The buzz leading up to the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards was centered on the scandalous ousting of Record Academy CEO Deborah Dugan, but by the time the awards actually took place Sunday, the focus had shifted. Instead, everyone inside Los Angeles’s Staples Center was cheering for
Billie Eilish, grieving for Kobe Bryant and Nipsey Hussle... and wondering if Aerosmith would ever be allowed on live television ever again.
Here are the highs, lows, and head-scratchers of
music’s biggest, strangest night.
See the complete list of winners.
HIGH: Billie Eilish makes Grammy herstoryOn Sunday, the goth-pop superstar, who just turned 18 last month, became the youngest Album of the Year winner ever — breaking the record previously held by Taylor Swift, who was 20 years old when she won for Fearless a decade ago. But even more astoundingly, Eilish became only the second artist in Grammy history, and the first female artist, to sweep all of the “Big Four” awards (Record, Album, and Song of the Year, plus Best New Artist) in a single ceremony — a feat that even past Grammy darlings like Amy Winehouse, Adele, and Sam Smith had failed to pull off in recent years.
“Thank you to the Recording Academy,” said Eilish’s producer, co-writer, and brother, Finneas O’Connell — who, at age 22, also made Grammy history as the youngest recipient of the Producer of the Year, Non-Classical award (for his work on Eilish’s debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?). “Thank you again to our team, our family, to the people that have supported us from the beginning. We didn't write a piece for this. We didn't make an album to win a Grammy. We wrote an album about depression, suicidal thoughts, climate change, and being the bad guy, whatever that means. We stand up here confused and grateful.”
LOW: Billie Eilish may now succumb to the “Christopher Cross curse”That one other artist who won the “Big Four,” 39 long years ago? It was soft-rocker Christopher Cross… whose career went downhill soon after the 1981 Grammys. “I don't think that sweep did him any favors. It kind of put a target on his back, and I would hate for something like that to happen with Billie,” Billboard’s awards editor and Grammys expert Paul Grein tells Yahoo Entertainment. “Nobody needs too much success and acclaim; it creates a backlash and inevitably makes people turn against you.” (Eilish’s Grammy sweep is a “low” for Cross as well, in a way, as he is officially no longer the definitive answer to a Trivial Pursuit question.)
HIGH and LOW: A heartbreaking tribute in the “house that Kobe built”“We never imagined in a million years we would have to start the show like this. Never, never, never, never, never,” host Alicia Keys said at the top of Sunday’s ceremony, only a few hours after news had broken that Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, had died in a helicopter crash. The mood inside the Staples Center — home of the Lakers, for whom Bryant played 20 years — was understandably somber, but Keys and Boyz II Men rallied to pay beautiful, tasteful tribute to the basketball superstar with an a cappella rendition of “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye.” At the end of the tear-jerking performance, the camera chillingly panned up to Bryant’s illuminated Lakers jerseys displayed on the Staples Center wall.
LOW: Aerosmith’s Joey Kramer gets the last laughEarlier this month, estranged Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer sued his bandmates of 50 years in an attempt to be allowed to perform with them at this Sunday’s Grammy Awards; the judge, however, ruled against him. But now, Kramer must be heaving a sigh of relief. Aerosmith’s shambolic, creaky number was plagued by horrific sound issues and seemed totally unrehearsed; even the charismatic Run-D.M.C., who joined in for “Walk This Way,” could not salvage this embarrassment, because Rev Run and Darryl McDaniels sounded like they were singing an entirely different song. And the train(wreck) kept a rollin’, when off-key Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler awkwardly pulled two unenthusiastic ladies onstage and tried to persuade them to do the side-to-side “Walk This Way” choreography. He should’ve just brought up Flavor Flav instead; the Public Enemy hypeman’s wild audience dancing was really the only enjoyable thing about this debacle.