Vanguard

Thinking Out Loud - Ed Sheeran

Blank Space - Taylor Swift

Can't Feel My Face - The Weeknd

Song of the Year

Winner: Thinking Out Loud - Ed Sheeran & Amy Wadge

Alright - Kendrick Duckworth, Kawan Prather, Mark Anthony Spears & Pharrell Williams (Kendrick Lamar)

Blank Space - Max Martin, Shellback & Taylor Swift

Girl Crush - Hillary Lindsey, Lori McKenna & Liz Rose (Little Big Town)

See You Again - Andrew Cedar, Justin Franks, Charles Puth & Cameron Thomaz (Wiz Khalifa)

Best Pop Vocal Album

Winner: 1989 - Taylor Swift

Piece By Piece - Kelly Clarkson

How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful - Florence & The Machine

Uptown Special - Mark Ronson

Before This World - James Taylor

Best Pop Solo Performance

Winner: Thinking Out Loud - Ed Sheeran

Heartbeat Song - Kelly Clarkson

Love Me Like You Do - Ellie Goulding

Blank Space - Taylor Swift

Can't Feel My Face - The Weeknd

Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album

Winner: The Silver Lining: The Songs Of Jerome Kern - Tony Bennett & Bill Charlap

Shadows In The Night - Bob Dylan

Stages - Josh Groban

No One Ever Tells You - Seth MacFarlane

My Dream Duets - Barry Manilow

Best Music Video

Winner: Bad Blood - Taylor Swift Featuring Kendrick Lamar

LSD - ASAP Rocky

I Feel Love (Every Million Miles) - The Dead Weather

Alright - Kendrick Lamar

Freedom - Pharrell Williams

Best Dance Recording

Winner: Where Are U Now - Skrillex and Diplo with Justin Bieber

We're All We Need - Above & Beyond Featuring Zoe Johnston

Go - The Chemical Brothers Featuring Q-Tip

Never Catch Me - Flying Lotus featuring Kendrick Lamar

Runaway (U & I) - Galantis

Best R&B Performance

Winner: Earned It (Fifty Shades Of Grey) - The Weeknd

If I Don't Have You - Tamar Braxton

Rise Up - Andra Day

Breathing Underwater - Hiatus Kaiyote

Planes - Jeremih Featuring J. Cole

Best R&B Album

Winner: Black Messiah - D'Angelo And The Vanguard

Coming Home - Leon Bridges

Cheers To The Fall - Andra Day

Reality Show - Jazmine Sullivan

Forever Charlie - Charlie Wilson

Best Urban Contemporary Album

Winner: Beauty Behind The Madness - The Weeknd

Ego Death - The Internet

You Should Be Here - Kehlani

Blood - Lianne La Havas

Wildheart - Miguel

Best Country Album

Winner: Traveller - Chris Stapleton

Montevallo - Sam Hunt

Pain Killer - Little Big Town

The Blade - Ashley Monroe

Pageant Material - Kacey Musgraves

Best Country Song

Winner: Girl Crush - Hillary Lindsey, Lori McKenna & Liz Rose (Little Big Town)

Chances Are - Hayes Carll (Lee Ann Womack)

Diamond Rings And Old Barstools - Barry Dean, Luke Laird & Jonathan Singleton (Tim McGraw)

Hold My Hand - Brandy Clark & Mark Stephen Jones

Traveller - Chris Stapleton

Best Metal Performance

Winner: Cirice - Ghost

Identity - August Burns Red

512 - Lamb Of God

Thank You - Sevendust

Custer - Slipknot

Best Rap Album

Winner: To Pimp A Butterfly - Kendrick Lamar

2014 Forest Hills Drive - J. Cole

Compton - Dr. Dre

If You're Reading This Its Too Late - Drake

The Pinkprint - Nicki Minaj

Best Music Film

Winner: Amy - Amy Winehouse

Mr. Dynamite: The Rise Of James Brown - James Brown

Sonic Highways - Foo Fighters

What Happened, Miss Simone? - Nina Simone

The Wall - Roger Waters

Best Song written for Visual Media

Winner: Glory - Lonnie Lynn, Che Smith & John Stephens (Common and John Legend)

Earned It (Fifty Shades Of Grey) - Ahmad Balshe, Stephan Moccio, Jason Quenneville & Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd)

Love Me Like You Do - Savan Kotecha, Max Martin, Tove Nilsson, Ali Payami & Ilya Salmanzadeh (Ellie Goulding)

See You Again - Andrew Cedar, Justin Franks, Charles Puth & Cameron Thomaz (Wiz Khalifa Featuring Charlie Puth)

Til It Happens To You - Lady Gaga & Diane Warren

Ed Sheeran won his first ever Grammys at the ceremony - song of the year and best pop solo performance for his hit, Thinking Out Loud.

Lady Gaga performed a tribute to David Bowie, singing a medley of his songs.

Adele performed the track All I Ask, co-written with Bruno Mars, although she had some audio problems after a microphone fell on the piano accompanying her.

John Legend, Demi Lovato, Meghan Trainor and Tyrese Gibson performed with Lionel Richie to honour the former Commodores singer.

Twelve-year-old Joey Alexander, a jazz pianist was this year's youngest Grammy nominee and received a standing ovation from the crowd.

