The 54^th Annual Grammy Awards, which aired on CBS last night, smashed social media records again generating more than 13 million social media mentions. The music industry and the award ceremony were rocked Saturday with the tragic news of Whitney Houston’s passing and Adele’s triumphant return after a mass on her vocal chords nearly ended her career. Tragedy and triumph were the two major themes of the 54^th Grammys and the social media conversations reflected that.

The performers that generated the most social conversations are shown in the graph below. Leading the way with nearly 300,000 mentions was Adele with her six wins including Best Single, Best Vocal Album and Record of the Year. An outpouring of memories dominated conversations related to Whitney Houston placing her second in social conversations. Chris Brown’s live performance generated enough social buzz to place him third while Jennifer Hudson’s tribute performance of “I Will Always Love You” earned her the fourth spot.

The trend graph below gives an indication of when these conversations took place. It’s clear that Adele dominated social conversations during the night. Having been nominated and won in six separate categories as well as performing live, Adele was perhaps the most featured artist during the show.

What is perhaps most interesting is how conversations related to Whitney Houston and Jennifer Hudson lined up perfectly on the trend graph. Fans had been discussing and remembering Houston for much of the day but those conversations seemed to coalesce around Hudson’s performance and then died off. This suggests that on social, it was a fitting tribute and a moment of grace for her fans.

These were some of the more compelling highlights from last night’s award ceremony for me personally, but what are your thoughts?

Tags: #grammy, adele, CBS, grammys, whitney houston