Anti-ICE sentiment dominated the ceremony
There are arguments to be made about the efficacy or not of celebs making political statements at awards ceremonies – some might say it is just as impotent as celebrities endorsing US presidential candidates. In the case of last night’s Grammys, we hardly need musicians to reiterate that what ICE is doing is morally reprehensible. And yet the sheer force and variety of these statements was bracing, making it clear that the issue should remain paramount in any context.
“No one is illegal on stolen land, and it’s just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now,” Billie Eilish said, reiterating a phrase popular at anti-ICE protests as she won song of the year for Wildflower. “I feel really hopeful in this room, and I feel like we just need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting, and our voices really do matter, and the people matter. ‘Fuck Ice’ is all I want to say, sorry.”
Winning the first of two R&B awards for Folded, Kehlani also called for a pan-industry stance: “Together we’re stronger in numbers to speak against all the injustice going on in the world right now … I hope everybody’s inspired to join together as a community of artists, so I’mma leave this and say: fuck ICE.” Winning best new artist, Olivia Dean said: “I’m up here as a granddaughter of an immigrant – I’m a product of bravery and I think those people deserve to be celebrated,” with all the class and subtle power of her music itself.
And Bad Bunny’s speech was simply extraordinary, charged up with clarity and humanism: “ICE out. We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans,” he said, adding: “The hate gets more powerful with more hate. The only thing that is more powerful than hate is love. Please, we need to be different. If we fight we have to do it with love. We don’t hate them … that’s the way to do it, with love. Don’t forget that, please.” For a person who had to rule out doing US concerts last year for fear that his fans would be seized by ICE agents, extending love to those agents is a striking example of Benito Ocasio going high when they go low.
While there were a smattering of anti-ICE statements on the Golden Globes red carpet from Mark Ruffalo, Wanda Sykes and more, along with some lapel pins, this was a much more full-throated protest. Hopefully the Oscars will bring similar energy.
Olivia Dean is anointed as Britain’s biggest new pop star
The best new artist category has anointed some major British legends over the years – the Beatles, Tom Jones, Sade, Amy Winehouse, Adele and Dua Lipa among them – and based on the strength of songwriting and performance on her breakthrough second album The Art of Loving, it feels like Dean is on the same career trajectory. She was an absolutely deserving winner in a strong field here, edging out the likes of Addison Rae, Sombr and Leon Thomas, thanks to her evocation of human feeling in all its caprice and wonder. The Art of Loving is almost a concept album, with every possible type of love-emotion given voice by Dean: from the playfully neggy flirting at a relationship’s outset to the accusatory, disbelieving hurt at the end. That skill, and the lightness with which she wears it, has swept her to pop’s top bracket. Released in September, The Art of Loving was ineligible this year, so expect her back on stage to collect more flowers next February.
Could Kendrick Lamar soon become the greatest Grammy winner ever?
The Recording Academy adores artists who pair cerebral musicianship and lyricism with commercial heft, and has anyone done that better than Kendrick Lamar in the last decade? He won another five awards last night – all four rap categories (including for his guest spot on Clipse’s Chains and Whips) plus the biggest one of all, record of the year for his Vandross-sampling SZA duet Luther. That takes Lamar’s tally to 27, at the age of just 38 . Lamar was certainly deserving of every win here, with his album GNX exhibiting every facet of his personality from impish provocateur to ruminative romantic.
The Dalai Lama won his first Grammy
I’ll never forget one of the trippiest moments at Glastonbury, when Patti Smith got the Dalai Lama on stage and got the crowd to sing him happy birthday while he cut a cake with an enormous knife: definitely one where anyone microdosing mushrooms worried they’d actually macro-dosed. But having cropped up at the world’s greatest music festival, the 90-year-old has now gatecrashed the world’s greatest music awards, winning his first Grammy for Meditations: The Reflections of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, in the best audiobook category. If he set his words to a few Goa trance chords, you never know, those new age or dance/electronic categories could be his for the taking in 2027. The win already puts him in the top 10 oldest winners ever, though there’s some way to go before he beats 97-year-old bluesman Pinetop Perkins.
Justin Bieber blew minds
On the performance front, Sabrina Carpenter did Manchild with her usual brilliant high camp, holding a dove while dressed up like an airline pilot about to get a message from HR regarding appropriate uniform standards; Bruno Mars and Rosé took a great guitar-heavy stomp through APT; Lady Gaga mashed synths and donned an exploded wicker hat. There were heartfelt tributes to Ozzy Osbourne, D’Angelo and Roberta Flack (though only a spoken tribute to Brian Wilson, which seemed to underplay him a little, even if it came from Bruce Springsteen). But the performance of the night was by Justin Bieber, performing Yukon, one of his greatest songs and one of a handful of highs on his album Swag. Dressed in just a pair of shorts and socks and with a full-length mirror alongside him, it was as if he’d just rolled out of bed at 11am – confected anti-glamour, but brilliantly done. He built up the song’s riff live on guitar, looped it alongside drum pads and then let it all run in the background, letting him focus on delivering the vocals: on record they’re tight, but here they were loose and jazzy while retaining the funk.
