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      The Best and Worst of the 2021 Grammy Awards

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      Megan Thee Stallion owned the stage, struggling indie venues got a much needed spotlight and the event proved a pandemic awards show doesn’t have to look like a video conference.The 63rd annual Grammy Awards promised to be different: There was a new executive producer at the helm for the first time in decades; a new host; and a new challenge — assembling a pandemic awards show that didn’t feel like a video conference. With a small audience of nominees outside in Los Angeles, the show highlighted the contributions of women and the impact of Black Lives Matter protests, offered screen time to workers at independent venues crushed by the pandemic and extended tributes to musicians we lost during this challenging year.Here are the show’s highlights and lowlights as we saw them.Best M.V.P.: Megan Thee StallionThough she didn’t win the night’s final and biggest category, record of the year, Grammy night belonged to Megan Thee Stallion. She took home the three other awards she was nominated for: best new artist and, for the remix of “Savage” featuring Beyoncé, best rap song and best rap performance. Each speech was a wholesome gift: words of exuberance from an artist experiencing the first flush of truly widespread acclaim. But her self-assured performance was the loudest statement of all. It opened with a bit of “Body,” and pivoted into her part from the “Savage” remix. But the main focus was a performance of “WAP” with Cardi B that was wildly and charmingly salacious, frisky and genuine in a way that the Grammys has rarely if ever made room for. That it took place on CBS, historically the most conservative of all the broadcast networks, was chef’s kiss. JON CARAMANICABest Accessory: Harry Styles’s Boa“Watermelon Sugar” never sounded better than when Harry Styles and his boa performed it on the Grammys stage.Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording AcademyThe first-time nominee Harry Styles kicked off the show with a groovy, casually charismatic rendition of “Watermelon Sugar,” complete with an excellent backing band (Dev Hynes on bass!) and an instantly iconic feather boa. Styles often gets the knee-jerk Mick Jagger comparisons, but Styles possesses a much more laid-back — if no less magnetic — stage presence. “Watermelon Sugar” never sounded better than it did during this performance, which made its subsequent surprise win for best pop solo performance all the more understandable. Something tells me boa season is approaching. LINDSAY ZOLADZWorst Twist Ending: Billie Eilish’s Record of the Year Win“This is really embarrassing for me,” said Billie Eilish, accepting record of the year with her producer brother Finneas O’Connell.Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording AcademyAt the very end of a Grammys ceremony that did its best to pretend like the Recording Academy has always supported and centered Black artists, women and especially Black women, Billie Eilish was put in an impossible position that we’ve seen too many times before. Awarded record of the year for “Everything I Wanted,” a mid tempo in-betweener of a track, only a year after sweeping the top four categories with her debut album, Eilish could only gush over Megan Thee Stallion.“This is really embarrassing for me,” Eilish, a white teenager who — like many in her generation and beyond — worships Black culture, said. “You are a queen, I want to cry thinking about how much I love you.” She went on. It was uncomfortably reminiscent of Adele praising Beyoncé when “25” beat “Lemonade” for album of the year in 2017, and also of that infamous Macklemore text to Kendrick Lamar. Some online bristled at the performative white guilt on display, while others applauded Eilish’s apparently sincere fandom. But only a stubbornly old-fashioned voting body that still just honors rap when it’s convenient could be blamed. JOE COSCARELLIBest Reality Check: Presenters From Shuttered VenuesThe Apollo in Harlem, which has been closed for a year during the pandemic.George Etheredge for The New York TimesNeither musicians nor fans can forget that the pandemic has shut down live music. Sprinkled among the awards presenters — instead of the usual actors promoting CBS shows and stray sports figures — were people who work at long-running clubs and theaters: the Station Inn in Nashville, the Troubadour and the Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles, the Apollo Theater in Harlem. They spoke pretaped from their empty music halls and announced the winners live. Billy Mitchell, who started working at the Apollo in 1965, recalled that James Brown had demanded to see his report card, insisted he improve his grades, and later gave him money that Mitchell put toward business school and a lifelong career at the Apollo, where he eventually became the