Best acceptance speeches from the 59th Grammys

Sunday night saw the biggest stars of the music world turn out for the 59th Grammys. Pretty much anyone who’s anyone was in the audience to see James Corden host, Lady Gaga and Metallica join forces for a fiery show and see performances by some of the biggest names in the business.

Here are the top five acceptance speeches from the winners.

Adele 

It was certainly Adele’s night. She performed a tribute to the legendary David Bowie before taking home all five awards she was nominated for, including gongs for Best Album, Best Record and Best Song. She even confirmed her rumoured marriage to long-term partner Simon Konecki. The singer did a flurry of speeches for her awards, but her most moving was for best album of the year.

The singer began by thanking her manager, husband, and son for making her win possible after reflecting on her life between her last Grammy’s appearance and now. But she shocked everyone when she said she couldn’t accept the award - which she said she felt belonged to Beyonce. Queen Bey teared up in the audience as an emotional Adele told the crowd “my artist of my life is Beyonce” and calling Lemonade ‘monumental”.

“The way that you make me and my friends feel, the way you make my black friends feel, is empowering. And you make them stand up for themselves. And I love you. I always have and I always will.”  

Be still our beating hearts.

Beyonce

She may have been robbed of best album, but Queen Bey was awarded Best Urban Contemporary Album, adding yet another Grammy to her massive collection.

She took to the stage from the sidelines post-performing, and started the speech by saying hi to her daughter, Blue Ivy, who was watching from the crowd. Beyonce is clearly a pro and expected to take home the award - she brought out a little gold print of her speech.

She thanked the Grammy voters for giving her the award, and not only thanked God for her family but also paid tribute to those who had helped “work so hard to beautifully capture the profundity of deep southern culture”.

She went on to share a personal message about what the album meant to her. It was emotional: “We all experience pain and loss, and often we become inaudible.

“My intention for the film and album was to create a body of work that would give a voice to our pain, our struggles, our darkness and our history. To confront issues that make us uncomfortable.”

Race was at the center of her speech, and quite rightly too. She left listeners feeling inspired, hopeful, and above all, moved by her words. “It’s important to me to show images to my children that reflect their beauty, so they can grow up in a world where they look in the mirror, first through their own families — as well as the news, the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the White House and the Grammys — and see themselves, and have no doubt that they’re beautiful, intelligent and capable. This is something I want for every child of every race. And I feel it’s vital that we learn from the past and recognize our tendencies to repeat our mistakes.”

Twenty One Pilots

Award for most entertaining and touching speech of the night has to go to Twenty One Pilots. Eyebrows were certainly raised when the duo promptly stripped of their trousers as soon as Nick Jonas announced their award for Best Pop Duo/Group performance for their track 'Stressed Out'.

But, as Tyler Joseph recalled on stage, there was reason behind their madness. Recalling a time before the friends found fame, he told the crowd “Before we were able to make money playing music, I called Josh [Dun, the other half of the group] and said ‘Do you want to come over to my rental house and watch the Grammys?’. As we were watching, we noticed that every single one of us was in our underwear. And seriously, Josh turned to me - and we were no one at this time - and he said, “If we ever go to the Grammys, if we ever win a Grammy, we should receive it just like this.”

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Chance the Rapper

He made history as the first artist to win a Grammy for a streaming-only album. Unsigned Chicago artist Chance walked away with three of the seven awards he was nominated for, including Best Rap Album.

The 23-year-old accepted his award for Best New Artist from Jennifer Lopez, before making a speech in which his faith was evident; he thanked God multiple times for his family and ‘all of Chicago’ - a city beset by violence of late - saying he ‘claimed this victory in the name of the Lord’. It’s nice he’s so comfortable with his faith, but he also used the platform to speak of independent music.

"Independence means you do it by yourself, but independence also means freedom," he told the crowd. In his speech for Best Rap Album, a category in which he beat both Drake and Kanye, Chance, who releases all of his music for free and makes money touring and through sponsorship, spoke of the importance of the mixtapes through which he’s made his career: "This is for everyone who’s been doing this mixtape stuff for such a long time... shoutout to Soundcloud for holding me down, it’s another one baby!” he yelled, disbelief evident. Bless him.

Cage the Elephant

By all means, this was not the best acceptance speech the world has ever seen. There were no massive political statements, no tears, no grand monologues about the state of the music industry. Instead, this speech makes the list because of how simple it was.

Picking up the award for Best Rock Album, the band seemed a bit like deer in the headlights. It was endearing. Up against some legends of the industry, it’s no wonder the men seemed a little bewildered when placed on stage. Their joy was obvious when they strode down to the stage, and they took the chance to thank family and individuals who have helped the band. “I want to thank these shoes, because they’re incredible”, they joked. The band were very complimentary to Chance the Rapper, saying they felt he was one of the “realest” people in the industry - a nice gesture from such an established group to someone just really finding his feet in the business. “Happy birthday Mom” one of the members said before the group bumbled off stage.