Chick Corea extended his record
American jazz fusion pianist Chick Corea, celebrated for work with Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock and dozens more over the years, is the most garlanded jazz musician at the Grammys and has extended his record even after his death in 2021, now with 29 awards (third only to Georg Solti and Beyoncé in the overall list). The latest is for best jazz performance, a live rendition of Windows recorded in 2020 but released last year, taken from his final tour: a trio with bassist Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade. Windows is a composition from 1966, originally played with Duke Ellington’s son Mercer; more than half a century on, Corea still had the same bird-like inquisitiveness and instinct: it’s a gorgeous and deserving winner, far from a sentimental posthumous nod. It was a good night for sideman McBride: as well as this nimble trio, he showed his capability for much grander playing, his Christian McBride Big Band winning best large jazz ensemble album for Without Further Ado, Vol One – that takes his own winners tally to 11 overall.
Chris Stapleton is contractually mandated to win best country performance
In my pre-Grammy predictions I thought that Stapleton just couldn’t end up winning this category again, with a one-off song for the F1 movie that didn’t even trouble the country charts let alone the Hot 100. Plus its wild-eyed lyrics feel at odds with his reputation for emotional complexity: “No one’s accusin’ me of sanity / I ain’t everybody’s cup of tea,” he sings, despite sounding like he’s making himself an Earl Grey at the time. But here we are: that’s wins in four of the last five years for Stapleton, and 12 Grammys overall.
The Cure won their first Grammy – and their second
The Cure’s Wish (192) and Bloodflowers (2000) were each nominated for best alternative music album, but the band had never won a Grammy until this year, when they won two: Songs of a Lost World in the aforementioned category, plus best alternative music performance for Alone. These are richly deserved wins, for an album and song that had a sombre, valedictory feel: bidding goodbye to love, to life, to a whole chapter of human history. The band missed the ceremony to say another farewell, attending the funeral of their multi-instrumentalist Perry Bamonte who recently died aged 65.
While there weren’t any British nominees for the main four categories, record, song or album of the year, other Brits did very well lower down the categories: most excitingly, Lola Young beating Justin Bieber, Sabrina Carpenter, Lady Gaga and Chappell Roan to win best pop solo performance with Messy. Pop has long been focused on relatable woes but Young reinvigorated the trope with a song that really itched with the frantic feeling of one’s life slipping out of grip. FKA twigs won best dance/electronic album, Cynthia Erivo won best pop duo/group performance with Ariana Grande for Wicked’s Defying Gravity, and Yungblud won best rock performance for his live take on Ozzy Osbourne’s Changes. While giving a heartfelt tribute to Ozzy alongside a weeping Sharon Osbourne, he added: “Rock music’s coming back, watch out pop music, we’re gonna fucking get yer!” Raye was also given a special award for social change for Ice Cream Man, her song about experiencing sexual harassment from a record producer.
Vampires defeated demons
The Recording Academy and the Oscars-deciding Academy are sometimes united when it comes to best score awards, particularly when it comes to Ludwig Göransson, who did the double for both Black Panther and Oppenheimer, and could well do the same for Sinners after triumphing last night. But it was a surprise to see Sinners win best compilation soundtrack for visual media: KPop Demon Hunters, which produced two of the biggest pop groups last year in Huntr/x and Saja Boys, seemed the surefire bet. But in a music industry fearful of AI and determined to underline human-made music, perhaps it’s not surprising that the Academy rejected an animated performance – even if the very human vocal performances were brilliantly done – and Huntr/x duly also lost out to Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in the best pop duo/group performance.
Is Cirkut pop’s new superproducer?
Cirkut, AKA Canadian musician Henry Walter, won his first producer of the year award, welcoming him into a (notoriously all-male) club alongside the chief architects of modern pop sonics such as Greg Kurstin, Max Martin and Jack Antonoff. A protege of Martin alongside Dr Luke, working on hits such as Katy Perry’s Part of Me and Rihanna’s You Da One, he was in on the ground floor of the Weeknd’s career and co-crafted his two Daft Punk collaborations. He went on to co-produce huge hits such as Miley Cyrus’s Wrecking Ball, but started to edge away from his mentors. Initially his sound was fairly generic and stayed out of the way of its singers (such as Ava Max) but tracks like Sam Smith and Kim Petras’s Unholy lurched around with a trashy neo-electroclash aesthetic, and perhaps that was what earned him a call-up from Lady Gaga: he produced the whole of the excellent Mayhem, which also won best pop album last night. Having also co-produced three tracks on Charli xcx’s Brat, he’s adept at making pop’s edgier artists chime with the mainstream. The danger is that he will end up smoothing off their rough edges, but this win will give him more of a chance to craft an auteurish production style of his own.
