David Bowie Wins Five Grammys
David Bowie’s Blackstar turned out to be one of the big winners at the 2017 Grammys. The last album the rock legend released in his lifetime won four awards, for Best Alternative Music Album, Best Recording Package and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, while the title track won Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song.
Bowie had strong competition throughout, particularly for Best Alternative Music Album, where he prevailed against Bon Iver (22, A Million), PJ Harvey (The Hope Six Demolition Project), Iggy Pop (Post Pop Depression) and Radiohead (A Moon Shaped Pool).
In the Best Rock Album category, Bowie beat out Blink-182 (California), Cage the Elephant (Tell Me I'm Pretty), Gojira (Magma), Panic! at the Disco (Death of a Bachelor) and Weezer (Weezer). He also triumphed over Alabama Shakes ("Joe") and Jack White, who played on Beyonce's "Don't Hurt Yourself," for Best Rock Performance and Radiohead ("Burn the Witch") for Best Rock Song.
These awards brings Bowie’s career Grammy total to seven, having won Best Video, Short Form in 1985 for Jazzin' for Blue Jean and being given a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. He has 11 other nominations.
However, many other alternative and indie acts were not as successful as Bowie. For Best Spoken Word Album, Elvis Costello lost for Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, as did Patti Smith for M Train John Doe of X for A Personal History of L.A. Punk. The Avett Brothers' True Sadness lost both of its nominations in the Americana categories, Peter Gabriel's "The Veil" didn't win Best Song Written For Visual Media, White's, "City Lights" lost Best American Roots Song and Primus & the Chocolate Factory were unsuccessful in the Best Surround Sound Album category.
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