• Beyoncé gave a showstopping performance celebrating motherhood, and accepted the award for best urban contemporary album for “Lemonade.”
• Katy Perry sang her new single “Chained to the Rhythm” in a performance with political overtones.
• Adele stopped singing midway through a musical tribute to George Michael and started over. David Bowie won four Grammys. A tribute to Prince is coming up.
• Chance the Rapper won the award for best rap album and best new artist. Most of the winners were announced in a preshow ceremony.
LOS ANGELES — Beyoncé appeared as a goddess of femininity, and Adele endeared the crowd with her humanity, flaws included. Both stole the Grammys.
Adele opened the show singing her hit “Hello,” in a performance that was somewhat shaky at first but still showed her power as a vocalist. Later, in a tribute to George Michael, she started to sing his song “Fastlove” but stopped it abruptly, cursing into the microphone and apologizing that she needed to start over to get it right. After finishing, she teared up as the celebrities in the front row applauded her in support.
Then there was Beyoncé, who, true to form, offered a jaw-dropping performance that was a multimedia homage to motherhood. After an introduction by her own mother, Tina Knowles, that praised her daughter’s maternal instincts, Beyoncé appeared as a fertility goddess with her pregnant belly highlighted, and, at one point, her 5-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy, ran around her.
Surrounded by dancers, and with projections of herself in saffron robes, Beyoncé performed the songs “Love Drought” and “Sandcastles” from her album “Lemonade.” At the end of the segment, she stared directly into the television camera as a recording of her voice rang through with a message to women that “if we’re going to heal, let it be glorious.”
In the audience, Jay Z, her husband, smiled broadly and clapped vigorously; when the camera returned to him, it showed that he had his hands on the shoulder of their daughter, with Tina Knowles next to him.
For the music industry, Adele represents a supreme form of success in what has become the old model: selling millions of CDs to her fans. But as if a demonstration of the quick changes that are coming over the business, her performance was immediately followed by the best new artist prize to Chance the Rapper, who has fully embraced streaming and become a sensation without a record company behind him.
“I know people think that independence means you do it by yourself,” Chance said onstage, “but independence means freedom.”
This year the Grammys had a new host, James Corden of “The Late Late Show,” as well as a historic showdown between Beyoncé and Adele. They were facing off in each of the top three categories — album, record and song of the year — and the way that voters choose to reward them will be scrutinized.
Before the show even started, Adele took two awards, best pop solo performance (for her song “Hello”) and pop vocal album (for “25”), while Beyoncé won one but lost three, adding even more tension for the show’s final moments. (Seventy-five of this year’s 84 total Grammys were handed out before the television coverage began).
Here are some of the awards, performances and personalities we expect to be paying close attention to this year.
Adele vs. Beyoncé, and other contests
This year the Grammys feature a competition for the ages, with Adele and Beyoncé — megastars adored by the public and by the industry’s rank-and-file voters — going head-to-head for album, record and song of the year. The competition lends a rare element of real suspense that stretches to the very end of the night.
But pitting these two women — one white and one black — against each other is also a potential public-relations problem for the Grammys. If Adele wins, and Beyoncé is snubbed, will it feed a perception that the awards too often fail to recognize minorities in the most prestigious categories? At a time of Black Lives Matter and #OscarsSoWhite, the representation of race in the entertainment industry is a particularly thorny subject; one possibility is a judicious split of the top awards.
But one of the most Grammyish things about the Grammys is its unpredictability. For album of the year, Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” and Adele’s “25” are up against Drake’s “Views,” Justin Bieber’s “Purpose” and Sturgill Simpson’s “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth.” Mr. Simpson, a young country singer-songwriter, may be far less famous than those he’s up against. But he has advantages that could make him an upset victor: support from the Grammys’ powerful Nashville faction and split votes that depress his competitors’ totals. Will Mr. Simpson be this year’s Beck?
Before the show began, the Recording Academy, the organization behind the Grammys, handed out prizes in a nontelevised ceremony hosted by the comedian Margaret Cho held at the smaller Microsoft Theater nearby. Mr. Simpson did win best country album in the early awards.
Beyoncé, who led the nominations this year for nine, took an early prize for best music video with “Formation.” But her visual album, “Lemonade,” lost best music film to the Beatles documentary “Eight Days a Week.” She also lost to Adele for best pop solo performance and Drake for rap/sung performance.
Speaking backstage, Melina Matsoukas, the director of “Formation,” was peppered by reporters for any details about working with Beyoncé. She played it close to the vest.
“There’s never a bad day with Beyoncé,” Ms. Matsoukas said.
