\n<\/p>\n
The most awards<\/a> at the 66th annual Grammys went to Phoebe Bridgers, who picked up three with her band boygenius and one for a feature on a SZA song. SZA, who came into the night with the most nominations, was shut out of the biggest honors \u2014 for album (which went to Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cMidnights\u201d), record (Miley Cyrus\u2019s \u201cFlowers\u201d) and song (Billie Eilish\u2019s \u201cWhat Was I Made For?\u201d) \u2014 but took home three trophies. Victoria Mon\u00e9t was named best new artist<\/a>, and Swift\u2019s album win broke a Grammy record<\/a> for the category. The show was particularly joyous, slick and thoughtful, featuring several striking performances and a few raw acceptance speeches. All in all, it captured pop music as it actually is \u2014 centerless, and subject to change at any moment.<\/p>\n Two of the night\u2019s strongest performances came from young women using pianos to accompany the wispy, stratospheric upper reaches of their registers \u2014 and to comment on the tyranny of fragility and prettiness. The first was Billie Eilish, stunning the crowd to silence with a sparse, deeply felt reading of \u201cWhat Was I Made For?,\u201d her \u201cBarbie\u201d ballad<\/a> that later picked up song of the year. The second was Olivia Rodrigo<\/a>, who nailed the vertiginous high notes that punctuate her rock-operatic smash \u201cVampire,\u201d and then riffed on the song\u2019s theme as she smeared herself with spurting fake blood. Each performance, in its own way, felt like a rebuttal to the constricting standards to which so many young women are held. Eilish\u2019s was about the pain of being perceived as an object; Rodrigo\u2019s reimagined the same kind of pressure as a horror movie. Both understood the power of a little theatricality. LINDSAY ZOLADZ<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Joni Mitchell, 80, has been singing her prismatic folk ballad \u201cBoth Sides Now\u201d since she was 23, and yet every time she performs it, she seems to be interpreting its infinitely wise lyrics anew. The rendition she performed at the Grammys \u2014 her first-ever performance on the award show, which makes sense given how underestimated and slighted by the industry Mitchell has felt throughout most of her career \u2014 was at once elegiac and nimble, backed by a loose jazz arrangement that allowed her to riff on its familiar melody. Showing off a resonant tone and impressive range that she has worked diligently to strengthen since suffering an aneurysm in 2015, Mitchell\u2019s performance was like a brief, magical visitation from a musical deity. ZOLADZ<\/p>\n Jay-Z (22 wins, 88 nominations) and Beyonc\u00e9 (32 wins, the most of all time<\/a>) are Grammy mainstays, having occupied prime camera time at the awards over the past decade-plus, so it wasn\u2019t a shock that the couple appeared as surprise attendees on Sunday night. But as Jay-Z accepted the Dr. Dre global impact award, the rapper excoriated the night\u2019s host \u2014 the Recording Academy \u2014 for past slights in the rap categories and for repeatedly snubbing Beyonc\u00e9 in the all-genre album of the year award. \u201cWe love y\u2019all. We want you to get it right,\u201d he said, in brash and seemingly extemporaneous remarks. He referred to the math behind Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s total wins, amassed largely in R&B and urban contemporary genre categories: \u201cSo even by your own metrics, that doesn\u2019t work.\u201d It wasn\u2019t the first time Jay-Z called out the Grammys, having aimed a barbed lyric at the academy after the couple went 0-for-8 at the 2018 event. But his speech was pointed on another night when a Black artist, SZA, garnered the most nominations, but was shut out in the biggest categories. ELENA BERGERON<\/p>\n Last year\u2019s Grammys featured a rollicking tribute to hip-hop\u2019s 50th anniversary<\/a>, with a truly impressive lineup \u2014 LL Cool J, Queen Latifah, Ice-T and Posdnous of De La Soul, up to GloRilla and Lil Uzi Vert \u2014 that was momentous enough to mark the occasion. Hip-hop this year? It was mainly represented by Travis Scott, who was joined by Playboi Carti for an oddly bloodless performance of \u201cMy Eyes,\u201d \u201cI Know\u201d and \u201cFein.\u201d The performance built to a climax of flames and some smashing of folding chairs, a scene that looked like a reject from a \u201cMad Max\u201d movie. If the guys couldn\u2019t bring it, maybe they shoulda had Ice Spice<\/a>? BEN SISARIO<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Accepting the best R&B song award for \u201cSnooze,\u201d SZA<\/a>, ironically, almost missed her moment: Absent when Lizzo first read her name, she finally emerged from backstage, out of breath. \u201cI was changing, and then I took a shot and I ran here,\u201d she said, beginning an endearingly off-the-cuff speech that showed off her personality more effectively than her busy, over-staged performance. The moment seemed to hit her like a wave halfway through, and she became visibly verklempt. Then, interrupting herself midsentence and cutting her speech short, she got in the best one-liner of the night before rushing off the stage: \u201cI\u2019m not an attractive crier \u2014 have a good evening!