After only ever winning one award at the Grammys, David Bowie finally got the appreciation his career deserved.
Bowie, posthumously, swept the awards show with Blackstar winning five of the five awards it was up for.
“Blackstar,” the title track from his final studio recording, topped Radiohead, Metallica, Twenty One Pilots and Highly Suspect for the trophy.
The album’s title track also claimed an award for Best Rock Performance tonight, getting past Disturbed‘s cover of Simon and Garfunkel‘s “The Sound of Silence,” among others. Blackstar earlier won in three album-focused categories: Best Alternative Album, Best Engineered Album (Non-Classical), and Best Recording Package. Best alternative music album nominees also included former Bowie collaborator
Donny McCaslin, Bowie’s principal collaborator on Blackstar, was shocked to find out about Bowie ever only receiving one grammy award.
“I remember as the press was hearing Blackstar right before it came out, I know that it meant a lot to him to see the acclaim it was getting,” McCaslin tells Forbes. “I was very surprised to learn that he’d only won one Grammy … I’m just so happy for him and his family and his fans.”
Bowie’s only win came back in 1985 in the best short-form video category for Jazzin’ for Blue Jean.
“This is his first music Grammy of any of his projects, so it’s kind of shocking” for someone who “had such an amazing presence in the business,” Blackstar engineer Kevin Killen told USA Today. “But these things happen and I’m sure most of us that work in the business don’t necessarily think about getting awards. It’s just about the joy of making music and I’m sure it was for him, too.”