Adele sang splendidly and won everything she was nominated for, all six awards, taking it all in stride right up until the end, when she broke down accepting the award for Best Album. It was sweet. Glenn Campbell performed well, despite Alzheimer's. The surviving Beach Boys, reunited just for the awards, sounded far better doing "Good Vibrations" than either the touring band of faux Beach Boys or Brian Wilson's solo group. The Foo Fighters were formulaic. Katy Perry, like most teenybopper-courting space aliens since Marc Bolan, is entirely a creation of studio gimmickry. Rihanna was fine. Jennifer Hudson's tribute to Whitney was brief and tasteful. Paul McCartney's regal and generous, aging vocal cords or no. And Nicki Minaj …
Well. It's a good thing they stuck her at the end. She debuted a new single, "Roman Holiday," from the upcoming album Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, and in so doing took hip-hop to strange, gothic places. Sometimes Nicki sounded like The Dresden Dolls. She shouted, moaned, brayed off-key, toyed with Catholic iconography, got huffy with a priest, and flew. Watch AFTER THE JUMP …