official historian. Music changes lives offstage, too. JON PARELESBest Disco Fantasy: Dua LipaDua Lipa’s “Future Nostalgia” has lived its entire life in quarantine, but it begs to be let loose into the night and onto dance floors around the world. At the Grammys, the British pop singer and songwriter gave us a glimpse of the other side — glitter, flashing lights, throbbing bass lines, people dusting off ’70s dance moves, slight awkwardness. Her two-song set started with “Levitating,” a funky roller-rink jam with a charming DaBaby feature, and ended with “Don’t Start Now,” the powerhouse kiss-off that was nominated for both record and song of the year. The track didn’t take home either prize, but Lipa left with a trophy for pop vocal album and the honor of coaxing the most at-home viewers into a few minutes of spirited couch dancing. CARYN GANZBest Confrontational Politics: Lil Baby and DaBabyLil Baby released “The Bigger Picture,” a stream-of-consciousness, autobiographical protest song, less than three weeks after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis last summer, on the very day that Rayshard Brooks was fatally shot by police in the rapper’s native Atlanta.With appearances by the actor and activist Kendrick Sampson, who reenacted Brooks’s killing; the organizer Tamika Mallory, who addressed President Joe Biden in a speech; and Killer Mike, who added some Run the Jewels to the mix, Lil Baby’s performance managed to invoke the despair and anger of that moment without it feeling co-opted by the institutions that were playing host.Earlier in the show, DaBaby did the same, adding a new verse to “Rockstar,” his sneakily wrenching ode to firearms, and making eye contact with America as he rapped in front a choir of older white people in judge’s robes: “Right now I’m performing at the Grammys/I’ll probably get profiled before leavin’.” COSCARELLIWorst Queen Worship: The Grammys to BeyoncéBeyoncé won four awards at this year’s Grammys ceremony, bringing her lifetime total to 28.Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording AcademyDid you know that Beyoncé has now won more Grammys than any other female artist in history (28)? Of course you did; the Grammys could not stop reminding you. To be clear, this is a monumental achievement, and one that goddess among mortals Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter absolutely deserves. But there was a Grammys-doth-protest-too-much quality to the way Trevor Noah and the show’s presenters kept reminding us of this fact over and over, almost as though the Recording Academy was trying to make amends to Beyoncé for its past transgressions on live television. (Those transgressions include, but are not limited to, icing the woman who has basically redesigned the modern pop album over the past decade out of wins in the big four categories since 2010.)It was awkward. Even Beyoncé’s recognition for “Black Parade” — a good song, sure, but hardly among her best or most impactful work — felt strangely conciliatory, a mea culpa for not giving “Lemonade” its proper due several years ago. The always gracious Beyoncé certainly made the most of it, though, and her acceptance speeches were among the night’s highlights — especially her beaming big-sister energy as her “Savage” collaborator Megan Thee Stallion accepted their shared, very deserved award for best rap song. ZOLADZBest Use of Quarantine Time: Taylor Swift’s Album of the Year ‘Folklore’Taylor Swift is now the only female artist in Grammy history to win album of the year three times.Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressGoing into Grammy night, album of the year was Taylor Swift’s award to lose. Perhaps no other LP has come to symbolize our pandemic year more thoroughly than “Folklore,” which Swift created entirely during quarantine and embellished with a warm and woolly homebound aesthetic. Her Grammy performance — a medley of the “Folklore” songs “Cardigan” and “August,” along with “Willow” from her second 2020 album, “Evermore” — relied perhaps too literally on that aesthetic.The flickering visual whimsy all around her and her producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner (who both joined her onstage, in a set made up to look like a one-room cottage) detracted a bit from the direct power of her songcraft, which was more easily appreciated in the other awards-show performance she has given in support of “Folklore,” a beautifully bare-bones interpretation of “Betty” at last year’s Country Music Awards. But Swift, a one-time Grammy darling who before tonight had not had a win since 2016, has been out of the show’s spotlight for long enough that her win felt triumphant. In keeping with a night defined by female artists’ achievements it added an impressive feather to her cap, making her the only female artist in Grammy history to win album of the year three times. ZOLADZBest Blasts (and Ballads) from the Past: Silk Sonic and In