The biggest names in music gathered together on Sunday night to celebrate the 66th Annual Grammy Awards. Held at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on February 4th, the ceremony was broadcast on CBS, allowing fans at home to tune in to see whether their favorite artists would take home the coveted award.
Dua Lipa kicked off the evening with a medley of some of her hits from the past year, such as “Houdini” and “Dance The Night,” which was nominated for Song of the Year at this year’s awards. She also debuted her new song “Training Season” during the performance.
Host Trevor Noah followed up Lipa’s lively performance with a comedic monologue, shouting out celebrity guests in attendance from Meryl Streep to Terry Crews and throwing shade at Spotify and TikTok for not properly compensating artists whose music is showcased on their platforms. Noah also highlighted the number of women up for awards, including Taylor Swift, SZA, Miley Cyrus, Olivia Rodrigo, Lana del Rey, and Janelle Monaé.
The first award of the night for Best Pop Solo Performance went to Miley Cyrus for her hit song “Flowers.” Legendary singer Mariah Carey presented Cyrus with the first Grammy of her career, and Cyrus asked Carey to stand beside her during her acceptance speech, saying “This MC is gonna stand by this MC for this, because this is just too iconic.” Cyrus would also go on to win Record of the Year for “Flowers” later in the night.
For the first time in Grammys history, all awards shown during the broadcasted ceremony were won by women. Billie Eilish’s hit from the Barbie soundtrack, “What Was I Made For?” won Song of the Year, Victoria Monet won Best New Artist, Lainey Wilson won Best Country Album for Bell Bottom Country, and Karol G’s Mañana Sera Bonito won Best Música Urbana Album.
The nominees also gave some show-stopping performances throughout the night. SZA performed “Kill Bill” and “Snooze” from her album SOS, the latter of which won Best R&B Song during the broadcast. Olivia Rodrigo, whose album Guts was up for Album of the Year, gave a performance of the album’s lead single “Vampire.” Eilish and Cyrus also both sang “What Was I Made For?” and “Flowers”, respectively.
The award show was filled with many heartwarming moments as well as performances from the nominees. Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs gave a heartwarming duet of Chapman’s 1988 hit “Fast Car.” Combs’s cover of the song reached number one on the Billboard Charts this year and was nominated for Best Country Solo Performance. Joni Mitchell also sang “Both Sides Now”, a widely beloved song that she released at just twenty-three and now sang for the first time on the Grammys stage at the age of 80. The ceremony also featured an In Memoriam segment, in which singers like Stevie Wonder, Annie Lennox, Lenny Kravitz, and Jon Batiste paid tribute to artists we lost this past year, including Jimmy Buffett, Sinead O’Connor, Tina Turner, and Tony Bennett.
The night undoubtedly, though, belonged to Taylor Swift. Swift won her thirteenth Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album for her album Midnights. During her acceptance speech, Swift announced that she would be releasing a brand new album, entitled The Tortured Poets Department, on April 19th. Later in the night, Swift would take the stage again when she won Album of the Year for Midnights, making her the first person in history to win Album of the Year four times, after previously winning for her albums Fearless, 1989, and folklore.
Overall, this year’s Grammy Awards provided viewers with not only highlights of the past year in music, but also with a sense of female empowerment, a new understanding of music’s ability to bring people together — sentiments that will hopefully carry into the next year as we explore what new music 2024 has in store.