Well, yet another Grammy Awards night has come and gone, and like usual, there are plenty of things for people to complain about. Like Macklemore in 2014 or Adele back in 2012, the big winner on Sunday night was Sam Smith, who took home four awards, although not necessarily because his is the most interesting music in the world. Old-timer Beck also got Kanye West all riled up by beating out Beyoncé for Album of the Year, but at least it was fun to see that happen.
There were plenty of reasons to be happy with the Grammys last night if you were music fan from Dallas, however, and chief among them was St. Vincent, who won the Best Alternative Music Album category.
See also: St. Vincent, Edie Brickell Receive Grammy Nominations Miranda Lambert Tops 2015 American Country Music Awards with 8 Nominations
Naturally, the excitement of St. Vincent's victory had to be diluted slightly by the fact that it was announced earlier in the day, prior to the light-night TV gala. But no matter. St. Vincent, which is in effect the stage name of Dallas-reared singer and guitarist Annie Clark, received considerable acclaim for her third, self-titled album in 2014, so the award marked a perfect climax to a memorable year.
Clark took to Twitter to express her gratitude:
Wow!!! Won the @TheGRAMMYs for Best Alternative Album just now. Thank you, my producer @congletonjohn. Thank you, everyone! Love.
— St. Vincent (@st_vincent) February 8, 2015
While Clark has long since lived in Brooklyn, the Dallas tie for the award was strengthened by the fact that John Congleton, one of North Texas' most celebrated producers in recent years, had recorded the album. Congleton, too, took to Twitter in his own, understated fashion:
well....@st_vincent and I won the Grammy. that's completely insane and unexpected. shocked. I love you Annie.
— john congleton (@congletonjohn) February 8, 2015
Outside of St. Vincent, another Dallas-based producer picked up a Grammy, and this time it wasn't even his first. S1, who won a Grammy in 2011 for his work on Kanye West's "Power," came out a winner again last night when Eminem won the Best Rap Album award for The Marshall Mathers LP 2. S1 produced that album's opening track, "Bad Guy," which he also happened to collaborate on with Sarah Jaffe.
Congrats to @Eminem on his Grammy. Was honored to be apart of #badguy . Hats off to my buddy @SymbolycOne as well!
— Sarah Jaffe (@sayjaffe) February 9, 2015
Another prominent winner at the Grammys was country star Miranda Lambert, who grew up an hour outside Dallas in Longview and cut her teeth in the North Texas country scene. Lambert was up for a handful of categories on Sunday and came away with the honors for Best Country Album thanks to her record Platinum. She'll be up for yet more awards in April when the American Country Music Awards take place right here in Arlington at AT&T Stadium. (Lambert is nominated for eight ACM awards, more than any other artist.)
Speaking of Arlington, there was one more winner from North Texas at the Grammys last night, and that was a capella group the Pentatonix. They picked up the award for Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Capella for their mashup of Daft Punk songs called, you guessed it, "Daft Punk."
One other nominee with Dallas ties who came up short was Edie Brickell, who had been in the running for Best American Roots Song for "Pretty Little One," her collaboration with Steve Martin. All in all, though, not a bad showing last night. Congrats to all the winners, no matter what Kanye has to say about it.
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