Atlantic Records raked in a whopping 13 Grammy Awards at Sunday night's ceremony, more than any other record label, thanks largely to the runaway success of Bruno Mars' 24K Magic.
Mars' third studio album won four awards for album of the year, record of the year, best R&B album and best engineered album, non-classical. The single "That's What I Like" took home another three trophies for song of the year, best R&B performance and best R&B song.
In addition to those seven awards for Mars and company, Warner Music Group subsidiary also brought in two awards with Ed Sheeran (best pop solo performance for "Shape Of You" and best pop vocal album for ÷ (Divide)) and one each with Portugal. The Man (best pop duo/group performance, "Feel It Still"), The War On Drugs (best rock album, A Deeper Understanding), Kraftwerk (best dance/electronic album, 3-D The Catalogue) and the Dear Evan Hansen original Broadway cast recording (best musical theater album).
At the Grammys, Atlantic Records' chairman/COO Julie Greenwald says she "celebrated so hard" in an upstairs suite with a couple dozen of their employees where "everybody was toasting, screaming and cheering in the box. I haven't felt this way since college."
Since WMG's Grammy party was held Thursday night, Greenwald and chairman/CEO Craig Kallman had no obvious place to go afterwards but managed to make a night of it. Following the event, they stopped by a party hosted by Elektra Records and then had dinner with Mars. Greenwald was also spotted at the Universal Music Group party.
"I called Craig as we came in from two directions -- I'm downtown and he's uptown -- and said we're nine in from the pre-telecast," says Greenwald. "So as soon as I found Craig, we were already hugging and kissing. So we were already happy because we walked into the building just on fire. If nothing else happened, we were already on cloud 20. Then as the night progressed with Ed winning another one and Bruno winning the big three ... It was an incredible Atlantic night of hugging and kissing."
The wins were also especially sweet for WMG's incoming CEO of recorded music, Max Lousada, who took on the role last fall. He has worked with Greenwald and Kallman since 2004 and was instrumental in the beginnings of both Bruno and Sheeran's careers.
"We spend a lot of time and focus on trying to develop really best-in-class artists in every music category we think we can excel at," says Kallman. To be able to celebrate last night the span of theatrical with Evan Hansen to electronic with Kraftwerk to alternative and pop with Portugal. The Man and Ed Sheeran and Bruno, of course, and rock with The War On Drugs. It really was a great recognition of the hard work that the whole company does day in and day out in mining and developing artists in every genre of music that's relevant for us on the front line side."
"This was an incredible year for us on so many levels," adds Greenwald. "We had a lot of success with so many different artists. It was like the culmination of an unbelievable year because Craig and I are very fortunate that we get to work with so many different artists from all genres. And we have an incredible staff of people that go so hard for all of them. So it was remarkable. Every corner of our building today was celebrating."
Following Atlantic's massive haul of awards, Interscope and Columbia both saw solid results as well.
Interscope's success was fueled largely by Kendrick Lamar's dominance in the rap categories, winning best rap album for DAMN., best rap performance and best rap song for "HUMBLE." and best rap/sung performance for "LOYALTY." with Rihanna. Lamar also also won for in the best music video category for his "HUMBLE." visual, and the label picked up two more awards for La La Land's wins in the best compilation soundtrack for visual media and best score soundtrack for visual media categories.
Meanwhile, Columbia won five awards for best dance recording with LCD Soundsystem's "Tonite," best traditional pop vocal album with Tony Bennett Celebrates 90, best rock performance with Leonard Cohen's "You Want It Darker," best American roots performance with Alabama Shakes' "Killer Diller Blues" and best remixed recording for Depeche Mode's "You Move (Latroit Remix)."
