The highs and lows of Grammys 2024 – and why Taylor Swift won album of year

The 2024 Grammy Awards ended with a bang: Taylor Swift taking residence her fourth album of the yr trophy.

It cements her place because the one of many biggest songwriters of her period – though she was gracious sufficient to make use of her speech to reward fellow nominee Lana Del Rey, calling her “a legend in her prime” who has set the agenda for a complete technology of feminine artists.

Regardless of Taylor taking the primary title, it was a reasonably even-handed evening by Grammy requirements.

Favoured nominees like Miley Cyrus, Billie Eilish, SZA and Boygenius all went residence with a number of prizes, whereas the most effective new artist went to R&B star Victoria Monét – the primary time a feminine R&B act has scooped that award since Alicia Keys in 2002.

Alongside the way in which, there have been loads of shock appearances (Celine Dion!) and show-stopping performances (Burna Boy, Dua Lipa).

Listed here are the highlights, lowlights and takeaways from “music’s greatest evening”.

By any metric, it is an unbelievable feat: Taylor Swift has received album of the yr 3 times greater than The Beatles, two greater than Adele and another than Stevie Marvel.

Actually, she’s received the prize greater than anybody. Ever.

Her newest honour is for 2022’s Midnights – a hazy, dream-scrubbed assortment of songs concerning the late-night obsessions.

On the time of launch, it was not her best-received album. And for that cause, many individuals thought R&B star SZA or indie band Boygenius had been extra prone to win.

However the Grammys aren’t merely about musical advantage, and Swift is at the moment in the midst of an imperial section. Her Eras tour has damaged field workplace data, boosted native economies, prompted a authorities inquiry into Ticketmaster and even triggered seismic exercise.

The singer has additionally been named Time Journal’s particular person of the yr, whereas her romance with Travis Kelce introduced new eyes to American soccer.

It is arduous to argue in opposition to her cultural dominance – nevertheless it all stems from the music.

That is an element the Recording Academy’s 11,000 voters can have been keenly conscious of. They take songwriting extremely critically, which implies they take Swift – who exists on the crossroads of economic success and sonic innovation – critically as properly.

So her fourth Grammy win was all however inevitable, even when your most popular Taylor Swift album is Folklore (appropriate reply), 1989 (additionally acceptable) or Lover (we have to have phrases).

Joni Mitchell’s music is sort of a language of its personal. It is uncooked, magical, virtually painfully lovely.

However over the previous 10 years, the singer was virtually robbed of language after a life-threatening mind aneurysm.

Following intensive rehabilitation, she returned to the stage in 2022 on the Newport Folks Competition – and a recording of that live performance earned the singer the Grammy for finest people album on Sunday evening.

Mitchell adopted that up with a efficiency of Each Sides Now, supported by musicians Brandi Carlile and Jacob Collier.

At first, her voice appeared to catch – however because the music continued, she settled right into a wealthy, dusky vocal tone.

“They are saying, Joni, you’ve got modified,” she sang, adapting the lyrics to the event. “Effectively one thing’s misplaced, however one thing’s gained / In residing day by day.”

Wealthy with expertise, and laden with significance, the efficiency was exceptionally transferring. It rightly introduced the gang to their toes.

For considered one of rap’s most bodily intense performers, Travis Scott’s set was mystifyingly boring.

The star carried out a medley of My Eyes, I Know? and Fein (key lyric: “Fein, fein, fein, fein, fein, fein“) shrouded in shadow, whereas a dancer wandered round on the lookout for one thing to do.

There was a quick frisson when Playboi Carti joined him on stage in a burst of pyrotechnics, nevertheless it all fizzled out with Scott flinging round plastic chairs like a refugee from a Eighties wrestling match.

I say off-script, however I am undecided Jay-Z even ready a script.

Honoured with the Dr Dre International Affect Award, which recognises black music creators, the rapper used his allotted time to ship a wide-ranging ramble concerning the Grammys on the whole.

Straight off the bat, he reminisced about utilizing considered one of his earlier Grammy Awards as a “sippy cup” for his daughter Blue Ivy, who this time accompanied him to the stage.

