Awards

Sometimes, it just all comes together. Maybe not in real life — particularly not in a year whose first month has already seen two major plane crashes on the East Coast, large portions of the West Coast going up in flames, and the entire country being subjected to dehumanizing new policies and legislation meant to undo generations’ worth of societal progress. But in music and culture, occasionally you are lucky enough to get moments where it feels like everything is just about where it should be, like you’re witnessing both history in real time, and possibly also the start of a better future. Sometimes it can even happen on a stage as historically contentious as that of the Grammys.

The 2025 Grammys were probably always going to be a little bit special, just given the incredibly high caliber of artists present as the biggest nominees, performers and even presenters — an everybody-in-the-pool year for Music’s Biggest Night that had the Recording Academy working with one of its biggest head starts in ages. But the combination of potentially narrative-derailing award pratfalls and (much more importantly) the real-life tragedy transpiring in its backyard had these Grammys under even more pressure than usual to Get It Right, as much as any award show ever can. And from maximizing the sky-high performance potential of the artists on the docket, to hitting most of the appropriate big and small notes in addressing the heavier concerns understandably weighing down the buoyant festivities, to picking a slate of winners that felt much more triumphant and cathartic than confusing and disappointing, the Grammys got it right this year. And the impact of that ended up being surprisingly profound.

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For a ceremony that many observers both locally and nationally thought she be delayed if not canceled outright in the wake of the fires that devastated so much of California, this year’s Grammys were wise to acknowledge the catastrophic loss and sense of community perseverance throughout the evening. From the beginning Dawes-led performance of Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” to the CA firefighters who handed out the final award of the evening — and countless fundraising reminders and commercials aired to support local businesses aired in between — the Recording Academy and host Trevor Noah never let the fires totally recede to the background of the festivities, but also never came off too ham-fisted in their intimations towards true seriousness in an event still mostly devoted to music industry froth. Combined with the high percentage of legendary locals in attendance — including some of the night’s big winners — it made the evening and its message of support feel genuine and purposeful, not just a glittering distraction.

But oh, there was glitter, and glitz and glamour and all the spectacle that pop offers at its best and sparkliest. Sabrina Carpenter offered her continually improving updated take on Madonna at her most Marilyn Monroe-obsessed — but with a healthy dose of Groucho Marx also thrown in — on a stunning and occasionally side-splitting mashing of “Espresso” and “Please Please Please.” Chappell Roan and a whole bunch of cowboy clowns brought Crypto.com Arena to Wild, Wild West Hollywood with a pitch-perfect performance of “Pink Pony Club,” confirming the song one more time as a generational anthem. And while some recent Grammys have frontloaded their lineups to a degree that became increasingly unforgivable as the hours dragged on, the 2025 awards smartly held Charli XCX’s Grammy debut for the night’s final performance, as she went full dance-floor decadence with her predictably incendiary, underwear-forward “Von Dutch” and “Guess” medley — a rare are they really allowed to do this? Grammy moment that was well worth sticking deep into the 11:00 ET hour for.

The current pop vanguard definitely led the way at the 2025 awards, but the veteran class also held its own on the Grammy stage. Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga wisely eschewed another victory-lap performance of current Billboard Hot 100-topping duet “Die With a Smile” to instead deliver a one-night-only acoustic duet on The Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreamin’,” with a beautifully understated arrangement and vocal interplay that sweetly complemented their singular vocal abilities and developing chemistry. Conversely, you kinda wished The Weeknd had more of a no-doubter smash to play for his surprise return to the Grammys stage — though “Cry for Me” and “Timeless” from the just-released Hurry Up Tomorrow have their charms, no one’s confusing them for “Blinding Lights” and “Save Your Tears,” especially during such a moment — but it was still quite gratifying to see Abel making nice with the Grammys, and looking like King of the World again as he begins what many expect to be his potential final career chapter as The Weeknd. And while the all-star tribute to the late legend Quincy Jones stretched far longer than is usually advisable for an all-star Grammy tribute, the wildly varied nature of the many Grammy longtimers involved (from Herbie Hancock to Lainey Wilson to Janelle Monáe) actually ended up painting a pretty full picture of Jones’ genre-and-generation-spanning impact.