MemoriamBruno Mars is nothing if not a diligent archivist, digging into the details of vintage styles, and Anderson .Paak joins him on the retro quest in their new project Silk Sonic. They went all in on “Leave the Door Open,” a period-piece homage to smooth 1970s vocal-group R&B. In three-piece mocha suits and shirts with collars that spread almost shoulder-wide, they traded off gritty leads and suave backup harmonies, choreography included. From another time capsule, Mars and Paak returned for the In Memoriam segment, paying raucous tribute to Little Richard with Mars whooping it up into an old-fashioned microphone and Paak slamming a kit of tiger-striped drums. The memorial segment continued with tasteful modesty: Lionel Richie delivering Kenny Rogers’s “Lady” with elegiac melancholy, Brandi Carlile singing John Prine’s last song, “I Remember Everything,” with affectionate respect.The closing tribute probably made more sense in the United Kingdom. With Coldplay’s Chris Martin on piano, Brittany Howard worked up to belting “You’ll Never Walk Alone” (from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Carousel”) over a country shuffle. It was a convoluted memorial to Gerry Marsden, of Gerry and the Pacemakers, who remade the song in 1963 and saw it adopted as the Liverpool Football Club’s anthem. Even odder, the song reappeared moments later, with Howard singing over a better backup track, in a commercial. PARELESBest Juggling Act: Trevor NoahChris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressHosting an awards show during pandemic season is a job without precedent, or sturdy rules. At this year’s Grammys — a mélange of live performances, pretaped segments and award presentations handed out on a downtown Los Angeles rooftop — the remit of the job was deeply confused. And still Trevor Noah proved mostly adept: vibrant energy, a little bit of awe, some topical-humor fluency and a bit of cheek, but not too much. Occasionally he literally inserted himself into the end of a performance, or purposely overlapped with something happening elsewhere onstage, which in moments felt awkward, but actually helped to add glue to a patchwork affair. There were some lumpy spots, and his cringey joke about sharing a bed with Cardi B felt like an attitudinal relic of the 1980s, but on the whole, Noah made something that could have felt like several competing shows feel like one. CARAMANICABest Self-Criticism: Harvey Mason Jr.“We hear the cries for diversity, pleas for representation and demands for transparency,” said Harvey Mason Jr., interim president and chairman of the Recording Academy.Rich Fury/Getty Images for the Recording AcademyThe obligatory Grammy speech by the head of the Recording Academy tends to mingle platitudes about the power of music with mild lobbying. Harvey Mason Jr., who took over as interim president and chairman after the academy fired Deborah Dugan just before last year’s Grammy Awards, offered something different: the closest the Grammys have gotten to a mea culpa. “We hear the cries for diversity, pleas for representation and demands for transparency,” he said, over a soundtrack of earnest piano. “Tonight I’m here to ask that entire music community to join in, work with us not against us, as we build a new Recording Academy that we can all be proud of.” He added, “This is not the vision of tomorrow but the job for today.” Promising sentiments — will they be enough? PARELESBest Overdue Nomination: Mickey GuytonTrevor Noah awkwardly introduced Mickey Guyton as “the first Black female solo artist ever nominated in a country category” — far more a reflection on country music and the Grammys than on her own clear merits. (She lost best country solo performance to Vince Gill in the pre-telecast ceremony.) But Guyton, who will be co-hosting the Academy of Country Music Awards in April, gracefully seized this prime-time moment, singing “Black Like Me,” a blunt indictment — “If you think we live in the land of the free/You should try to be Black like me” — that strives to end on a hopeful note. It’s a hymnlike song that welcomed a backup choir and a big buildup on the way to a climactic, “Someday we’ll all be free.” And it made Guyton a very hard act for Miranda Lambert and Maren Morris to follow. PARELESBest Mixed Emotions: HaimDanielle Haim started “The Steps,” nominated for best rock performance, seated behind the drums, with a pugnacious look on her face and a beat to match. She was singing about being underestimated and misunderstood, and the Grammys simply stuck the three-sister band — Danielle, Este and Alana — in the middle of the floor. But Haim switched instruments as well as moods mid-song; Danielle moved from drums to guitar and back while her voice briefly changed from annoyed to wounded; it can hurt to be misunderstood. By the end she was back on the counterattack, but the song was no longer simple. PARELES More

