Just over a week ago, the 68th Grammys took place, where the best of music came out in a chance to take home the prestigious award. However, only a few actually win. Here are my takes and reactions from the night.
Best New Artist: The concept of performing Gnarly in front of musical icons like Cher and Lauryn Hill seems kind of disrespectful when you compare the artistry of music then compared to now. My girl, Addison Rae, (biasedly of course) devoured her performance. Just know, in a few years after better breath control and more vocal lessons, she will be in the main conversation. I don’t understand the discourse around Olivia Dean’s performance. A lot of people online mentioned how simple and boring it was compared to her opponents. For starters, to all the people complaining online, notice how you aren’t on the stage yourself? Okay then. Secondly, she doesn’t need theatrics when she has pure dominating talent. And that’s why she won and wasn’t muted when she came on, like her opponent Lola Young was. I won’t even get into her yet. If Olivia didn’t win, and Addison didn’t either, I would’ve wanted Alex Warren. Even before his performance came on, I felt like he was a very underrated nominee. I had the blessed opportunity to see him live two months ago and was taken away with his talent. He has a killer voice, and has the numbers to back up his nomination. After his performance when his headset malfunctioned and caused him to sing delayed, my heart broke. It’s a foul representation of how talented he is and although he killed the performance nevertheless, that one thing, that one mistake, even though it wasn’t caused by him, will never escape his memory, which is so sad. Overall, I agree with what my suitemates said when watching- this year’s nominees were strictly Tiktok coded. I’m sorry, I thought this was the Grammys, not the Tiktok Awards.
Best Rap Album: I know I will face heat for this, but Kendrick Lamar shouldn’t have won. Kendrick is a phenomenal rapper, honestly one of the best of my time. I heavily enjoy his music, and have been an avid listener of his work for years. So I feel comfortable saying that this isn’t his best work. Nevertheless, it definitely isn’t the best rap album nominated. Another rapper I love, Tyler, the Creator, produced a spotless album, CHROMAKOPIA. Although I might be biased, so many songs on this project were so raw, so well put together and compiled perfectly into this record. The artistry he put into each track, the genius behind putting together the setlist is unmatched. The impact this album had last year was untouchable. People can claim they didn’t really care for the album or never heard it, but the minute you play Balloon (feat. Doechii) or Like Him (feat. Lola Young), they’ll be taken back to when those songs took over the feeds. And they aren’t even the best songs on the project (which you can find in my review here). This album taking home only one award for ALBUM COVER ART is a joke. This album was a huge turning point for Tyler’s discography, and also led up to the anticipation of his second album, DON’T TOUCH THE GLASS. Like I mentioned, I may be biased, but this album deserved so much more recognition than it received all for Kendrick glaze. Trevor Noah said it best, they’re “scared to insult him”.
Song of the Year: I’ll put it straight: a song released in Spring 2024 (when I was still in high school) should NOT have won Song of the Year in 2026 (when I am now a Sophomore in COLLEGE). I absolutely love Billie Eilish. I have gone to every tour of hers post quarantine, adored every piece of work of hers and have been a superfan since 2018. I even have an entire wall dedicated to her in my bedroom back home. My love and loyalty to her can’t be questioned. But when we’re talking about who deserves what award, we need to be honest. WILDFLOWER is an amazing song. The lyricism is top-tier and very vulnerable, however, the song had its moment. That moment isn’t now. If we’re being serious, no one deserved it more than DtMF by Bad Bunny or Manchild by Sabrina Carpenter. Those were truly the biggest songs of the year, and deserve their flowers. It’s unfortunate to say, but this was truly a pity win.
Pop Solo Performance: I refuse to give this winner much attention. I actually refuse to write down and admit who won. The winning song for this award is truly a joke. We cannot be serious. It is an insult to music as a whole and don’t even bother searching up who won and just stream Manchild.
Biggest Snub of the Year: Time and time again, women with sexuality are going to continuously be slut-shamed for not being the perfect proper woman, and this is a prime example of that. Not often is the White Woman a victim, yet because she’s a bit promiscuous, they refused to honor her work with a more than deserving award. They actually didn’t let her win anything at all. It’s a classic case, just like Ariana Grande and her “Thank U Next” album from 2019– these girls will open with a top-notch, unforgettable performance and then go home insulted and empty-handed. The Academy should be embarrassed.
They didn’t completely mess up. Olivia Dean deserved Best New Artist, Bad Bunny deserved Album of the Year. They weren’t all mistakes. However, I look forward to next year’s awards as the music in the past year so far have been really good. There’s going to be a lot more at play next year. Hopefully artists liek Tate McRae, Malcolm Todd, Cardi B and more get nominated and I’m excited to see what they consider worthy of the award a year from now.