The Weeknd collected two prizes - best urban contemporary album and best R&B performance. Hollywood Vampires - a supergroup made up of members including Johnny Depp, Alice Cooper and Joe Perry - performed on TV for the first time and sang Ace of Spades in tribute to Motorhead's Lemmy.

Christmas Playlist

ONE WEEK UNTIL CHRISTMAS!

I'm only a little excited if you can tell?

As it's christmas and being the wonderful person that I am, I have not supplied you with just one generic Christmas playlist but 3, amazing playlists that are perfect for different occasions.

The first is the obvious, generic one, it has a bit of everything, and I mean EVERYTHING!

The second is for those who want a more classy Christmas, or for when the family is round and Grandma wants to listen to Bing Crosby.

The third and final playlist is the X-mas party playlist. Perfect for having a boogie on Christmas Eve and after Christmas dinner to start working off that food baby.

Album Review! Adele - 25

So you probably would have heard at some point over the past month (especially if you follow me on any social media site), that a certain someone has finally released her new album! That's right! Adele has finally dropped '25'!

Adele's 3rd album is about forgiveness, reflection and growing up. Following the success of '21', the task she faced when writing with album must have been massive. But after hearing 'Hello', we can all be rest assured Adele is back and as fabulous as ever! 

The album starts with 'Hello', a giant track that pulls your heart strings straight away. I think it was the perfect track to introduce the album, something we can all belt out at the top of our voices and relate too. When I first heard 'Hello' I must admit, I did instantly think of Lionel Richie's 'Hello'. I mean considering that 2015 has been a pretty big year for him, especially with his tour and being the act that drew the biggest crowd at Glasto. However, after watching every compilation video on Youtube and Facebook of Adele's 'Hello' mashed up with all sorts of responses, I think the track has become it's own. The music video displays some of Adele's acting skills, which we haven't seen much of before, which made a pleasant surprise and was very good (considering she was using a flip phone). If you want to see some of Adele's acting skills in action, watch the video below.

As I said '25' is about forgiveness, and with songs like 'Hello and 'Send My Love (To Your New Lover)', which echoes elements of '19' with its use of acoustic guitars. 'Million Years Ago' is another track that uses acoustic guitars. This time as the only form of accompaniment, which adds a sort of Spanish feel and simplicity to the track. 'Remedy' is another simple track, but uses just piano as an accompaniment instead. It is certainly one of the tracks about growing up and reflection, along with 'River Lea', the 'Hometown Glory' of '25' and 'When We Were Young', another track we can belt our hearts out to.

Personally I feel Adele has hit the nail on the head with this album. It's no '21', but it's not suppose to be. It's so much more mature than '21' and follows it perfectly. The best example of this maturity is 'Sweetest Devotion', which is about her son, Angelo. However the track can still relate to everyone, not just those who have had children. So once again every track in '25', you can relate to in some shape or form. I think 'I Miss You' has quite a different sound to the stuff we are used to with Adele. Instead, it sounds like something something Disclosure could have done featuring Adele, I think this one will be a good one to remix.
'Water Under The Bridge', one of the more upbeat tracks on the album, I personally find I can really relate to which is why this and 'Love in the Dark', an emotional one, are two of my favourites. At the moment my favourite seems to be 'All I Ask'. With hints of Abba's 'The Winner Takes It All' in the chorus and essence Paolo Nutini's 'Last Request' in the message, this track reminds me of 'Take It All' from '21' with its rawness and well, Awesomeness!
Adele and '25' continues to break records and the internet with this album, selling 2.3 million copies in just three days! Am I surprised? NO! The album is different in the ways it should be, and same in the ways it needs to be. Now all I need to do is see her live!

Album Review: The Desired Effect – Brandon Flowers

Earlier this year, Brandon Flowers followed another break from The Killers with his second solo album, The Desired Effect. I don’t quite know what desired effect Flowers is trying to achieve, but for me this album is easily one of the best to come out of 2015.

The album is transcendent of a Bowie record, taking us through a glitzy Vegas party of groovy dance numbers. The album starts with an uplifting horn section in “Dreams Come True” which has punchy lyrics telling his listener that ‘everything is alright’. From this the record enters an 80s synth-disco fusion with songs like “Still Want You” and “Lonely Town”. The latter using some clever auto tuning (which I never really think is a good idea, but in this case it offers a nice interlude into a gospel chorus).

However the record ends with, what I believe to be, the best song of the album, “The Way It’s Always Been”. This is where his vocals are most raw. The song starts with his voice and rhythm and shifts into a psychedelic, Sgt. Pepper-esque journey, with sincere organs and voice dubbings.

The album was produced with Ariel Rechtshaid, who had previously worked with Charlie XCX and Haim, and alongside Flowers has conjured one of the best produced albums of the year.

In my opinion, Flowers and The Killers are creating a huge legacy amongst the industry and could be set to join music royalty alongside their heroes like U2 and Dire Straits. And Brandon Flowers surely has to go down as one of the greatest songwriters of our generation. A key element to his success is his ability to not just write about love, but also hope and relevant world issues (in some cases very similar to Noel Gallagher), Flowers himself said in a recent interview that he doesn’t feel the need to write about generic shit like sex and drugs; since there’s a lot more things going on in the world, he admits it’s easier to write about that.

I saw Flowers earlier this year, pretty soon after the album came out, and the album is just as impressive live, so make sure you see him or even The Killers live so you can say you’ve seen one of the greats.