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      The Grammys Discover Youth

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      A pandemic awards show that seemed poised to disappoint ended up pivoting instead, shifting its focus to women, hip-hop and most crucially, the next generation.The annual postgame bemoaning of the Grammys rarely fails to disappoint. Between its consistently fraught relationship with Black artists, its weighing down of the young with the old, and its stoic resistance to the ways in which pop music is evolving, the ceremony has become as powerful for its symbolic out-of-touchness as for its commemorations.So it would be easy to look at the 63rd annual Grammy Awards, which aired Sunday night from Los Angeles, and underscore what was broken. Beyoncé won four trophies, giving her a total of 28 for her career, the most of any vocalist, tying her for second-most of all time. But these wins, like almost all of them, came in genre categories, not in the biggest, all-genre categories, despite her undeniable influence across the whole spectrum of pop. After sweeping the big four categories last year, Billie Eilish won record of the year for “Everything I Wanted” — a safe choice — and spent her speech repenting by uncomfortably fawning over Megan Thee Stallion.In most years, those would have been the defining moments — well-intentioned acts gone awry. And yet. The Grammys this year were frisky, energetic, largely well-paced and sometimes surprising. They often met popular music where it actually has been over the past year, with performances by central stars of pop, hip-hop, rock and country. Women dominated all the major categories — in addition to Eilish’s victory, Taylor Swift won album of the year for “Folklore,” H.E.R. won song of the year for “I Can’t Breathe” and Megan Thee Stallion won best new artist.But the most crucial aspect of the show was this: Almost all of the performers were under 40, and plenty were under 30. This may seem like an obvious move, but at the Grammys, youth and current relevance have often been treated as inconveniences to be navigated deftly, lest older generations — of artists and, presumably, viewers — feel left out. (This year, given the coronavirus pandemic, there was also likely an impetus to keep elders as far from harm’s way as possible.)Most vividly, that meant several largely unvarnished performances by hip-hop stars, still a shock on the Grammys stage despite the genre’s role at the center of pop evolution for decades. Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B paired for a clever and buoyantly sexual performance of “WAP” that was more erotically direct than any Grammys moment in memory. (Think Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards, and then some.) Lil Baby’s protest anthem “The Bigger Picture” was rendered as full social justice theater, with a building in flames, a square-off between protesters and shield-bearing police officers, and spoken-word calls for policy improvements.When these performances nodded to the Grammy tradition of melding the new with the old — typically an act of suffocation — it was done cheekily. During Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B’s performance, there was a brief tap dance routine acknowledging the pioneering Black tap dancers the Nicholas Brothers. And DaBaby delivered an intense and fantastically odd performance, in which he was backed by a choir of older women in church robes who appeared to have been given direction to look as comedically shocked as possible.Early in the show, during a Jools Holland-like performance with several acts on adjacent stages, Eilish was theatrically morbid, and Harry Styles was lithe and sinuous. Later, Bad Bunny and Jhay Cortez performed wholly in Spanish, a rare acknowledgment of the power of contemporary Spanish-language music. BTS scaled a rooftop to deliver a dizzying rendition of its hit “Dynamite,” a hyperchoreographed taunt at any performer who opted to be bound to, you know, a stage. And Dua Lipa advertised herself as a nu-aerobics queen, with an impressive set of hi-test disco.For a second year in a row, the Grammys put a spotlight on the teen singer-songwriter Billie Eilish, and her producer, Finneas.Kevin Mazur/The Recording Academy, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThrough another lens, Lipa’s performance could be seen as a wink to the music of yesteryear — a classicist with a high-gloss veneer. Typically, those sorts of artists are Grammy stock-in-trade, and there were a handful of them this year, like Silk Sonic, the recently formed union of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, who played pointedly retro, shimmery luxury soul. And despite becoming less central to pop music in general, guitars were not in short supply. Black Pumas scuffed up their typically modest rock-soul ever so slightly. Haim played loose, lovely, harmony-rich rock, and Taylor Swift performed a medley of songs from