2024-02-16 11:39:06
American singer Taylor Swift won her fourth Grammy for album of the year on Monday night. The 34-year-old star was the first to do so in the history of the most prestigious music awards in the USA. In the most watched category, she has previously won three times, like Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon before her. Now she has overtaken them all.
Taylor Swift has had an extremely successful year, including breaking Elton John’s previous record for the number of tickets sold for a single tour. She has now succeeded at the Grammys with the album Midnights. Directly from the stage, she announced to the audience that she will release a new album called The Tortured Poets Department in April, after which she posted the cover on social networks from behind the scenes.
“I’m so happy. I just wish I could keep doing this,” she said. Her success was indicative of an evening that, as expected, was dominated by women.
Billie Eilish takes home the song of the year award for the piano ballad What Was I Made For? from the Barbie movie soundtrack. Miley Cyrus received the statuette for the record of the year with the emancipatory retro song Flowers.
“I hope I didn’t forget to name anyone. But maybe I forgot my underwear at home,” Miley Cyrus concluded her acceptance speech. The former Disney Channel cable star and daughter of producer Billy Ray Cyrus took home her first ever Grammy. She also added the second best pop solo performance thanks to the single Flowers.
The discovery of the year was the thirty-four-year-old R&B and pop singer Victoria Monét, who drew attention to herself last year with the single On My Mama.
Victoria Monét became the discovery of the year. | Photo: Reuters
She seemed moved as she accepted the statuette and thanked her single mother, as well as everyone who has a vision and follows it. “I would like to tell anyone who has a dream to follow my example,” said the singer, who moved to the center of show business Los Angeles in 2009 and has been working single-mindedly to win a Grammy for the past 15 years, she said. So far, she has written hits for others, such as singer Ariana Grande, before breaking out with her own work.
In other categories, country singer Lainey Wilson or Colombian pop star Karol G were successful. The ceremony took place in Los Angeles’ Crypto.com arena at a time when heavy rain drenched the city. Because of him, the mayor called on citizens to stay at home.
The police took care of the uproar when they took the rapper Killer Mike out of the hall in handcuffs, who had won three turntables. The 48-year-old member of the award-winning duo Run the Jewels and recent Grammy winner for best rap album was arrested on suspicion of assault. He did not comment on the incident. According to the Guardian, he was soon released.
During the gala evening, SZA, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, Olivia Rodrigo, Tracy Chapman or 80-year-old Joni Mitchell sang live. She returned to the stage after serious health problems and more than two decades.
At the Grammys, she sang one of her best-known songs, Both Sides Now, sitting while leaning on a cane. She was accompanied by singers Brandi Carlile and Allison Russell, guitarist Blake Mills and multi-instrumentalist Jacob Collier. Earlier in the evening, Joni Mitchell took home a Grammy for the recording of her comeback performance from the Newport Festival in 2022.
Joni Mitchell sang her old hit Both Sides Now. | Photo: Reuters
The last statuette for the album of the year was presented by the Canadian singer Céline Dion, who recently canceled a world tour, including a planned concert in Prague, due to a rare and incurable neurological disease. “I’m happy to be here, and I mean it,” she declared.
Among the performers was singer and pianist Billy Joel, who recently released his first single since 1993. He sang the slow relationship ballad Turn the Lights Back On to the audience live, as well as his older hit You May Be Right.
Taylor Swift (second report) and producer Jack Antonoff posed with members of the Boygenius trio. | Photo: ČTK / AP
Nigerian singer Burna Boy, who last year canceled his appearance at the Colors of Ostrava festival at the last minute, also appeared on stage.
Rapper Jay-Z drew attention to himself while accepting the award for his contribution with an incoherent monologue in which, among other things, he criticized the judges for not giving his wife Beyoncé the award for album of the year, the New York Times wrote. “I’m just trying to say that you finally make the right choice,” the rapper said. “Of course it’s always going to be subjective, it’s music.
In the genre categories, the girl trio Boygenius, consisting of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, among others, rejoiced. They take home statuettes for Best Alternative Album, Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance.
The evening was hosted by Trevor Noah. Stevie Wonder remembered the late jazz veteran Tony Bennett last year, in the in memoriam section the organizers mentioned singers Sinead O’Connor and Tina Turner or Burt Bacharach.
Winners of selected 2024 Grammy Awards
Rock album
Taylor Swift – Midnights
Record of the year
Miley Cyrus – Flowers
Song of the year
Billie Eilish – What Was I Made For?
Discovery of the Year
Victoria Monet
Producer of the year
Jack Antonoff
Best Pop Solo Performance
Miley Cyrus – Flowers
The best pop duo
SZA a Phoebe Bridgers – Ghost in the Machine
Rap album
Killer Mike – Michael
Rock album
Paramore – This Is Why
Alternative
Boygenius – The Record
R&B album
Victoria Monét – Jaguar II
Jazz album
Nicole Zuraitis – How Love Begins
Contemporary instrumental album
Béla Fleck – As We Speak
Country album
Lainey Wilson – Bell Bottom Country
An album in the Americana genre
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit – Weathervanes
Bluegrass
Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway – City of Gold
Contemporary blues
Larkin Poe – Blood Harmony
A folk album
Joni Mitchell – Live at Newport
The winners of the 66th Grammy Awards were chosen by musicians, producers and sound engineers affiliated with the US National Academy of Music Arts and Sciences. It has existed since 1957 and in recent years, among other things, has recruited more women and non-whites among its members in order to achieve a more diverse representation.
In his speech, the head of the academy, Harvey Mason Jr, remembered the victims of terrorists from the Palestinian movement Hamas, who, among other things, murdered over 360 visitors to the Tribe of Nova dance festival in the Negev desert during the attack on Israel on October 7 last year.
“That day, and all the following tragic days after it, was terrible for the whole world. We mourned the lives of innocent people,” he said. “Music always creates a safe space for us. When this rule is broken, it hits us right in the heart,” added Mason, also mentioning the attacks at the Bataclan club in Paris, which claimed 89 lives in 2015, or the bomb attack at the concert of the singer Ariana Grande, to which 22 people succumbed two years later in Manchester, England.
The speech of the head of the academy was symbolically accompanied by a string quartet composed of Israeli and Palestinian musicians.