Key events
Adrian Horton
Olivia Rodrigo fans rejoice: the phenom crushed a performance of Vampire soaked in red – scarlet floor-length silk gown, lipstick and plenty of fake blood. And for you conspiracy theorists who believe a good portion of Guts is about Taylor Swift – she was standing and singing along to this one, too.
WINNER: SZA, Snooze — best R&B song
Adrian Horton
The first telecast win (and third award) for SZA, the night’s top nominee, who runs onto stage with a glowing iPhone in hand. “I’m out of breath because I was changing and then I took a shot,” she says before shouting out presenter Lizzo, whom she has known since a 2013 Redbull tour performing for “rooms of like 100 people.”
Overwhelmed with emotion, SZA chokes out “I came really, really far and I can’t believe this is happening, it feels really fake – hi Taylor!” (to Swift, naturally) before signing off with “I’m not an attractive cryer. Have a good evening!”
WINNER: Lainey Wilson, Bell Bottom Country – best country album
Adrian Horton
“This is absolutely wild, y’all,” says Lainey Wilson upon her first-ever Grammy win, for best country album.
Noting that she’s a fifth-generation farmer’s daughter from a town of 200 or so in north-east Louisiana, the 31-year-old country singer compares her career to “story farming” – “it’s about getting up every single day and planting those seeds and watering them and watching them grow. And sometimes when you find the right farmers’ community, you can have the harvest of a lifetime.”
Adrian Horton
In a pre-taped interview, Miley says she’s only performing her smash hit Flowers live for the first time (she’s done two private concert renditions) because she wants to wake up on 5 February and watch a video of herself singing it, and the subsequent performance is appropriately enthusiastic, feeling herself.
“Why are you guys pretending you don’t know this song?” she says at one point, which at least gets Taylor Swift, Oprah and Kylie Minogue on their feet. Miley also shouts out her first-ever Grammy win (!) and, proving that she is one of the best live performers of her generation, launches into a refrain of “I can love me better” that clearly honors the late, great Tina Turner (the big hair makes more sense now!).
Adrian Horton
Here’s a clip from that lovely Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs duet of Fast Car, which led to several misty eyes in the audience:
Adrian Horton
The lights turn pink and Billie Eilish transports us back to Barbie world with a performance of What Was I Made For? She’s accompanied by her brother and producer Finneas on the piano, a bevy of string instruments and a Chanel-esque getup that looks like a disguise in a comedy movie.
Adrian Horton
SZA is here! The night’s top nominee skipped the red carpet but took the stage for a rendition of her tracks Snooze and Kill Bill, looking like a detective from a noir crime drama and complete with a mock duel on stage. The highlight has to be a saber-wielding assassin/dancer flexing her skills on a table occupied by a clearly delighted Phoebe Bridgers and Victoria Monét.
WINNER: Karol G, Mañana Será Bonito – best música urbana album
Adrian Horton
“I’m Karol G, and I’m from Colombia,” says the first-time winner (and first-time attendee!) for her global hit album Mañana Será Bonito. Sporting a visible bikini-top tan (love), the singer thanks her fans – “I promise you to give you my best, always.”
Adrian Horton
In one of the night’s most hyped performances, Tracy Chapman takes the stage for a rendition of Fast Car with country star Luke Combs, whose cover of the 1988 track topped the charts this summer, making Chapman the first Black woman to score a sole songwriting credit on a No 1 country hit. In a pre-taped interview, Combs sweetly noted that the beloved track was his “favorite song before I knew what a favorite song was”.
It’s Chapman’s first public performance in years – she sounds amazing and the goodwill is clear, drawing a standing ovation from Taylor Swift (singing along, of course), Oprah and a misty-eyed Brandi Carlile.
WINNER: Miley Cyrus, Flowers – best pop solo performance
Adrian Horton
Miley Cyrus claims the first award of the evening – best pop solo performance – for Flowers, arguably the biggest hit of her career to date and one of the most pervasive tracks of 2023. She notes the rain-soaked traffic – apparently she feared she would miss the show – and goes into a belabored story about a butterfly landing on a boy’s nose that is the meaning of the song to her, or something.