her quarantine albums, reimagining the Grammy stage as a mystical forest haunt.That said, consider it a victory that the Grammys largely opted in favor of youth, even when the mode of creation was old-fashioned. That reflects a dawning awareness that the show — the performances, at least, if not always the awards — has the power to be prescriptive, not simply hoary. Take, for example, its treatment of country music this year: None of the country performers were men, and given that almost every major star of country radio is a man, this was a meaningful gesture. It provided a huge showcase for Mickey Guyton, the first Black woman solo artist ever to receive a nomination in a country category — her rendition of “Black Like Me” was deeply invested and bracing. (Guyton still lost best country solo performance to Vince Gill, a Grammy perennial.) She was followed by sharp, but less pointed performances by Miranda Lambert and Maren Morris (who was inexplicably saddled with a John Mayer cameo).For a sense of the confusingly evolving and ongoing conundrum the Grammys finds itself in, look no further than this year’s hip-hop awards. Best rap album was won by Nas, one of the defining rappers of the … 1990s. This was his first Grammy, won for a little-heralded late-career album — the sort of years-late-dollars-short gesture that is a frequent Grammy occurrence. But best rap song and best rap performance went to Megan Thee Stallion (with Beyoncé), who is in almost every way, besides popular acclaim, a rookie. That the Grammys have honored her so thoroughly so early in her career must feel baffling to the pioneering rappers of decades past. On the other hand, hip-hop has come far enough to have its elders pull out head-scratching wins, just like rock, country and pop old-timers have for generations.The Grammys remain, at heart, a balancing act — a big tent that aims to satisfy everyone, fully pleasing no one. Even the distribution of this year’s major awards, after last year’s Eilish sweep, felt overly conspicuous. But Swift is 31, Megan Thee Stallion is 26, H.E.R. is 23, Eilish is 19. That no one is making them wait for their acclaim is its own sort of victory. More

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      Billie Eilish Says Megan Thee Stallion Deserved Record of the Year Grammy

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Grammy AwardsGrammys: What HappenedWinners ListBest and Worst MomentsBeyoncé Breaks RecordRed CarpetAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyBeyoncé Breaks Grammy Record; Top Prizes for Billie Eilish and Taylor SwiftBillie Eilish wins record of the year but says Megan Thee Stallion deserved it.March 15, 2021, 12:12 a.m. ETMarch 15, 2021, 12:12 a.m. ETBillie Eilish, left, and Finneas, her brother, accept the award for record of the year.Credit…Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressBillie Eilish won record of the year for the second year in a row, but when she got onstage to accept the award, she said that Megan Thee Stallion was the one who deserved it, asking the audience to cheer for the rapper instead of her. Eilish, 19, swept the top awards at last year’s ceremony, but that didn’t stop her from taking the most prestigious Grammy this year for her song “Everything I Wanted.” When her name was read out by Ringo Starr, the presenter of the award, Eilish looked shocked. She went onstage with Finneas, her brother and collaborator, and said, “This is really embarrassing for me,” before turning the attention on Megan Thee Stallion, who won three awards, including best new artist. [embedded content]“I was going to write a speech about how you deserve this but then I was like, there’s no way they’re going to choose me,” Eilish said. “I was like, it’s hers. You deserve this.”She went on: “You had a year that I think is untoppable. You are a queen. I want to cry thinking about how much I love you.”Megan Thee Stallion was nominated in the category for “Savage (Remix),” featuring Beyoncé, which won for best rap song and best rap performance. Eilish also beat out “Black Parade” by Beyoncé, “Don’t Start Now” by Dua Lipa, “Rockstar” by DaBaby featuring Roddy Ricch, “Say So” by Doja Cat, “Circles” by Post Malone and “Colors” by Black Pumas.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion Perform 'WAP' at the Grammys