“Blue’s grown up now,” he added. “She would not take a sippy cup and she or he has her personal Grammys.”

However he did not cease there. He joked about boycotting the 1998 Grammys as a result of his buddy DMX had been snubbed. After which he went for the jugular – mentioning Beyoncé.

Famously, his spouse has extra Grammys than anybody in historical past, with 32 in complete. However for all that obvious love, the large prizes have eluded her. Of the 16 occasions she’s been nominated within the main classes, she has received simply as soon as: music of the yr for Single Women (Put A Ring On It) in 2010.

“I do not wish to embarrass this younger woman, however she has extra Grammys than everybody and by no means received album of the yr,” stated Jay-Z. “So even by your individual metrics, that does not work. Take into consideration that.”

Celine Dion shocked the viewers when she emerged to current the most effective album trophy, virtually a yr after she was pressured to cancel all of her reside reveals after being identified with a uncommon neurological dysfunction.

Dion was there to announce the album of the yr prize, arriving on stage to the sound of her hit single The Energy Of Love.

However the significance of her look was not misplaced on the gang – who gave her an instantaneous standing ovation.

“Thanks all, I really like you proper again. Once I say that I am comfortable to be right here, I actually imply it from my coronary heart,” stated the singer, whose situation causes stiffness of the muscular tissues, affecting her limbs and vocal cords.

She lately introduced a documentary about her return to well being, and promised followers she was on the “highway to resuming my performing profession”.

Alt-rock supergroup Boygenius had been additionally triple winners, for his or her debut album The Report, which updates the traditional Seventies California rock sound with an emphasis on concord, friendship and feminism.

“We had been all delusional sufficient as youngsters to suppose this would possibly occur to us,” stated Lucy Dacus, choosing up their first prize – finest rock efficiency for the music Not Sturdy Sufficient.

“Phoebe [Bridgers] would sing on the Guitar Heart, hoping that she would get found. Julien [Baker] wished to play offered out stadiums. And I might observe writing an acceptance speech, and thank all of the individuals who’d been good to me – like my bus driver and the man that held the door at church.

“So I really feel form of like a child, as a result of that was the final time that one thing like this felt attainable.”

Feminine artists totally dominated this yr, taking residence all the most important prizes and lots extra apart from.

Kylie Minogue received finest pop dance recording, and South Africa’s Tyla (pictured) picked up the inaugural award for finest African efficiency.

In the meantime, the previously testosterone-soaked rock and various classes had been dominated by Paramore (led by Hayley Williams) and Boygenius.

It is a reflection of a yr during which girls had been extremely profitable within the charts, and a major change for the Grammys. As lately as 2018, the ceremony was embroiled in controversy when former chairman Neil Portnow stated girls wanted “to step up” in the event that they wished a nomination.

So has the hole been closed? Removed from it. By some counts, solely 20% of artists signed to a serious report label are feminine. Final yr, solely 19.5% of all songwriters throughout the Billboard Scorching 100 songs had been girls.

“What we would like is to be seen as equals, not simply on the artistic aspect however on the enterprise aspect,” stated Dua Lipa on the pink carpet. “We’re nonetheless figuring that out nevertheless it’s getting there slowly.”

Six-time Grammy winner Billy Joel was again on the ceremony this yr to carry out Flip The Lights Again On – his first new music in virtually 20 years.

Talking on the pink carpet, he defined why it had taken so lengthy to place pen to paper.

“I gotta go into my cave and grow to be a caveman,” he advised CBS information. “It isn’t a enjoyable course of for me. It’s totally self-centred. It’s totally lonely. And typically it is torture. However afterwards, I really like having written.”

Joel added that he was shocked to be invited again to the Grammys after his final efficiency in 1994.

Again then, he stopped his efficiency of River Of Goals mid-song in protest at Frank Sinatra’s speech being reduce quick earlier within the present.

“I checked out my watch and I stated, ‘There’s plenty of precious promoting time going by right here’,” he recalled. “I finished for a very long time… In order that they nonetheless could be mad at me for that.”