The most heartening part of the evening, however, belonged to the still-rising stars. A best new artist nominee medley — not in the old-school, everyone-at-once, Franz Ferdinand-colliding-with-Black-Eyed-Peas Grammy sense, but more of a carefully plotted, quick-moving showcase — brilliantly demonstrated the dazzling talents of this year’s class, including the vocal fireworks of Raye and Teddy Swims, the athleticism and showmanship of Benson Boone and a particularly scorching Doechii, and the lower-key likability of Shaboozey. (Carpenter and Roan were understandably given their entire own spotlight moments, while psych-rock power trio Khruangbin — who delivered perhaps the most resolutely chill performance in Grammys history — was held to 60 seconds of bumper music, likely for momentum reasons.) It was a near-embarrassment of riches for one category, and while not every year can be this strong a BNA class, you hope that the Grammys will continue with this performance model in future years; it was a great way to introduce five big new talents at once without shortchanging any of them.

With so many major performance moments, the awards could’ve felt like an afterthought some years — but not in 2025, following one of the most packed years in recent pop music history, with seemingly all the biggest artists going against one another in all the biggest categories. And the spread of winners was basically a satisfying one for pop fans: Roan and Carpenter picked up one televised award each (for best new artist and best pop vocal album, respectively), acknowledging their game-changing contributions to pop’s massive year without anointing either one the unquestioned queen of the moment. Charli picked up a couple dance Grammys but was shut out of the big four; as her electric not-safe-for-parents final performance further established, she’s better off sticking a little left-of-center as far as the mainstream is concerned anyway. Fans of Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish might take umbrage at their respective 0-fers, but as two of the most decorated artists in recent Grammy history — really all Grammy history at this point — it’s hard to imagine two pop stars who’d be more quintessentially Fine following such a shutout.

In most Grammy years this past decade, this would be the point where we’d interrupt discussions of the winners to go “Ah, yes, but where’s the hip-hop?” Not this year: both song of the year and record of the year went to Kendrick Lamar for “Not Like Us,” just the second rap song to ever win in either category (following Childish Gambino’s double-winner “This Is America” in 2019). It was an overdue acknowledgment of an all-time artist who’d somehow never won in the Big Four categories before, and who certainly deserved it for his biggest and arguably best single to date — though an arena full of industry cognoscenti rapping along to lyrics accusing the defining rapper of the 2010s being a pedophile will never not be surreal. In any event, while rap was still in relatively short supply on the evening — outside of Doechii’s star turn (and best rap album win for Alligator Bites Never Heal), the only other rapper to perform was Playboi Carti, as a guest of The Weeknd — it’s fun to go one Grammys without having to ding the Academy for once again going the entirety of Music’s Biggest Night without properly recognizing music’s biggest genre.

And speaking of unfortunate Grammy narratives it’s nice to not have to brace once more this year, here’s one we basically never have to worry about again: Beyonce has finally won album of the year. With Cowboy Carter taking home the night’s top prize, the one remaining hole in the resumé of pop’s preeminent albums artist (and the Grammys’ all-time biggest winner) has officially been filled. Had any other nominated album — many of them also deserving winners in their own right — taken home the trophy, there still would’ve been an unpleasant aftertaste of Yet Again Not Beyoncé that would’ve lingered far beyond the ceremony. Whether or not you agree that Cowboy Carter was the best album of the year, or the best candidate for the first Bey album to actually win AOTY, you had to feel at least a little bit good about this historical snub — the story of which has loomed over the Grammys for a solid decade now — finally being made right after so many missed opportunities.

