Raising Sand, the duo album by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss with sparse, evocative versions of songs that date back as far as the 1950s, won awards in pop, country and contemporary folk categories before being named album of the year.
It was one in a long line of winning albums with old songs, from last years winner, Herbie Hancocks Joni Mitchell tribute River: The Joni Letters, to the soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou? to Natalie Coles Unforgettable.
Rewarding the time-tested is just about the only dependable behavior from the Recording Academy, which gave its 51st annual Grammy Awards in a CBS broadcast from Staples Center in Los Angeles. This year the Grammys went Anglophile; Mr. Plant was Led Zeppelins lead singer, and other major awards went to the English band Coldplay. Adele, a 20-year-old English songwriter, was named best new artist.
The telecast started with a shout: U2 playing Get On Your Boots, a song from its coming album, No Line on the Horizon, proffering a kiss to the future. With a brawny guitar riff between bursts of lyrics about fear and joy, it was full of boisterous bravado, as if defying all portents of economic downturn and recording-business woes.
It was only the first of the programs full-tilt performances. In three-and-a-half hours, the awards broadcast handed out only 10 awards; the other 100 categories filled a three-hour pretelecast ceremony that was Webcast beforehand (and can be seen at grammy.com). The CBS telecast is a rare chance for prime-time music promotion, so it sandwiches the awards and thank-yous between as many songs as can be crammed into medleys.
Many of the awards themselves went to carefully contained performances, notably Coldplays stately album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. Raising Sand won awards for record of the year (a single, Please Read the Letter) and in a range of other categories for songs Mr. Plant rightly described as spooky.
When Coldplay won the award for best rock album, its lead singer, Chris Martin, half-apologized for not being the heaviest rock band, describing Coldplay instead as a limestone kind of rock a little softer but just as charming.
