Media reports today that Taylor Swift won’t perform on the 2024 Grammy telecast, which is set for Sunday (Feb. 4), are a big blow to the Recording Academy, CBS and Swift’s many fans. Swift’s apparent decision also runs counter to the usual pattern when an artist dominates a year the way Swift owned 2023.
Swift dominance over last year’s pop scene was confirmed when she was declared Billboard’s Greatest Pop Star of 2023 in December. Since the turn of the century, the vast majority of artists who received that accolade have performed on the Grammy telecast just a month or two later.
That stands to reason. The music business loves winners – and the artists who dominate the year are usually nominated for top-tier Grammys. And those nominees are usually invited to perform on the show. And those artists usually, but not always, accept those invitations. A Grammy performance when you’re at the pinnacle of your success is something to go in the time capsule (known as YouTube) to be played pretty much forever.
But Swift will be content to sit in the audience at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Sunday to be on hand to accept a trophy should one or more come her way. Jennifer Lopez, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran and Drake also did not perform on the Grammy telecasts that followed their chart-crowning years. Some may not have been asked. Others may have declined. Sheeran had performed his nominated hit “Shape of You” on the telecast the previous year, when it was a brand-new single.
Billboard explained the concept behind the Greatest Pop Star of the Year project when it was launched in 2020. “Mostly, we’re looking for the pop star that best defines each year; the one whose impact was most deeply felt across the most spaces. … It’s not just hit singles and bestselling albums. It’s music videos, it’s live performances, it’s image, it’s headlines and controversy and cultural impact and overall ubiquity. It’s the answer to the question, ‘Could you have lived through this year without having an opinion on this artist?’”
The project retroactively went back to 1981, the year of MTV’s launch, but we’ll just take it back to the turn of the century. Here are the artists who were declared Billboard’s Greatest Pop Star of the Year from 1999 to the present and whether or not they performed on the next Grammy telecast.
-
1999: Britney Spears
Telecast Date: Feb. 23, 2000
Did She Perform?: Yes
Notes: Spears, a best new artist nominee that year, performed “From the Bottom of My Broken Heart” and “…Baby One More Time.”
-
2000: *NSYNC
Telecast Date: Feb. 21, 2001
Did They Perform? Yes
Notes: The boy band performed “This I Promise You” — rather than their record of the year nominee “Bye Bye Bye” — near the top of the show, just after Madonna opened the proceedings with “Music.”
-
2001: Jennifer Lopez
Telecast Date: Feb. 27, 2002
Did She Perform? No
Notes: While J.Lo didn’t perform that year, she had stolen the show two years earlier when she presented an award wearing a very low-cut green dress that was held together by a broach and a prayer. Bonus points if you remember the name of her co-presenter (David Duchovny) or the category they presented (best R&B album).
-
2002: Eminem
Telecast Date: Feb. 23, 2003
Did He Perform? Yes
Notes: Em performed “Lose Yourself” near the top of the show. The performance probably helped him clinch the Oscar one month later, when “Lose Yourself” became the first hip-hop song to win best original song. Because of different eligibility periods between the two shows, “Lose Yourself” wasn’t Grammy-eligible until the following year, when it was nominated for record and song of the year. The Grammys let him perform the smash ahead of its eligibility to get the song while it was hot — and to scoop the Oscars.
-
2003: Beyoncé
Telecast Date: Feb. 8, 2004
Did She Perform? Yes
Notes: Beyoncé opened the show in tandem with Prince. They performed his Purple Rain classics “Purple Rain,” “Baby I’m a Star” and “Let’s Go Crazy” and her recent No. 1 hit “Crazy in Love” (a record of the year nominee on the night). Later in the show, she returned to perform “Dangerously in Love 2.”
-
2004: Usher
Telecast Date: Feb. 13, 2005
Did He Perform? Yes
Notes: Usher teamed with R&B GOAT James Brown to perform Usher’s “Caught Up” (a track from his album of the year nominee Confessions) and Brown’s 1970 smash “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine.” The Godfather of Soul died less than two years later.
-
2005: Kanye West
Telecast Date: Feb. 8, 2006
Did He Perform? Yes
Notes: West performed “Gold Digger” and “Touch the Sky” in a segment that included Jamie Foxx, who had won an Oscar a year earlier for his portrayal of Ray Charles, and the Florida A&M University Marching 100. Foxx had backed West on his smash “Gold Digger,” a Grammy nominee for record of the year. Both that song and “Touch the Sky” were featured on his album of the year nominee Late Registration.
-
2006: Justin Timberlake
Telecast Date: Feb. 11, 2007
Did He Perform? Yes
Notes: JT had two performance spots in the show. Early on, he performed “What Goes Around…Comes Around,” a track from his album of the year nominee FutureSex/LoveSounds. The single would be a record of the year nominee the following year. Near the end of the show, he teamed with T.I. and Robyn Troup, the winner of the “My Grammy Moment” contest, to perform Bill Withers’ 1971 classic “Ain’t No Sunshine” and his own T.I.-featuring hit “My Love” (another hit from FutureSex).
-
2007: Rihanna
Telecast Date: Feb. 10, 2008
Did She Perform? Yes
Notes: Rihanna performed in a segment with The Time. They did RiRi’s “Umbrella” (a record and song of the year nominee) and “Don’t Stop the Music” and The Time’s 1984 hit “Jungle Love.”