By the way, a quick note about Cowboy Carter: Beyoncé has absolutely nothing to apologize for by winning with this album. Some future accountings of these Grammys may paint the win as an undeserving one, coming past Bey’s commercial and artistic prime with an album not up to her peak standards, à la so many other questionable winners from early-21st century Grammys history. So let us say quite plainly from the present: bulls–t. This was a Billboard 200-topping album with a Hot 100-topping lead single, which posted the best first week of 2024 outside of anyone but the fellow pop legend who presented Beyoncé best country album on Sunday night. Moreover, it was a brilliant project that was unanimously acclaimed upon release, one that both excavated genre history and pushed it forward in real time, with a handful of the year’s finest pop, country and/or Americana songs and some of the most thoughtful and inspired structuring and pacing of any LP in recent memory. It was our editorial staff’s No. 2 album of last year. If it’s not your particular glass of whiskey then fair enough, but don’t you dare paint Cowboy Carter as Beyoncé’s own Morning Phase — Bey may be in a similar place in her Grammy arc to where Beck was 10 years ago (which likely helped her win here), but when you’re comparing the two in terms of commercial potency, critical adoration and cultural vitality, we promise that 2015 Beck doesn’t want to take it to the floor with Cowboy Carter.

Anyway, closing the loop on long-unresolved Grammy narratives is nice and all, but that’s not really what made these Grammys so resonant. The biggest reason for that was the feeling that these Grammys were kinda what every pop fan watching probably needed right now. Which is a nauseatingly hackneyed and clichéd — not to mention stupefyingly reductive — type of statement to make about any kind of art or entertainment, of course. But it maybe still sorta fits here. These Grammys were celebratory and comforting and exultant in a surprisingly uncomplicated and non-divisive way; even if you didn’t agree with all or most of the winners it’s hard to imagine leaving this year’s telecast not feeling at least a little bit better about the music world — maybe even the world in general — than you did before.

That went beyond the performers and the winners. While the Noah-led broadcast unsurprisingly steered clear of making any grand political or partisan statements, many of the artists involved took the opportunity to speak up at this year’s awards. Chappell Roan used her best new artist acceptance speech to demand labels provide health care and liveable wages for developing artists, while earlier on the red carpet, she spoke in support of the trans community. Roan pop progenitor Lady Gaga further preached that message on the telecast, using her own “Die With a Smile” win (for best duo/group performance) to proclaim “Trans people are not invisible.” And Alicia Keys took time while accepting the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award to speak in defiance of the current administration’s continued scapegoating of DEI as a cultural ill: “This is not the time to shut down the diversity of voices… DEI is not a threat, it’s a gift,” she preached. “This room is unstoppable.”  

The artist community took some lumps following the results of the November election, as the endorsement of so many A-listers ended up ultimately not making nearly enough of a difference in the race’s outcome. It was easy to take those results as reason to further bemoan the Hollywood bubble, and to label some of those artists (if not the entire industry) as out of touch with the real world — and maybe there’s something to that. But the flip side of that is a night like Sunday, where the magic on display from so many of these incredible artists and the joy they all at least seemed to really take in celebrating one another can be legitimately inspiring, and galvanizing, and soothing. Keys’ words felt particularly powerful because the night of diverse performances and winners did feel like a gift. And on Sunday night, the artist community actually felt something like a proper community, one capable of uniting and building and offering support and stability to those who need it — at a time when a whole lot of people, both locally and nationally, really really f–king need it.

Does that really make the room unstoppable, though? Probably not: The calamities outside the Crypto.com Arena were certainly still present following the near-four-hour broadcast, and while some of them are finally becoming contained, to others there’s no obvious end in sight. If the power of music, and the diverse community of artists who create it, was truly unstoppable, it probably would have demonstrated that a little more clearly back in November. But at the very least, it was awesome to have one Grammy night of stellar performances, of deserving winners, of such little inherent drama or divisiveness that it felt like the room was all together in the fight, more focused on battling what was going outside that room than on sparring with one another within it. It felt like a reminder of something good and important. It felt like music’s biggest night.