David Bowie wins four awards
The big early winner was a surprise: David Bowie, who had mostly been passed over for Grammys during his life, won three in the nontelevised ceremony for “Blackstar,” the album that was released shortly before his death in January 2016. It won best rock performance, best alternative music album and an engineering prize. Once the TV ceremony started, Mr. Bowie won a fourth award, for best rock song.
These were Mr. Bowie’s first musical Grammys; he won a video award in 1985 and a lifetime achievement citation in 2006. (“Blackstar” also won for best art direction.)
In the night’s early tallies, Drake and Adele both took two awards, while Beyoncé, Chance the Rapper, the Chainsmokers and Sturgill Simpson each had one.
The early awards recognize many of the musicians who operate below the level of stardom, as well as the engineers and producers whose names are seldom known by fans but are a vital part of the process.
“This award ceremony is the real Grammys,” Ms. Cho said.
Boldface names seldom show up to this part of the Grammys, but those performers who do come often accept their honors with heavy emotions, and underscore how much the award can mean to the industry’s rank and file.
Lori McKenna was tearful as she accepted the best country song award as the writer of “Humble and Kind,” which was recorded by Tim McGraw.
“I just sat at my dining room table and wrote a song for my kids one day,” Ms. McKenna said. “And Tim McGraw, he made this beautiful moment of it.”
The blues singer Bobby Rush, winning his first Grammy at age 83 for best traditional blues album, for “Porcupine Meat,” said: “This is my 374th record. And finally.”
Performers get political
In recent weeks, the question running through the music business was whether the Grammys would become a spot for political soapboxing, in the way that Hollywood seized the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild awards for strong statements against the Trump administration.
The question was quickly answered, when Mr. Corden, in a quick-fire rap, said:
Be honest with me: When you were a kid, did you ever have dreams you were invited to this?
Wishes came true, we celebrate you. You gotta be thankful that this what you do.
Live it all up because this is the best and with President Trump, we don’t know what comes next.
We sit here tonight no matter our race, or where we were born, or color of face.
Music is ours, remember forever: We can survive by sticking together.
Jennifer Lopez, before awarding the best new artist prize, quoted Toni Morrison: “This is precisely the time when artists go to work,” she said. “There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear.”
Minutes later, Paris Jackson, in a brief speech honoring her father, Michael Jackson, mentioned protests and the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
Katy Perry, performing her new song “Chained to the Rhythm,” wore a white pantsuit and a sparkling armband that said “Persist,” an apparent reference to Senator Elizabeth Warren. Her number concluded in front of a projection of the United States Constitution.
A new host tries to make his mark
Mr. Corden, the new host of the Grammys, is a high-profile person with a low-profile job. Mr. Corden, the British-born comedian and host of “The Late Late Show” on CBS, has an opportunity to bring some fresh energy to the show, but it is a small one: His on-camera time amounts to less than 20 minutes of a three-and-a-half-hour show that is otherwise packed with performances. He made quite an entrance, falling down a flight of stairs on the stage after a comic bit revolving around technical difficulties involving a hydraulic lift.
The show had other moments of levity. When Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun of Twenty One Pilots won best pop duo/group performance, they immediately stripped out of their pants and walked to the stage in their underwear.
Mr. Joseph explained that before they were famous, the two had watched the Grammy awards in their skivvies and pledged that if they ever won, “we should receive it just like this.”
He added: “I want everyone who’s watching at home to know, you could be next. So watch out, because anyone from anywhere can do anything.”
After the commercial break, Mr. Corden appeared pantless too.
Tributes galore: Prince and George Michael
The “in memoriam” segment this year should be particularly heartbreaking; since the last Grammy Awards, the departed have included Leonard Cohen, Maurice White, Merle Haggard, Leon Russell, George Martin and Ralph Stanley. But two deaths in particular — that of Prince and George Michael — will get the full Grammy treatment with musical tributes. In addition to Adele’s performance honoring Mr. Michael, Bruno Mars and the veteran Minneapolis funk band the Time are widely expected to honor Prince. (On Sunday, after weeks of hints and industry gossip, it was finally announced that Prince’s albums on Warner Bros., including hits like “Purple Rain” and “1999,” were released widely on streaming services before the show.) As reverent as these kinds of tributes are, they usually don’t shy away from glitz and bombast — remember Lady Gaga’s homage to Mr. Bowie last year, in which high-tech special effects guided her through a medley of 10 songs? For fans of classic Grammy glitz, the show will also feature a Bee Gees tribute with Demi Lovato, Andra Day, Tori Kelly and Little Big Town.
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