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Grammy AwardsGrammys: What HappenedWinners ListBest and Worst MomentsBeyoncé Breaks RecordRed CarpetAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyBeyoncé Breaks Grammy Record; Top Prizes for Billie Eilish and Taylor SwiftCardi B and Megan Thee Stallion present a (slightly) PG version of ‘WAP.’March 14, 2021, 10:56 p.m. ETMarch 14, 2021, 10:56 p.m. ETCredit…Kevin Winter/Getty Images For The Recording AcademyIf you needed any more evidence that Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion remain unbowed by the conservative pearl-clutching that followed the release of their raunchy duet “WAP,” the Grammys had it.In Sunday’s performance of “WAP” — their first ever on television — Cardi B pole danced on the heel of a giant stiletto and the rappers, wearing silver armor-like leotards, crawled around and executed intricate choreography on a massive bed. The women twerked triumphantly in several different positions, and although the song’s trademark line was sanitized to “wet, wet, wet,” much of the original lyricism made it to the prime-time program.When the “WAP” music video debuted in August, it set the internet ablaze with its R-rated lyrics and even more suggestive choreography (Cardi and Megan splashing around in fishnets). The song topped the charts for weeks, inspired myriad TikTok memes and debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100.Megan Thee Stallion, who won best new artist earlier in the show, opened the brief set with two of her hits, “Body” and “Savage,” which is nominated for record of the year. She wore a glimmering leotard and tall white feathers on her head, which, along with the tap dancers, gave the performance a Roaring Twenties feel. Then Cardi B hit the stage in a bubble-gum pink pixie cut to perform her latest single “Up,” before the rappers teamed up for the crowd pleaser.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Megan Thee Stallion Wins a Grammy for Best New Artist

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Grammy AwardsliveGrammys UpdatesWinners ListThe HighlightsHow to WatchAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyGrammy Awards Live Updates: Megan Thee Stallion Wins Best New ArtistMegan Thee Stallion wins best new artist, the first televised award of the night.March 14, 2021, 8:34 p.m. ETMarch 14, 2021, 8:34 p.m. ETMegan Thee Stallion won one of the “big four” categories at the Grammys, best new artist.Credit…CBSThe Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion won the Grammy for best new artist on Sunday, taking home the first trophy presented on the official telecast. She also won an award during the preshow — best rap performance for “Savage,” a song that is nominated twice more tonight (for best rap song and record of the year).“I don’t want to cry,” Megan Thee Stallion said, already teary-eyed, in a brief speech. “It’s been a hell of a year, but we made it.”She becomes the first female rapper to be named best new artist since Lauryn Hill in 1999, and only the third solo rapper ever, following Chance the Rapper in 2017. (The hip-hop group Arrested Development took home the award in 1993.)Megan Thee Stallion started releasing mixtapes on SoundCloud in 2016, while in college for health administration, but first broke through with muscular, confident freestyles that went viral online. In 2019, singles like “Hot Girl Summer” and “Cash ___” put her into regular radio rotation and the next year, she hit No. 1 twice — first with “Savage,” which featured Beyoncé on its remix, and then as a featured guest on Cardi B’s “WAP.”The best new artist award capped what had been an emotional rise for Megan Thee Stallion, whose success was interrupted last summer when she said she was shot in the feet by the rapper Tory Lanez after a disagreement. Lanez, who denied shooting her, was charged with assault in the incident, which led Megan to become a vocal defender of — and advocate for — Black women.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      2021 Grammys Red Carpet Fashion Goes Big

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Grammy AwardsliveGrammys UpdatesWinners ListThe HighlightsHow to WatchAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyGrammy Awards Live Updates: Megan Thee Stallion Wins Best New ArtistGrammys fashion goes live and over-the-top.March 14, 2021, 7:50 p.m. ETMarch 14, 2021, 7:50 p.m. ETMegan Thee Stallion arrives at the 63rd annual Grammy Awards.Credit…Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording AcademyIt’s been awhile since we’ve actually seen the strutting, preening, over-the-top fashion show that is an awards season red carpet. After all, even before the pandemic hit, there was some rethinking going on, as female performers in particular started demanding not to be simply reduced to what they wore. So when the Grammy powers that be announced they were going to figure out how to bring the whole shebang back — well, it was not entirely clear what that would mean.At least until the E! hosts provided the answer. “Drama!” shrieked Brad Goreski. “Epic!” said Lilly Singh. “A traffic jam of glam!” said Guiliana Rancic.Exclamation points aside, they weren’t that far off. The first quasi-live mega-awards red carpet since Covid-19 began was like a fashion primal scream. It was also kind of fun. Who wants restraint when we’ve all been constrained? Doja Cat summed it up when she showed off a Roberto Cavalli gown that involved a leather motorcycle jacket unzipped to the waist and then somehow spliced into a showgirl skirt of neon green and black feathers.