This time last year I was recovering from a truly shocking Grammys, which saw 2 of the big 4 awards go to outsiders. The awards themselves were as predicted in 2012, and while I’m here to take a look back on last night’s action, I’ll try and keep this brief.

The whole night was struck with a a sombre tone from the start, the sudden death of Whitney Housten just hours earlier overshadowing eveery moment. I felt so sorry for Jennifer Hudson who was thrown into a tribute version of I Will Always Love You that was obviously near impossible to sing without crying. She delivered a worthy tribute to an artist the industry will miss, another name on the list of tragic losses in music over the past 12 months.

Adele cleaned up the awards, getting a win in every category she was nominated. I had thought she could miss out on one of the big 3 and possibly the video award, but she lived up to expectations scoring herself 6 grammies, which equals Beyonce’s record haul for a female in 2009. I feel like Adele deserved a few more than B for her incredible year, but she won in every possible category she could have been nominated in so it’s an impressive achievement.

This left a sour faced Lady GaGa without a single award, this being probably the most understated the Lady has ever been at an awards show. Staying in one outfit for the duration, she didn’t perform or even walk the red carpet possibly one of the reasons the whole show felt slightly flat and dull. Nicki Minaj tried her best to replicate GaGa with a baffling rendition of a new song, and Katy Perry pulled off a brilliant debout performance of Part of Me. Even Rihanna managed to turn a by the numbers performance of We Found Love into a whole new experience, going into her Coldplay hookup and their song Paradise just after. There were great performances around every ad break, but none truly felt grammy worthy, a problem at such a prestigious award show.

Back on the awrads side of things, other than  the big 4 only a handful of awards were handed out on the night. Though he scored 3 wins in the dance categories, Skrillex missed his time to thank Grammy voters in the main show. Kanye and Jay-Z’s Otis won Rap Performance, but neither was there to accept it, a baffling choice for the main show considering Kanye won all 4 of the rap category and could have got his All of The Lights collaborators Fergie and Rihanna to collect one of those for him instead. Lady Antebellum added another Best Country Album trophy to the 5 they won last year, probably the happiest people on the stage besides Adele.

The only other (non Adele) moments of the night came with the domination of the rock categories for Foo Fighters, which had me worried they would also win the album award, and the Best New Artist speech. Dave Grohl of The Foos had a long speech of sorts about how it’s great to have real music with guitars and instruments being rewarded and for musicians to get away from their computers, the back of my mind reminding me that Skrillex had been a big winner earlier in the night. Justin Vernon of Bon Iver was more accepting of his award than I had anticipated, I was worried we could see him throwing the trophy at the crowd or something, but he approached the stage merely dazed and confused. He thanked those artists ‘who would never be here’ but did say he was truly grateful for the recognition. Nicki Minaj’s face when she didn’t win was enjoyable to watch though, I’m pretty sure she thought she had it in the bag to beat her Monster collaborator.

But literally nothing else mattered other than Adele last night, and I think I’d have enjoyed a 20 minute show of just her than the lengthy and unecessary ‘golden oldies’ style the Grammys so adores. her comeback performance wasn’t one of her best, in fact you could hear how nervous she was when she had to cover up a slight dodgy section with a ‘here we go’. But the voice was back, she was performing again, and the world rejoiced at the thought of buying even more copies of 21. I literally can’t imagine there being any more people left in the world that don’t own the album, but this year’s show felt like a coming home party for the Queen of the Charts.

Al 4 of my predictions were on the mark, and while the show itself was underwhelming it celebrated music of all genres in a repectable manner. The less said about Chris Brown’s presence the better, the fact he won a televised award, and performed twice, just 3 years to the day that he repeatedly beat Rihanna on Grammy night. How anyone can say he deserves this sort of second chance he has gotten is sickening and something does need to change on the viewpoint of domestic violence if the current generation are going to truly understand how devastating it can be.

Sorry for going off track, and way over my intended word count, but I’m passionate about silly award shows like The Grammys. Be sure to come back next year, when Christina Milian’s new album with go head to head with the return of Steps in the Best Album category (you heard it here first!)