In a serious coup for the Grammys, Tracy Chapman made her return to the stage to duet with nation star Luke Combs.

The singer, who had a run of profitable albums within the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, has largely averted the highlight since her final tour in 2009.

However she was tempted again after Combs lined her signature music Quick Automobile – a haunting folk-rock story about attempting to flee poverty – and took it again into the US prime 10 final yr.

Their efficiency opened with Chapman choosing out the music’s unforgettable riff, then buying and selling verses with Combs earlier than they united on the refrain.

Each singers appeared delighted. Chapman grinned all through, and Combs sang alongside off-mic throughout her solos.

In a video clip forward of the efficiency, Combs stated: “Simply to be related along with her in any means is tremendous humbling for me.”

Within the viewers, Taylor Swift and nation star Jelly Roll sang alongside on the tops of their voices. A easy, however emotional, pleasure.

Look, I am keen on U2. I am from Eire, the place it is virtually a requirement. However typically… oh, man.

The band beamed in reside from The Sphere, the insane globular Las Vegas venue that is fabricated from 66ft LED screens and was constructed at a value of $2.3bn (£1.83bn).

U2 are enjoying a residency there, and in the event you dream of a gig the place you spend extra time watching TV screens than watching the band, you then’re welcome to the $750 ticket worth.

Their efficiency was mainly an enormous advert for the venue, set to Atomic Metropolis – an underwhelming single they put out to coincide with their opening evening final yr.

Honest sufficient that the Grammys ought to spotlight innovation in live performance know-how, however all the things about this was disappointingly mediocre. If solely they’d performed Mysterious Methods.

The Grammys is all the time a blended bag, however this yr’s hit price was excessive. Dua Lipa bravely opened the present with a model new music, the pneumatic Coaching Season, whereas gyrating on metallic scaffolding, and SZA recreated the Loopy 88 swordfight from Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Invoice.

Billie Eilish’s rendition of song-of-the-year-winner What Was I Made For? was suitably tear-jerking; and Burna Boy oozed charisma throughout his medley of On Kind, Metropolis Boys and Sittin’ On Prime Of The World.

The In Memoriam part was significantly sturdy: Stevie Marvel paid touching tribute to his buddy Tony Bennett, earlier than Annie Lennox gave a stirring rendition of Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares 2U – backed by Prince’s musical foils Wendy and Lisa.

However it was Fantasia Barrino who stole the present, racing by way of an electrical efficiency of Tina Turner’s Proud Mary earlier than strolling into the viewers and shimmying with Dua Lipa.

The Queen of Rock ‘N’ Roll would have been proud.

It is Grammy regulation. In the event you win a trophy, it’s important to pose awkwardly with it backstage. Bonus factors in the event you kiss it. Double bonus factors in case you have an armful of the issues.

Who is aware of why at this stage? It is most likely some Illuminati factor.

In her 17-year music profession, Miley Cyrus has had dozens of hits – from Wrecking Ball and The Climb to Nothing Breaks Like A Coronary heart and Midnight Sky.

However she’d by no means received a Grammy… till now.

The singer received two prizes: music of the yr and finest pop solo efficiency, each for the instant-classic break-up ballad Flowers.

Cyrus marked the second with a brilliantly tortured metaphor.

“There is a story I wish to inform that sums up this second,” she defined.

“There was somewhat boy and all he wished for his birthday was a butterfly. And so his dad and mom gave him a butterfly internet and he was so excited. He simply went exterior, out within the solar, and began swinging and swinging, however with no luck.

“Then he sat down on the bottom, and he lastly let go and he surrendered. He was OK that he wasn’t going to seize this lovely butterfly.

“And proper when he did, is when the butterfly got here and landed proper on the tip of his nostril. And this music, Flowers, is my butterfly.”

Later, Cyrus carried out the music reside for the primary time, including some parenthetical asides to the lyrics.

“I did not wish to depart you (however I did) / I did not wish to combat (however we did) / Began to cry however then remembered… I simply received my very first Grammy!“

She ended with a mic drop. And rightly so.