-
2008: Lil Wayne
Telecast Date: Feb. 8, 2009
Did He Perform? Yes
Notes: Lil Wayne performed “Tie My Hands,” a track from his album of the year nominee Tha Carter III, in a segment which also featured Robin Thicke, Terence Blanchard and Allen Toussaint. Earlier in the show , he teamed with T.I., Jay-Z, Kanye West and a very pregnant M.I.A. to perform “Swagga Like Us.” M.I.A. wasn’t featured on that record, but was in the house to perform her nominated smash “Paper Planes.”
-
2009: Lady Gaga
Telecast Date: Jan. 31, 2010
Did She Perform? Yes
Notes: Gaga opened the show in tandem with Elton John. The segment featured her “Poker Face” (a record and song of the year nominee) and “Speechless” (a song from her EP The Fame Monster, an album of the year nominee the following year) and his 1971 classic “Your Song.”
-
2010: Katy Perry
Telecast Date: Feb. 13, 2011
Did She Perform? Yes
Notes: She performed “Not Like the Movies” and “Teenage Dream,” both from her album of the year nominee Teenage Dream.
-
2011: Adele
Telecast Date: Feb. 12, 2012
Did She Perform? Yes
Notes: She performed “Rolling in the Deep,” the night’s record of the year winner (from album of the year winner 21). This was the highest-rated Grammy telecast in decades, due both to Adele’s huge popularity and also the tragic death the day before of Whitney Houston, whose entire career essentially unfolded on the Grammy stage.
-
2012: Rihanna
Telecast Date: Feb. 10, 2013
Did She Perform? Yes
Notes: Rihanna teamed with Mikky Ekko to perform their hit “Stay.” Later in the show, she joined Bruno Mars, Sting and Damian and Ziggy Marley in a tribute to reggae legend Bob Marley.
-
2013: Miley Cyrus
Telecast Date: Jan. 26, 2014
Did She Perform? No
Notes: The Grammys were late to the Miley party. She landed her first nomination that year – best pop vocal album for Bangerz — but nothing in the Big Three categories – album, record or song of the year. The Grammys didn’t get fully on board until this year, when Cyrus was nominated in each of those categories.
-
2014: Beyoncé
Telecast Date: Feb. 8, 2015
Did She Perform? Yes
Notes: An album of the year nominee for the surprise-drop Beyoncé, the superstar performed the next-to-last song of the night, the gospel standard “Take My Hand, Precious Lord.” She had opened the previous year’s telecast, in tandem with Jay-Z, with a performance of the Beyoncé standout “Drunk in Love.”
-
2015: Taylor Swift
Telecast Date: Feb. 15, 2016
Did She Perform? Yes
Notes: Swift opened the show with “Out of the Woods,” the sixth single from 1989, which later that night made her the first female artist to win album of the year twice as a lead artist.
-
2016: Justin Bieber
Telecast Date: Feb. 12, 2017
Did He Perform? No
Notes: Bieber didn’t perform on the show even though he was nominated in two of the Big Four categories – album of the year for Purpose and song of the year for “Love Yourself.”
-
2017: Ed Sheeran
Telecast Date: Jan. 28, 2018
Did He Perform? No
Notes: Sheeran won two Grammys on the telecast, including best pop solo performance for “Shape of You.” He had performed that song on the previous year’s telecast.
-
2018: Drake
Telecast Date: Feb. 10, 2019
Did He Perform? No
Notes: Drake was nominated in the top three categories for his album Scorpion and his smash hit “God’s Plan.” But here’s the thing: At the time he had to say yes or no to performing on this show, Drake had won just three Grammys — and zero in the all-genre Big Four categories — which he (understandably) felt was a low tally for an artist of his accomplishments. He won a fourth award that night for “God’s Plan” (best rap song). And he has since won a fifth for Future’s “Wait for U,” on which he was featured, along with Tems (best melodic rap performance).
-
2019: Ariana Grande
Telecast Date: Jan. 26, 2020
Did She Perform? Yes
Notes: Grande performed parts of four songs in her segment – her songs “Imagine,” “7 Rings” and “Thank U, Next” (all from her album of the year nominee Thank U, Next) and a bit of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “My Favorite Things,” which was interpolated in “Rings,” also a record of the year nominee.
-
2020: BTS
Telecast Date: March 14, 2021
Did They Perform? Yes
Notes: The K-pop sensations gave the next-to-last performance of the night with “Dynamite,” their first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.
-
2021: Taylor Swift
Telecast Date: April 3, 2022
Did She Perform? No
Notes: On this telecast, Swift made history as the first woman to win album of the year three times. So why didn’t she perform? She had performed two songs from the winning album, Folklore, on the previous year’s telecast, along with one song from her follow-up album, Evermore. Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner had joined her in the 2021 performance.
-
2022: Bad Bunny
Telecast Date: Feb. 5, 2023
Did He Perform? Yes
Notes: Bunny opened the show with “El Apagón” and “Después de la Playa.” Both songs were featured on El Verano Sin Ti, which was the first Spanish-language album to receive a Grammy nod for album of the year.
-
2023: Taylor Swift
Telecast Date: Feb. 4, 2024
Will She Perform? No (according to multiple media reports)
Notes: Swift is nominated in each of Big Three categories. If she wins album of the year for Midnights, she’ll become the first four-time winner in the history of the category. If she wins record and/or song of the year for “Anti-Hero,” those would be her first wins in those categories.