“I like something that’s kind of out there,” she said in her red carpet interview. “I feel like I’ve been kind of toned down before this.”Doja Cat.Credit…Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated PressNoah Cyrus.Credit…Jordan Strauss/Invision, via Associated PressBTS during the E! Grammys live red carpet.Credit…E!“Toned-down” was not a word anyone would have used (BTS in hip monochrome Louis Vuitton suiting aside). Phoebe Bridgers came as a bejeweled Thom Browne skeleton, with a full set of bones embroidered on a black gown. Noah Cyrus was a walking tower of whipped cream in exploding ivory Schiaparelli couture. Cynthia Erivo did her best imitation of liquid mercury in Vuitton sequins. Dua Lipa was a crystal Versace butterflyMegan Thee Stallion channeled a gigantic neon orange supernova in a strapless Dolce & Gabbana column with a steroid-fueled bow on the back, complete with train.“I wanted to look like a Grammy,” she said, of the dress. “I manifested this.”She wasn’t the only one. Suddenly, costumes that once might have provoked eye rolls and cynicism seemed like a courageous refusal to let the last year win. And the red carpet, which was increasingly dismissed as a mere marketing tool, has a whole new role.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Meet the Best New Artist Grammy Nominees

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      Meet the Best New Artist Grammy NomineesMegan Thee Stallion.Rich Fury/Getty Images for VisibleBest new artist is one of the “big four” Grammy categories: an all-genre contest with plenty of buzz and controversy. (How new is “new,” really?) Who will win this year? Read on to see — and hear — all eight nominees → More

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      Who Will Win Record of the Year at the Grammys? Let’s Discuss.

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDiary of a SongWho Will Win Record of the Year at the Grammys? Let’s Discuss.Beyoncé, Megan Thee Stallion, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa and more will face off Sunday. In this special “Diary of a Song” episode, critics for The New York Times break down the show’s premiere category.Beyoncé, Megan Thee Stallion, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa and more will face off this weekend for record of the year. In this special Diary of a Song episode, The New York Times’ pop music team dissects the award show’s premiere category.March 8, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETAt the 63rd annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, there will be no shortage of big-name matchups in the major categories (Taylor Swift! Dua Lipa! Roddy Ricch!), but only one has the real heavyweight showdown: Beyoncé vs. Beyoncé.Record of the year — which recognizes a single track, based on the artist’s performance and the contributions of producers, audio engineers and mixers — is in many ways the awards show’s premiere category, seeking to define the previous year’s musical zeitgeist in one song. Recent winners offer a fairly representative survey of popular music: “Bad Guy” by Billie Eilish, “This Is America” by Childish Gambino, “24K Magic” by Bruno Mars, “Hello” and “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele, “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk featuring Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers, and so on.This year’s record of the year nominees include those two Beyoncé appearances — “Black Parade” and “Savage (Remix)” with Megan Thee Stallion — plus songs by Lipa (“Don’t Start Now”), DaBaby featuring Ricch (“Rockstar”), Doja Cat (“Say So”), Billie Eilish (“Everything I Wanted”), Post Malone (“Circles”) and Black Pumas (“Colors”).To understand this eclectic mix and who might have the best shot at winning, The New York Times gathered three critics, the pop music editor and a reporter for a special spinoff episode of “Diary of a Song” that breaks down the category. In the video above, the team asks some of the big questions going into Sunday’s show: Should Eilish win again? Does a rap song stand a chance? Will Beyoncé break her decade-plus drought in the big four categories? Which disco revival hit reigns supreme? And who, exactly, are Black Pumas?Guests include:Jon Caramanica, The New York Times’s pop music criticJoe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporter and “Diary of a Song” hostCaryn Ganz, The New York Times’s pop music editorWesley Morris, The New York Times’s critic-at-largeJon Pareles, The New York Times’s chief pop music critic“Diary of a Song” provides an up-close, behind-the-scenes look at how pop music is made today, using archival material — voice memos, demo versions, text messages, emails, interviews and more — to tell the story behind the track. Subscribe to our YouTube channel.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More