\u201d ZOLADZ<\/p>\n The In Memoriam segment is always a tricky moment for the Grammys \u2014 one that often turns into an embarrassment. This year, it found the right tone with the right performers. Stevie Wonder opened with a tribute to Tony Bennett, whose version of \u201cFor Once in My Life\u201d spurred Wonder\u2019s very different hit version; years later, they\u2019d record and perform the song as a duet. Wonder could have simply praised Bennett for his musicianship, but he also spoke warmly about Bennett\u2019s early and lifelong commitment to civil rights.<\/p>\n He was followed by Annie Lennox, with rhinestone teardrops on her face, singing a deep, wrenching \u201cNothing Compares 2 U\u201d in tribute to Sinead O\u2019Connor \u2014 backed by Wendy and Lisa from Prince\u2019s band the Revolution \u2014 and ending by proclaiming, \u201cArtists for cease-fire, peace in the world.\u201d Jon Batiste and the singer Ann Nesby carried Bill Withers songs from a starkly mournful \u201cAin\u2019t No Sunshine\u201d into full-tilt gospel with \u201cLean on Me.\u201d And after a verbal tribute from Oprah Winfrey, Fantasia Barrino-Taylor had the lung power and gold-lam\u00e9 dress \u2014 though not quite the high-heeled dance dexterity \u2014 to honor Tina Turner with \u201cProud Mary.\u201d For once, In Memoriam was about the way recorded music preserves a life force: about memories, not endings. PARELES<\/p>\n Hair sprayed and stacked to the heavens, clad in barely there Bob Mackie-like spangles, tossing out ad-libs in a vampy alto \u2014 this year\u2019s Grammy telecast was proof that the 31-year-old Miley Cyrus is slowly transforming into Cher, in all the best ways possible. Cyrus accepted two Grammys (the first she\u2019d ever won) during the telecast and charmed with her oddball speeches, but her star turn came when she performed \u201cFlowers,\u201d a relatively staid and straightforward pop tune that she embroidered with vocal runs, antic charisma and hilarious asides. \u201cWhy are you acting like you don\u2019t know this song?\u201d she asked the crowd between lyrics, never missing a beat. Hannah Montana is still a consummate entertainer! ZOLADZ<\/p>\n U2 played its rather rote latest single, \u201cAtomic City,\u201d to give the first-ever televised glimpse inside the Sphere<\/a>, James Dolan\u2019s state-of-the-art, $2.3 billion Las Vegas arena. But the venue\u2019s majesty was difficult to capture on TV, and the director of the pretaped segment tried to make up for it by endless swooping, disorienting camerawork that left me feeling nauseous. They may as well been performing \u201cVertigo.\u201d ZOLADZ<\/p>\n After a year of Taylor, \u201cBarbie,\u201d SZA, boygenius and Cyrus\u2019s \u201cFlowers,\u201d women were always going to make a strong showing at the Grammys. But they didn\u2019t just show up: They entirely carried the evening. Women won every competitive award given out during the telecast, and the biggest tallies of the night were all for women: three for SZA, Victoria Mon\u00e9t, \u201cBarbie\u201d and boygenius (plus a fourth for that band\u2019s Bridgers). From Eilish\u2019s heart-stopping performance of \u201cWhat Was I Made For?\u201d \u2014 wearing cat\u2019s-eye sunglasses and a 1960s sweater like Peggy Olson from \u201cMad Men\u201d \u2014 to Tracy Chapman\u2019s watery eyes, Mitchell\u2019s joy and Swift\u2019s queenly confidence accepting her fourth album of the year, the narrative of the night was all about the excellence and the empowered voices of women. No offense to Stevie Wonder or Billy Joel, who rocked it. But it was the ladies\u2019 night. And it was about time. SISARIO<\/p>\n An intro and video buildup promoted a performance by Luke Combs, who had a nominated country hit single with his faithful version of Chapman\u2019s 1988 song \u201cFast Car\u201d: a song about hope, low-wage work, longing for escape and crushing disillusionment. But when the cameras hit the stage, the acoustic guitar was in the hands of Chapman herself<\/a>, who had long been alienated from the music business and had not toured since 2009. She was smiling, serene and radiant, picking the song\u2019s instantly recognizable introduction and then singing with calm authority, all the melancholy depths of her voice intact. Combs traded verses with her, glancing across the stage as if he couldn\u2019t quite believe she was there, sometimes mouthing along with the words. Although they were side by side, Chapman was the center of everyone\u2019s attention \u2014 and rightly so. PARELES<\/p>\nBest Theatrical Pop Stars: Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Best Debut Grammy Performance: Joni Mitchell<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Best Surprise Roast: Jay-Z<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Worst Hip-Hop Comedown: Travis Scott<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Best Knowing Thyself: SZA<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Best Redemptive Elegies: In Memoriam<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Best New Cher: Miley Cyrus<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Worst Commercial for Las Vegas: U2<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Best \u2018About Time\u2019: Women Rule the Night<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Best Unannounced Performer: Tracy Chapman<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Best Unannounced Presenter: Celine Dion<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n