On Sunday February 4th, the 66th Grammy awards took place, recognizing the year’s biggest musical achievements, breaking records, and showcasing excellent performances. This year’s awards show was hosted for the fourth consecutive time by comedian Trevor Noah. 16.9 million people tuned in to the ceremony to watch their favorite artists perform and to see the results live.
Miley Cyrus, Olivia Rodrigo, Travis Scott and other nominees performed from their records from the year. Other distinguished performers at the event included Tracy Chapman, Billy Joel, and U2. Notable performances came from Joni Mitchell, who made a rare appearance with Brandi Carlile, and Annie Lennox who called for a ceasefire in Gaza within her tribute to the late Sinead O’Connor.
The pre-telecast ceremony began at 3:30 P.M. EST. Awards such as Best Duo/Group performance went to SZA and Phoebe Bridgers for their song “Ghost In The Machine”, the first of several awards for both artists. Genre based awards, like Best Pop Solo performance and Best Rock performance, went to Miley Cyrus for ‘Flowers’ and boygenius for ‘The Record’ respectively.
As per usual, the highly anticipated main industry awards began later in the show following various artist performances. The first of these awards was Record of the Year, awarded to Miley Cyrus for her song “Flowers”. Next, the highly anticipated Album of the Year saw nominations given to Jon Batiste, Boygenius, Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, SZA, and Miley Cyrus. The award finally went to Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff for their album ‘Midnights’, earning Swift her fourteenth Grammy Award. While nominees for “Song of the Year” included Lana Del Rey, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Jon Batiste, SZA, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa and Miley Cyrus, the award went to Billie Eilish for “What Was I Made For?” from the Barbie movie soundtrack. As the night culminated, “Best New Artist” went to Victoria Monet, with nominees including Jelly Roll, The War And Treaty, Coco Jones, Noah Kahan, Ice Spice, Fred Again… and Gracie Abrams.