Taylor Swift poses with Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus of boygenius after the 66th annual Grammy Awards.

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Taylor Swift poses with Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus of boygenius after the 66th annual Grammy Awards.

Frederic J. Brown/AFP by way of Getty Images

The Grammys are nothing if not a three-and-a-half-hour infomercial for the music {industry}: The telecast foregrounds music’s largest stars, packages performances that span many genres and generations, and in any other case assembles a digestible bundle of main milestones and musical moments. Sunday evening’s festivities had been no completely different, so listed here are this yr’s main storylines and different takeaways, beginning with… no, you may by no means guess. Wait for it…

1. Somewhere alongside the best way, we’ve got left a world wherein Taylor Swift dominates the cultural dialog and entered a world wherein Taylor Swift is the world and we’re simply tiny specks of flotsam, floating listlessly in a sea consisting of her disembodied essence.

Okay, so we kinda knew, moving into, that Swift could be a big participant in Sunday evening’s Grammys, on condition that she was nominated for six awards and that, relating to music information in 2024, all roads lead again to her red-lipsticked visage. But few may have seen Sunday’s onslaught coming. Swift’s Midnights gained album of the yr — her record-breaking fourth win in that class alone — in addition to finest pop vocal album. And, after all, the singer made a splashy entrance and danced and sang alongside throughout performances even when seemingly everybody else was seated. But Swift put aside her headline-grabbingest second for her first victory speech, wherein she introduced the approaching arrival of a brand new album titled The Tortured Poets Department, out April 19. Which means the dialog round Swift is simply going to get busier and louder and extra all-consuming, with subsequent Sunday’s Super Bowl simply six Swift-packed days away.

Miley Cyrus accepts the most effective pop solo efficiency award for “Flowers” from Mariah Carey on stage throughout the 66th Annual Grammy Awards.

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Miley Cyrus accepts the most effective pop solo efficiency award for “Flowers” from Mariah Carey on stage throughout the 66th Annual Grammy Awards.

Valerie Macon/AFP by way of Getty Images

2. Saying “women did well” is underselling the diploma to which girls dominated the evening.

Remember the 2018 Grammys, wherein males dominated the key classes and the then-head of the Recording Academy later made a boneheaded comment about how girls must “step up”? Six years later, up has been stepped. All 9 of the classes represented in Sunday evening’s telecast had been gained by girls artists, unfold throughout seven completely different names: Swift (album of the yr, finest pop vocal album), Miley Cyrus (file of the yr, finest pop solo efficiency), Victoria Monét (finest new artist), Billie Eilish (track of the yr), SZA (finest R&B track), Lainey Wilson (finest nation album) and Karol G (finest música urbana album). Elsewhere, bands like boygenius and Paramore gained huge in classes representing rock and various music, whereas the performances within the telecast’s first half had been dominated by huge names similar to Dua Lipa, Olivia Rodrigo, Eilish, Cyrus and SZA.

Tracy Chapman performs on stage throughout the 66th Annual Grammy Awards.

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Tracy Chapman performs on stage throughout the 66th Annual Grammy Awards.

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3. Two tear-jerking performances dominated all of them. Early on, nation star Luke Combs participated in a section about his hit cowl of the 1988 Tracy Chapman traditional “Fast Car.” Then the track’s acquainted guitar half kicked in, at which level the digicam pulled again slowly to disclose that the instrument was being performed by… Chapman herself. The two stars then turned the track into a real duet, buying and selling verses and smiles, and it can’t be overstated simply how thrilled Combs appeared from begin to end. It was a stunning second throughout, to not point out an opportunity for Chapman to take a well-earned victory lap for what’s, no exaggeration, top-of-the-line songs ever written by anybody, ever. And, talking of the most effective songs ever written, Joni Mitchell carried out on the Grammys for the primary time (!!!), main a stunning rendition of “Both Sides Now” with the help of Brandi Carlile, Lucius, SistaStrings, Allison Russell, Blake Mills and Jacob Collier. There aren’t sufficient flowers to fling within the path of both efficiency.

SZA accepts the most effective R&B track award for “Snooze” on stage throughout the 66th Annual Grammy Awards.

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SZA accepts the most effective R&B track award for “Snooze” on stage throughout the 66th Annual Grammy Awards.

Valerie Macon/AFP by way of Getty Images

4. Speaking of tear-jerking, the most effective speeches confirmed how a lot the Grammys can imply to the artists who win them. SZA was nominated 9 occasions and gained three awards Sunday, and when she took house finest R&B track, her feelings flooded out of her; it was clear that the second represented the fruits of years of onerous work. Ditto Victoria Monét, whose lengthy profession made a minor mockery of the class “best new artist.” (The Grammys would do themselves an enormous favor by altering that class’s identify to one thing like “breakthrough artist,” given how lengthy artists toil en path to newness.) Both speeches introduced a agency rebuttal to the concept these awards imply nothing to the parents who win them.

Honoree Jay-Z accepts the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award with Blue Ivy Carter onstage throughout the 66th Grammy Awards.

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Honoree Jay-Z accepts the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award with Blue Ivy Carter onstage throughout the 66th Grammy Awards.

Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The RIAA

5. Jay-Z did not spare the Recording Academy. The rap famous person gained the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award, and in his victory speech — for which he introduced daughter Blue Ivy onstage — he evenly blistered the Academy for its glass ceilings and different missteps. After chiding voters for by no means awarding album of the yr to his spouse Beyoncé, Jay-Z added a burn that had the group tittering nervously (“Some of y’all don’t belong in the category”) and doubled down with a line that’ll get quoted for years to return: “When I get nervous, I tell the truth.” (Those phrases are in competitors with SZA’s “I’m not a very attractive cryer” for the title of “Grammy quote most likely to get stitched onto throw pillows and sold on Etsy.” In third place: Billie Eilish, whose shock at profitable track of the yr was expressed by way of the phrases, “I’m shocked outta my balls.”)

Stevie Wonder performs on stage honoring Tony Bennett throughout the 66th annual Grammy Awards.

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Stevie Wonder performs on stage honoring Tony Bennett throughout the 66th annual Grammy Awards.

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6. The In Memoriam section went lengthy, but it surely labored. Twenty minutes is a beneficiant dollop of time to pay tribute to the performers and different music-adjacent figures who’d died within the previous yr. But, wow, we have misplaced a number of powerhouses these days. Stevie Wonder gave a heat tribute to Tony Bennett, Annie Lennox carried out “Nothing Compares 2 U” for Sinéad O’Connor (and closed the efficiency by calling for a ceasefire, a second that felt true to O’Connor’s personal activism), Jon Batiste and Ann Nesby performed a medley for the music-industry govt Clarence Avant, and Fantasia Barrino and Adam Blackstone served up a rollicking cowl of “Proud Mary” for Tina Turner. What made it work, moreover the emotion concerned, was the best way the performances echoed the power and spirit of the figures who’d died; Barrino, for instance, understood that one of the simplest ways to honor Turner was to embrace and echo her indefatigable showmanship, fairly than merely mourn.

Killer Mike poses within the press room with the Grammys for finest rap efficiency, finest rap album and finest rap track throughout the 66th annual Grammy Awards.

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Killer Mike poses within the press room with the Grammys for finest rap efficiency, finest rap album and finest rap track throughout the 66th annual Grammy Awards.

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7. Killer Mike gained three Grammys… after which bought arrested. The powerhouse rapper Killer Mike — maybe nonetheless finest generally known as one-half of Run the Jewels — completely cleaned up within the rap classes (finest rap album, finest rap track, finest rap efficiency) previous to the telecast. Then, he bought into an altercation that ended with him being led away in handcuffs. The story continues to be growing (Mike did not handle it in a tweet this morning), but it surely’s onerous to consider we have heard the final of it.

Billy Joel and Trevor Noah converse onstage throughout the 66th Grammy Awards.

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Billy Joel and Trevor Noah converse onstage throughout the 66th Grammy Awards.

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8. Billy Joel carried out his first new track in 17 years, then got here again for an encore. Just just a few days in the past, Joel’s “Turn the Lights Back On” shocked the world — each as a result of it was his first new track in 17 years and since the track itself was truly well worth the interminable wait. The singer-songwriter carried out the brand new observe late within the Grammys telecast, then returned on the finish to play certainly one of his best-known bangers, 1989’s “The Downeaster ‘Alexa,’” which… [taps earpiece] okay, I’m being informed the telecast-closing track was truly “You May Be Right,” which is significantly extra rousing and thus acceptable for the event. Three and a half hours into an awards telecast, Billy Joel performing “The Downeaster ‘Alexa'” would have been absolute efficiency artwork, and I kinda want he’d accomplished it simply to be a rascal.

9. U2 provided us a glance inside Las Vegas’ famed Sphere, and the world continues to be heaving from movement illness. Actuarially talking, it is unlikely that you’ve got seen the brand new film Argylle, which is one way or the other each expensive-looking and cheap-looking, to not point out garish and loud and exhausting, with a number of lengthy and exceedingly foolish motion set items. U2’s efficiency was kinda like Argylle, but one way or the other much more abrasive and 20 occasions as disorienting, with countless swooping drone photographs and… I do not know, holograms and floating CGI heads and whatnot? I’m not even completely certain, as a result of I needed to look away after some time. U2 is nothing if not maximalist, and maximalism may be enjoyable, however the visuals made this a very punishing ordeal.

Coco Jones poses within the press room with the Grammy for finest R&B efficiency for “ICU” throughout the 66th annual Grammy Awards.

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Coco Jones poses within the press room with the Grammy for finest R&B efficiency for “ICU” throughout the 66th annual Grammy Awards.

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10. The Grammys principally resisted the urge to humiliate themselves. In many if not most years, the Recording Academy will find some far-flung alternative to step on a rake in essentially the most embarrassing attainable approach. Perhaps the top of the Academy will say one thing so catastrophically silly we’re nonetheless writing about it six years later (see No. 2), or possibly they will give finest new artist to an act later determined to have been lip-syncing, or possibly they will give the first-ever Grammy for heavy steel to Jethro Tull on the expense of Metallica, or possibly Macklemore will sweep the rap classes on the expense of Kendrick Lamar… you recognize the drill by now. But this yr, thanks largely to a pop-heavy however in any other case strong slate of nominees, Sunday was an evening principally freed from embarrassment. Did host Trevor Noah handle Ed Sheeran as “one of the greatest live performers of all time”? He did. But nobody could be merciless sufficient to shut out a abstract of this yr’s Grammys by stating the time Trevor Noah did, in actual fact, handle Ed Sheeran as “one of the greatest live performers of all time.”