Bruno Mars Makes History at the Grammys
It was a historic night for Bruno Mars at the 60th annual Grammys award show after the 32-year-old R&B singer won a bedazzling six awards last Sunday (28th Jan). Mars won awards for all of the categories he was nominated for, but what was truly special is that he became the ninth artist in history to win record, song, and album of the year in one award ceremony.
After a four year wait, eager Bruno Mars fans finally got to listen to the singer’s third studio album, 24K Magic. Released on November 18th 2016 the album received a lukewarm critical reception, getting rated a 6.2 by Pitchfork, and receiving an overall 70 critic score and a 6.2 user score on Metacritic. Nevertheless the album was still nominated for a whopping six awards and Mars ended up winning them all. The album also went double platinum, and the two lead singles “24k Magic” and “That’s What I Like” went 4x platinum each.
Bruno Mars is only the second person in the history of the Grammys to win both record of the year and song of the year for two different songs. Mars won record of the year for the album’s title track and song of the year for “That’s What I Like”. The first musician to accomplish this impressive feat is Carole King in 1972.
It’s also worth noting that all of the other albums nominated for Album of the Year had a significantly higher critical score. Kendrick Lamar had the highest with his fourth studio album, “DAMN”. However, I doubt Kendrick is going to be too bothered by missing out on album of the year considering that the 30-year-old rapper dominated the rap awards section winning a total of five awards himself; including best rap performance for his single “HUMBLE” and best rap album for “DAMN”.
To add perspective to Mars’ accomplishment, he was only two awards away from tying Michael Jackson’s record wins in a single night, eight.
“I’m so proud of Bruno,” said Oren Orescanin, a satisfied Bruno Mars fan “I’ve been a fan of his since 2012, and watching him continue to succeed like this makes me happy.”
Of course this type of success isn’t new to Mars, he was already a four-time Grammy award winner prior to Sunday, and his previous record sales have been nothing short of impressive. Both his debut and sophomore albums have gone multi-platinum as well.
Understandably, while some fans were delighted, others were not as impressed.
“Honestly 24k Magic is the worst album to get nominated, the award should have either gone to Lorde or Jay-Z,” said Hossam Al-Jaradi, an unhappy Jay-Z fan. “Childish Gambino should have won song of the year for Redbone as well, but even I can’t deny that Mars didn’t deserve some of his awards,” he added.
With all the recent success, it’s interesting to see where Bruno Mars goes from here. His fans will be hopeful, however, that he doesn’t take another four years to release his next album.
Photo Reference: Bruno Mars’ Instagram account
