The Grammy’s – music’s biggest night of the year – was filled with great performances (plus some not so great,) shocking winners, tear-jerking speeches, records broken, and EGOTs earned. Oh, and Ben Affleck was there! Overall, host Trevor Noah put on a great show, so let’s talk about it.
Viola Davis has become the 18th person ever to earn an EGOT. The actress has won two Tonys, a Primetime Emmy, an Oscar, and has now earned herself a Grammy. The latest award comes from the audiobook recording of her memoir “Finding Me.” This achievement is rare, but very well deserved. If you haven’t seen Davis’ work, you should definitely work on that. Take a few hours this weekend to see the actress in action in “How to Get Away with Murder,” which is totally binge-worthy.
Another big win goes to Kim Petras and Sam Smith for the duos’ collaboration on their pop song “Unholy.” This was a monumental award, seeing as Kim Petras is the first transgender woman to take home a Grammy in this category. Petras’ speech was so moving and emotional that even though I’m not the biggest fan of the song, I’m so happy that she won. Here’s what really made the tears well up, “Sophie, my friend who passed away two years ago, who told me this would happen and always believed in me. Thank you so much for your inspiration, Sophie. I adore you, and your inspiration will forever be in my music.” But, I don’t know how happy I was after her performance of the Grammy-winning song, it kind of freaked me out a little (watch at your own risk!)
Speaking of performances, there were quite a few amazing numbers put on at the award show. This year marks the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, and there was a star-studded performance to celebrate it. Missy Elliott, Queen Latifah, Big Boi, Run-DMC, Lil Wayne, Salt-N-Pepa, Public Enemy, Spinderella, and Busta Rhymes all took part in the tribute produced by Questlove. The 13-minute performance included the artists performing some of their most iconic songs from the last half-century.
Bad Bunny’s performance had an infectious beat, everyone in the audience could be seen dancing to a medley of his hit songs “El Apagón” and “Después de la Playa.” Lizzo gave a similar performance with two of her songs “Special” and “About Damn Time”, the latter of which took home the Grammy for Record of the Year. And although losing out to Lizzo for the award, Steve Lacy delivered an amazing performance of “Bad Habit” that had the whole crowd singing along. Harry Styles, despite a rough start and a stage malfunction, gave an exceptional performance of the most-streamed song of 2023 “As It Was.”
Beyoncé was an icon before the show, but now she is also a record-holder. The singer is now the most decorated Grammy winner in history, with a whopping 32 awards. However, she didn’t end up taking home all the awards fans thought she deserved. Perhaps the biggest upset and controversy of the night was the award for Album of the Year, which ultimately went to Harry Styles for his third album “Harry’s House.” Beyoncé was also nominated in the category for her album “Renaissance.” This marks the fourth time that Bey has been ‘snubbed’ for the biggest award of the night. However, it is impossible to ignore that Harry Styles had a truly inescapable year. Between touring the world, headlining Coachella, and starring in multiple blockbuster films, the name Harry Styles was everywhere you could imagine. On the other hand, Beyoncé kept a relatively low profile aside from releasing “Renaissance.” Not to say that popularity is what should give someone the win (or that Styles is more popular than Bey), but the number of headlines with the name Harry Styles definitely helped him clench the win. Maybe the Academy thought making Beyoncé the most-awarded artist would be enough. “There is no such thing as best in music,” a taken-aback Harry Styles said in his acceptance speech. But, isn’t that the whole point of giving out an award?