The 2012 Grammy Awards were a spectacle of some the best (Adele) and worst (Nicki Minaj) of the music industry. The show clocked in at 3 hrs and 20 minutes and was one long drawn out mess with some bright spots in between. Here are the moments that stood out in the telecast.

LL Cool J Opens Show With A Prayer

The host for the night opened with the line “We’ve had a death in the family” and then proceeded to say a prayer for fallen singer, Whitney Houston, who passed away the night before. It was a really beautiful moment and a nice way to kick off the show before all the festivities started.

Bruno Mars Performance

Bruno Mars was clearly channeling James Brown yesterday with this performance. He nailed it. He always give good performances. He performed one of my favorite songs, “Runaway Baby”, from his debut album Doo-Wops and Hooligans. I just love the man. I thought he was whatever when he first came on the scene, but then I went to a show of his and he was amazing. I especially loved the part where he told the crowd to “get their rich a**es up and let’s have some fun.”

Alicia Keys and Bonnie Raitt Etta James Tribute

 I didn’t know this performance was going to happen but man glad it did. The two ladies sang Etta James’ A Sunday Kind of Love, a song I was not familiar with but have since downloaded because I liked it so much. It was so great. Loved the contrast between the ladies voices. There was just a piano and a guitar, no gimmicks or anything else needed. I need these to ladies to start working on something together.

Adele Performs For The First Time Since Her Surgery

Gosh I love this woman. Adele sang “Rolling In The Deep” off her multi-platinum selling album 21. This album has completely dominated for the past year and a half. If you haven’t heard it, what are you waiting on. Her voice sounded great. It seemed like it was a little deeper than before but I watched a clip of her performing this same song before the surgery and it sounded the same. After she finished, she received thunderous applause as well as a standing O from the entire arena. The camera panned to several people crying in the crowd from Rihanna to Dave Grohl (he didn’t cry but it looked like he came close lol). They should have ended the show with her.

Jennifer Hudson Does Whitney Houston Tribute

Jennifer Hudson was tapped to perform a Whitney Houston tribute during the in-memoriam section of the awards show. After the clips rolled she sang a nice rendition of Houston’s hit “I Will Always Love You.” I was happy with the way she sang this song. She didn’t do her usual screaming that she sometimes does and she looked good doing it except for that slight spanx malfunction. Some people were upset that there wasn’t more to this tribute but I mean Whitney died less than 24 hours before and much more time would have been needed to put something together. Did you guys want it to be like the HOT MESS of a tribute BET put together for Michael Jackson, which I might add they had more time for?

Adele Wins Album of The Year Award

How cute is she with her 6 grammys in her hand. This category was pretty much a given that she was going to win but she looked like she was surprised by it (That’s how you do genuine Taylor Swift) and the tears started coming. Her speech was really cute and she talked about having snot in her nose and it just endeared her even more to me. LOVE HER!!!! 

These I thought were the best moments out of the entire 3 and a 1/2 hour show. It was overall pretty boring and was sort of a mess altogether. Most of the performances were just ok. Anyway until the next award show.