Bruno Mars made a record sweep at the Grammy Awards tonight — he took home the awards for Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year, which is unprecedented. (If those categories seem similar, they're not. Record of the Year goes to the recording studio involved in a song, whereas song of the year is purely about songwriting. It's complicated, but it sort of makes sense!) Mars started the night by performing his song "Finesse," a track that got an upgrade this month when it was remixed with a Teddy Riley-style beat and Cardi B was added to the track.
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Teddy Riley is a key player in Bruno Mars' win, too; Mars dedicated his win for Album of the Year to the songwriting legend. During his acceptance speech for Album of the Year — during which he begged the Academy not to cut him off — Mars recalled performing for thousands of tourists at 15. (He graciously let the audience know that he was "incredible" at that age. If you've seen videos of young Bruno, you'll know this is 100% true.)
"Later on in life, I found out that those songs that I was singing were written by either Baby Face, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, or Teddy Riley," he said. "And with those songs I remember seeing it first hand — people dancing that had never met each other from two sides of the globe, dancing with each other, toasting with each other, celebrating together."
He explained that this is what he wanted 24k Magic to do: He wanted it to make people want to dance. And he wanted it to be pure joy.
His win was seen as a little controversial — though not as dramatic as Adele's upset at the 2017 Grammys. Mars is great, Twitter pointed out, but is he Album of the Year good? The other contenders for Album of the Year were heavy hitters: Jay-Z, Lorde, Kendrick Lamar, and Childish Gambino. Surely 24k Magic, a bundle of upbeat joy, wasn't better than 4:44?
this Album of the Year award is going down in history as one of the all-time hilarious Grammy screw-ups but Bruno dedicating his award to Babyface, Teddy Riley, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis is so gracious & right on I'm glad for him anyway
— rob sheffield (@robsheff) January 29, 2018
imagine saying Bruno Mars didn’t deserve ANY Grammy’s with a straight face. His album sold 3m copies. He just had a tour that grossed 200m. he had multiple top 10’s. a #1? like are y’all delusional?
— kai (@beydeprived) January 29, 2018
Bruno Mars winning album of the year is the equivalent of Thor Ragnarok winning the Oscar for Best Picture.
— Watching the Throne, a Kanye West podcast (@KanyePodcast) January 29, 2018
Bruno Mars over Kendrick Lamar is such a crime that Ryan Murphy is going to base an entire season of his show on it.
— Brandon (@ideallyB) January 29, 2018
Still, Mars' likeability is undeniable. He's charming, he's a great performer, and he's largely apolitical. He's also fairly accessible for a big celebrity, which is to say, he appears on The Ellen Degeneres Show with some frequency. He's the epitome of anodyne — he's also really, really good at being anodyne — which means, in 2018, he's an easy winner. Bruno Mars is a winner we can all agree on.
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Watch his full speech, below.
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