Grammy Awards attract smaller audience without the pull of Whitney's death

by Charlie Smith on February 11th, 2013 at 11:03 AM

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Last night, Grammy Awards host LL Cool J tried to keep the TV audience engaged, but there was none of the drama of last year.

According to a New York Daily News report, 11 million more viewers watched in 2012 after Whitney Houston's sudden death and to witness the comeback of English singer-songwriter Adele, who had just recovered from throat microsurgery.

Last night was a bit of a letdown in comparison, though there were still lots of laughs. One of the most amusing moments occurred when J. Lo strutted out in a revealing one-shoulder Anthony Vaccarello dress, showing a full leg and plenty of vavoom.

"So, as you can see, I read the memo," she said, referring to the message sent out by Grammy producers not to show any exposed nipples or butt cracks.

That prompted Pitbull, who was at her side, to comment: "You look beautiful and you look gorgeous, and you inspired the memo."

J. Lo shows some leg.

EDM's rise into the mainstream became clear with the three awards to Skrillex: Best Dance Recording for "Bangarang", Best Dance/Electronica Album for Bangarang, and Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical for "Promises".

The Black Keys also took home plenty of hardware, though they lost to Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know" for Record of the Year and to Mumford & Sons' Babel for Album of the Year.

But Ohio natives Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney took pleasure in capturing Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song for "Lonely Boy" and Best Rock Album for El Camino.

Auerbach also won the prestigious Producer of the Year, Non-Classical Grammy for El Camino.

The Zac Brown Band won the Grammy for Best Country Album for Uncaged.

One of the show's highlights came when Brown joined Elton John, Mavis Staples, Mumford & Sons, T. Bone Burnett, and Alabama Shakes in a tribute to Levon Helm by belting out "The Weight".

Helm, drummer and a singer for The Band and an actor, died last year at the age of 61.

B.C. fans of Mission's Carly Rae Jepsen were no doubt disappointed by her shutout at the Grammys. Her signature song, "Call Me Maybe", was nominated for Song of the Year, which went to "We Are Young" by FUN. with Janelle Monae.

"Call Me Maybe" was also nominated for for Best Pop Solo Performance, which was awarded to Adele for "Set Fire To The Rain" (Live).

Ravi Shankar won a Lifetime Achievement Award. It was accepted by daughters Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar. His World Music Album honour was accepted by Anoushka in advance of the telecast.

And Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z performed together in tuxedos. But by the end of the night, there were only 28.1 million viewers—a far cry from the 39 million who tuned in to last year's awards.