Grammy Awards: Music’s Biggest Night

By Lucas Huss 

Every year, the Grammy Awards ceremony takes place, celebrating the greatest and most notable artists from the prior year and awards them for their talent or impact on the social platform. This year, the ceremony took place on February 4th. The ceremony this year was controversial, but with many artists taking home well deserved awards.

The event was emcee’d by Trevor Noah, providing truly funny jokes and hospitality to winners and the audience, unlike Jo Koy at the Golden Globes earlier this year. With numerous musical performances by notable performers such as more modern personalities like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo, the audience and viewers were left stunned by the singers’ immense skill on the piano in addition to their powerful voices. Not only young artists performed however, with veteran musician Joni Mitchell putting on an incredible rendition of her song, “Both Sides, Now,” after receiving her award for Best Folk Album, almost 50 years after her first nomination for the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, and 54 years after her first win, also in the Best Folk Album category. 

Joni Mitchell’s win was largely agreed-upon, as she has been in the business of folk music for decades and has consistently been producing high quality music. However, many other categories were contested: Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Best Pop Solo Performance, and Song of the Year. 

Record of the Year was won by Miley Cyrus for her song “Flowers,” which was seen as an unearned win by a lot of fans of other musicians. Other contenders for this award were “Not Strong Enough” by the supergroup Boygenius, who took home three other awards, “Vampire” by Olivia Rodrigo, who received six nominations for numerous categories, “Anti-Hero” by Taylor Swift, who won Best Pop Solo Performance and Album of the Year.

Personally, my favorite recipient of the night was Boygenius, who won 3 awards: Best Rock Performance, for their song “Not Strong Enough.” This song also won Best Rock Song, a highly coveted and desired award. This reception as an alternative rock group upset some rock fans, as they were both an all-woman group, which was protested by many misogynistic viewers, in addition to being put up against more experienced and well-known artists, like the Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters, or even The Rolling Stones. Finally, Boygenius won Best Alternative Music Album, to the ire of Lana Del Rey fans, and to a lesser extent, the discontent of Gorillaz and Arctic Monkeys fans.

Largely, the Grammy Awards ceremony this year was successful, as many long-performing and songwriting artists took home well deserved awards. However, people are always bound to be upset when their favorite artists do not win awards. Ultimately, we should see the successes of others as an opportunity to improve and soar further.