A Muse-ical Run Down of the 2024 Grammy Awards

15/03/2024

Alexandra Pullen (she/her) recaps winners, record breakers and scandals at the ceremony

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Image by David Lee

By Alexandra Pullen

The 66th Annual Grammy Awards took place on 4 February in order to commemorate musical achievements and releases between 1 October 2022 and 15 September 2023. It was certainly a night to remember, filled with ups and downs: records were broken, some artists gained their first Grammy award and female artists dominated both the nominations and the wins. However, like many awards ceremonies, it did not go without its scandals. So, let’s look back on the biggest night in music this year and unpack the highlights.

We will begin with the controversies of the night, many of which were not brought to the forefront of the main ceremony. First of all, after winning three Grammy awards, rapper Killer Mike was spotted in handcuffs and it was later reported byTMZ that this was for a battery charge. Since then, he has spoken out and stated that he had “a long talk to God” after the arrest, according to The Independent. Another minor blip in the night was involving Killer Mike, when he won Best Rap Song, but the award winner had been announced as Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice for their track ‘Barbie World.’ If true, this would have been Minaj’s first Grammy win, a pivotal point in her career until it wasn’t.

Despite this drama, the Grammys ceremony was one which contained history-making wins. Taylor Swift became the first artist to win Album of the Year four times after gaining the award with her album Midnights. She has previously won the award for her albums Fearless1989 and most recently, folklore. Swift also won Best Pop Album with Midnights, and made a stir when she announced a brand new album named The Tortured Poets Department in her acceptance speech. While fans were expecting the announcement of Reputation (Taylor’s Version), they are still thrilled by the news of new music being released on 19 April.

More on the topic of firsts, Miley Cyrus won her first ever Grammy for Song of the Year with ‘Flowers’ which was quite a surprising success in a very strong category. The track, from her eighth studio album Endless Summer Vacation, is strongly rumoured to be about her ex-husband Liam Hemsworth. Cyrus then took to the stage to sing her winning song. She added a fun twist to the performance adding in “started to cry, but then remembered I...just won my first Grammy!” to the pre-chorus. The audience went wild and she proceeded to dance around the stage with glee. Victoria Monét also became a Grammy award winner as she won Best New Artist and Best R&B Album for Jaguar II.

The night was filled with more amazing performances from the likes of Billie Eilish and Finneas, Dua Lipa and a surprise appearance from Tracy Chapman. Eilish delivered a beautifully emotional rendition of her song ‘What Was I Made For?’ from the Barbie soundtrack which also deservedly took home the award for Record of theYear. There were also performances by some musical legends such as Joni Mitchell who performed ‘Both Sides Now’ and Billy Joel who sang his first new song in around 17 years named ‘Turn The Lights Back On'. One performance which made a lot of people happy was the unexpected appearance of Tracy Chapman with Luke Combs, singing her song 'Fast Car'.

Many believe that artists such as Lana Del Rey and SZA were snubbed in their categories. However, while Del Rey did not win any awards on the night, SZA won Best R&B Song for ‘Snooze’ and Best Progressive R&B Album with SOS. As well as this, she won Best Collaboration along with Phoebe Bridgers for ‘Ghost in the Machine’. This contributed to Bridgers being the most awarded artist of the entire night, also taking home three awards with boygenius. It was quite a bittersweet night for fans of the supergroup, as they have recently announced that they are having a hiatus, but they were sure to go out with a bang. After the ceremony, Bridgers called out Neil Portnow, the previous Academy CEO, by telling him to “rot in piss” after he said in 2018 that women needed to “step up” if they wanted to be represented in Grammy nominations.

And with that, we see the highs and lows of what was ultimately an amazing night for recognising women in the music industry. The Grammys were filled with great performances, history-making wins, shock announcement sand appearances, making it a memorable one. Here’s to the 67th!