After an epic near four-hour ceremony, the 67th Annual Grammy Awards have just wrapped up in LA, with Beyonce finally taking out the first Album of the Year award of her career.
Bey faced stiff competition in a category filled with huge releases from pop divas: Mainstream breakthrough albums from Charli XCX (Brat) and Sabrina Carpenter (Short n’ Sweet), latest releases from Grammys favourites Taylor Swift (The Tortured Poets Department) and Billie Eilish (Hit Me Hard and Soft), and the debut from this year’s Best New Artist, Chappell Roan (The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess).
But Beyonce emerged triumphant, in a category she’s been nominated in four previous times and lost every time – for I Am … Sasha Fierce, self-titled, Lemonade and Renaissance.
Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and Kendrick Lamar were all big winners at the ceremony – you can scroll through our live blog of all the highlights below, and be sure to check out all the best (and weirdest – Jaden Smith wearing a house on his head? Bianca Censori, totally nude?) looks on the red carpet.
…Beyonce for Cowboy Carter. Fifth time lucky! After four previous nominations in the category, Beyonce’s finally taken out her first-ever Album of the Year win for this sprawling, multi-genre album.
And after waiting her whole career for this moment, she kept it brief, dedicating the award to Black country music pioneer Linda Martell and saying “I just hope we keep pushing forward, opening doors.”
This is perfect. We hadn’t seen Beyonce yet at all tonight (she skipped the red carpet and was nowhere to be seen in host Trevor Noah’s frequent roams through the audience), so the first glimpse we get of her is when none other than Taylor Swift announces her as the winner of the Best Country Album award for Cowboy Carter. She looks genuinely, properly shocked:
“I really was not expecting this… I sometimes think genre is a code word to keep us in our place,” she says, referencing the controversy that followed her decision to make an album in what is usually a very white genre. She’d already won Best Country Duo / Group Performance in the pre-televised ceremony, making her the first Black woman to win a country Grammy since the Pointer Sisters 50 years ago. Now, can she take out her first Album of the Year win? We’ll find out when that award is handed out after approximately 87 more performances…
Charli XCX delivered a hectic, celeb cameo-filled (oh hi, Julia Fox!) medley of highlights from the culture-conquering Brat album.
But she kinda missed a trick, performing her saucy Billie Eilish duet while Eilish watched on from the audience. No special Grammys duet? That’s so not Brat.
…Kendrick again! That’s Record AND Song of the Year for Kendrick Lamar’s Not Like Us, and yet more surreal scenes of an arena filled with all of music’s most powerful people dancing along to a Drake diss track with such savage, graphic lyrics as “certified Lover Boy? Certified pedophile…” Look, whether you’re Team Drake or Team Kendrick, a bop’s a bop.
Kendrick winning both awards in categories stacked with hits by pop girlies like Taylor, Chappell, Sabrina and Beyonce suggests those votes were quite split… Could we be seeing a surprise Andre 3000 / Jacob Collier win in the otherwise female-heavy Album of the Year category?
…Kendrick Lamar, for the brutal Drake diss track Not Like Us. Drake does not get a mention in the speech.
The song plays out as Lamar takes to the stage, and we’re treated to the slightly surreal sight of Beyonce absolutely bopping to a song dissing an artist she’s previously duetted with (on the 2013 track Mine). Let’s hope Drake wasn’t watching!
