LOS ANGELES — Affirming her role as one of the reigning queens of pop music, Beyoncé was the top winner at the 52nd annual Grammy Awards on Sunday night, taking six prizes, including song of the year for her inescapable hit “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).”
But she shared the spotlight with Taylor Swift, the poised 20-year-old country-pop singer, who was crowned a new superstar with four wins, including the top prize, album of the year, for “Fearless.”
“This is the story we’re going to be telling over and over again — in 2010, we got to win album of the year at the Grammys,” she said while accepting the award.
After a punishing decade for the music industry, the voters of the Recording Academy, the organization that bestows the awards, reversed its recent trend of showering acclaim on modest sellers, sticking instead to the biggest names in entertainment. Right behind Beyoncé, with three awards each, were the Black Eyed Peas, a powerhouse of radio-friendly hip-hop, and the alternative rock band the Kings of Leon.
Kings of Leon won record of the year for the boogieing blues-rock song “Use Somebody.” (The record category is for performers; song of the year recognizes songwriters.) Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” also took best R&B song and best female R&B performance, and her “Halo” won best female pop vocal performance.
The Black Eyed Peas won for best pop vocal album (“The E.N.D.”) and best pop performance by a duo or group, and the R&B singer Maxwell won best male R&B performance and best R&B album (for “BLACKsummers’ Night”). The Zac Brown Band, a country-rock group from Atlanta, won best new artist, though since 2004 it has released three albums. The ceremony, packed with splashy performances, celebrated the power of pop celebrity in an age when the foundations of the recording industry are being shaken, and it linked older, established stars with their younger progeny, whose record sales may not be as great but are reaching for the same level of fame.
Lady Gaga opened the show, held at the Staples Center, in a duet with Elton John, both singers covered in soot as they faced each other for a medley of Lady Gaga’s “Speechless” and Mr. John’s “Your Song.” It was a typically meta statement by Lady Gaga about her travails through the machinery of “the fame factory,” as the stage set proclaimed. “How wonderful life is with Gaga in the world,” Mr. John sang.
Their performance also hinted at the prominence of powerful female pop stars, and ones who are particularly young for a ceremony that often favors established, midcareer artists. There is Ms. Swift and then there’s Lady Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta. She is only 23 and has rocketed to pop fame in less than two years (though she ended up with only two awards). Beyoncé, a seasoned veteran — her wins this year brought her Grammy total to 16, along with her awards with Destiny’s Child — is 28. (Ms. Swift had a cross-generational superstar moment of her own, dressed in virginal white while singing Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon” and her own “You Belong With Me” with Stevie Nicks, whose dress was black as a black cat.)
For Ms. Swift, the Grammys capped a remarkable year. Her album “Fearless” (Big Machine) was the biggest seller of 2009, and she has taken trophies at almost every other big awards show, including the MTV Video Music Awards and the Country Music Association Awards. When “Fearless” took the Grammy for best country album, she gushed, “I feel like I’m standing here accepting the impossible dream.”
The Grammys are voted on by about 12,000 members of the Recording Academy, who must have credits on at least six commercially released tracks to qualify. To avoid competition with the 2010 Winter Olympics, which begin on Feb. 12 in Vancouver, British Columbia, the awards are being held earlier in the year than they ever have been before, and as a result the window of eligibility for nominations had to be adjusted to 11 months, from Oct. 1, 2008, to Aug. 31, 2009.
That change disqualified a number of major albums released in September, including releases by Jay-Z, Barbra Streisand, Miranda Lambert and Mariah Carey. But that did not prevent Jay-Z from taking three for singles, including best rap song and best rap/sung collaboration for “Run This Town,” and best rap solo performance for “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune).”
For all the power of youth, the Grammys still gave pride of place to older legends. A 3-D tribute to Michael Jackson featured Smokey Robinson, Celine Dion, Jennifer Hudson and Carrie Underwood singing along with Jackson’s recorded voice in the ecological hymn “Earth Song.” Jackson’s two oldest children, Prince and Paris, accepted their father’s lifetime achievement award. “In all his songs, the message was simple: love,” Prince said, haltingly. “We will continue to spread his message and help the world. Thank you.”
The memory of Jackson, who died in June, hung over the ceremony as one of its most beloved recipients and as a symbol of lost megacelebrity. He was the best-selling artist of 2009 by a wide margin; his 1982 album, “Thriller,” stands as one of the most popular recordings ever made; and in 1984 he won eight Grammys.
Other eye-catching performances included Pink singing “Glitter in the Air” suspended acrobatically from a snow-white swatch of silk, dripping what looked like sparkling water over the Staples Center’s orchestra seats. Beyoncé sang a medley of her song “If I Were a Boy” and Alanis Morissette’s girl-power anthem “You Oughta Know,” which won two Grammys in 1996.
Mary J. Blige and Andrea Bocelli sang Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” with proceeds from a future iTunes download going to Haiti relief efforts. Bon Jovi, in this year’s Grammy Internet experiment, played a medley that included “Living on a Prayer” by fans’ online requests.
Lifetime achievement awards were also given to Leonard Cohen, André Previn, Loretta Lynn, the 89-year-old jazz trumpeter Clark Terry, the 94-year-old blues guitarist David (Honeyboy) Edwards and Bobby Darin (who died in 1973).
Of the 109 award categories this year, 100 were given out in a brisk and far less glamorous pretelecast ceremony. Many winners — including Lady Gaga, who won two early prizes — did not appear, but one who did was Neil Young, who won his first-ever Grammy. Along with Gary Burden and Jenice Heo, Mr. Young, under the title of art director, won best boxed set or special limited edition package, for his mammoth “Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 (1963-1972)” project. (He was held off from winning a Grammy that recognized his music; Bruce Springsteen’s “Working on a Dream” beat Mr. Young’s “Fork in the Road” for best solo rock vocal performance.)
Also in the pretelecast ceremony, Alison Krauss won her 27th Grammy as a participant in the album “Yo-Yo Ma & Friends: Songs of Joy and Peace,” tying her with Quincy Jones for the most lifetime wins of any living musician. Phoenix won best alternative album for “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” (Loyaute/Glassnote).
For all its big names and elaborate, Las Vegas-esque productions, the Grammys can also cast a light on the shoestring budgets that most musicians have adapted to. Accepting an award during the pretelecast ceremony for best-spoken-word album for children, Buck Howdy, a singer-songwriter from San Diego, commented that it cost him less to produce his album than it did to pay for valet parking at the Grammy nominees’ dinner.
