Something unsettling is happening. The Grammys are... good now? Is that possible? It's not just that the winners of the big awards all generally make sense. Maybe the Grammy voters don't necessarily land on the winners that you personally would've chosen. Maybe it's telling that they finally awarded Beyoncé the big trophy for going country and making something like her sixth-best album. But the show, always the most embarrassing night to be an obsessive follower of popular music, seems to be reinventing itself as a pretty right-on display of the things that are actually happening in pop this very moment. That's disorienting. That's not supposed to happen.
The Grammys are supposed to be a confused, out-of-touch, prestige-drunk shitshow -- the Oscars, but for an industry that's even more permanently confused and perpetually at war with itself over the image that it wants to present to the public. Last night, though, the old guard and the emerging stars seemed to work together in harmony, celebrating work that's both widely popular and actually good, from a music-critic perspective. We can see that in last night's winners, and we can also see it in the way that the telecast played out.
For maybe the first time in my entire life, I was not bored once when I watched last night's Grammys broadcast. That doesn't mean that I was transported with delight the entire time. The Grammys will always be at least a little bit annoying and self-impressed. It's great that the show's producers worked overtime to raise money for people affected by the LA wildfires, but those fundraising efforts sometimes crossed into tearjerker-telethon territory. And we're always going to get glossy balladry and all-star tribute clusterfuck medleys. Those are staples, and I'm not even sure I want that to change.
But last night's show was remarkably brisk and intentional, even as it ran perilously close to four hours. The producers have figured out that they should put fun, high-energy performances at the end, if only to help keep viewers awake. They've cut down on forced big-name "Grammy Moment" collaborations, and they've grasped the importance of showcasing major rising stars at the moments that they should be showcased. All eight of last night's Best New Artist nominees performed on the show, for instance, and most of them got to do grand, theatrical productions. Many of them did great! Good job, new kids! Lots of those new stars make music about being messy and fucked-up. Paradoxically enough, their performances were a whole lot more polished than plenty of the pros who usually get the spotlight on nights like this.
On last night's show, plenty of the A-list superstars in the building did not perform. Taylor Swift and Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar and Jay-Z were all there, but they didn't feel like they needed to put on a show. Some of the megawatt stars who did perform, like the team of Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars, kept things relatively low-key, which allowed the ascendant artists to shine brighter. That means that this year's show will stand as a crowning moment for some of the artists who seem destined to stay on top for years to come. And even in the slowest moments of the night, there was at least something up there that made it worth watching. As we always do on the day after the Grammys, let's go through all of last night's performances, from worst to first.
16. Chris Martin
This isn't even Chris Martin's fault, really. It's not that he didn't play cold enough. It's that someone needs to sing a big-hearted hopeful dirge while the producers show pictures of people who died in the past year. It doesn't really matter what it is, but something has to play while I sit there like "OK good, they got Steve Albini and Rich Homie Quan in there." The song was never going to be any good, and it wasn't. This time, though, it was a relatively quiet and unobtrusive form of not-good, so that's something.
15. Dawes with John Legend, Brad Paisley, Sheryl Crow, Brittany Howard, & St. Vincent
They have to do this, right? Whenever the Grammys coincide with an actual tragic event, the producers have to scramble to find some heartwarming way to acknowledge it through the magic of music, no matter how hacky and obvious it might be. But "I Love LA" is supposed to be satirical, right? Isn't that the whole idea? So when you're playing that song about actually loving LA, changing the lyrics to salute the firefighters and whatnot, does it actually do anything for anyone? Even if you sing it in a half-decent Randy Newman impression? I don't know, man. That's the historic Grammy proposition: Things that make sense, at least in theory, if you don't think about them for more than five seconds. Also, I'm sure there's some reason that Mandy Moore wasn't up there, but I feel like Mandy Moore should've been up there. And if Sheryl Crow is going to be part of your Los Angeles, tribute, you should probably find a way to have her do the "this is Elllll-Lay!" part of "All I Wanna Do."
14. Teddy Swims
I still can't believe he looks like that. I've never seen the combination of in-ear monitors and gigantic gauges before. It's... disconcerting. The guy can sing, in the most "token rock contestant on singing show" type of way. But as a confirmed non-fan of his one big hit, I'm just not in the market for a version of Adele who looks like a mugger that gets beat up by a Ninja Turtle.
13. Shaboozey
Great suit. Beautiful suit.
12. Khruangbin
They only got what, 45 seconds? But that was a smooth 45 seconds. I like the idea of broadcasting a quick jolt of a band that does not work in quick-jolt form. By the time you even start to notice the blissful little mood setting in, it's over.
11. RAYE
Part of me was hoping RAYE would win Best New Artist, just so that she could dedicate it to her Blake incarcerated. She really steered into the Amy Winehouse tribute-act accusations on this one, but even the tribute-act version of Amy Winehouse is perfect for the Grammy stage. That final note was tremendous.
10. Billie Eilish with Finneas
"Birds Of A Feather" is a nice and pleasant song, and Eilish sang it nicely and pleasantly on a stage made up to look like one of those parts in Los Angeles where people go hiking. It was nice, and it was also pleasant, but it wasn't exactly bewitching television. Here is an indefensible statement that I strongly believe: If Billie Eilish is going to dress like she's in a 2005 Nextel-chirp commercial, everyone else in her band should dress like that, too. They should be up there looking like Da Franchize Boyz.
9. Bruno Mars & Lady Gaga
It's kind of cool for two gigantic stars to come up onstage and sing a cover when they could've done the current #1 song in America. These two can both really, really sing, and "California Dreamin'" is a better song than "Die With A Smile." The vibe was a little bit "American Idol performance that the judges praise as being very original," but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's also fun to see two chameleonic superstars when they're right in the middle of new-era makeovers. Gaga's current haircut is pretty much Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction if she sang for a late-'90s math-rock band with two keyboard players. I like it. I might've ranked this one higher, but it had to follow the LA-fire misery montage, and it's hard to feel properly entertained after something like that.
8. Herbie Hancock, Cynthia Erivo, Lainey Wilson, Jacob Collier, Stevie Wonder, & Janelle Monaé
This show was obviously going to fit in an aggressively tasteful tribute to Quincy Jones at some point, and this was as dizzily middlebrow as anything that would've been on the show a decade ago. But it was the right kind of dizzily middlebrow. It had joy and energy, and it seemed to weave drunkenly around, as if to make room for the whims of all the extremely talented people involved. They got Stevie Wonder to sing "We Are The World" with a kids' choir, for instance, but only after he'd already played "Bluesette" on harmonica, and only after he got to insist that he didn't recommend the widely-reported Swahili chant. The performers all got chances to show out -- even Lainey Wilson, who really got thrown into the deep end but who kept her head above water. Cynthia Erivo was hitting crazy notes up there. Janelle Monaé really did all that impossible Michael Jackson footwork. I didn't catch this until later, but when she threw her suit coat into the crowd, Taylor Swift caught it and then wore it for the rest of the night. That's fun! Will Smith didn't really perform in the tribute; he just announced. Still, I respect the decision to put him back on live TV during an awards show. It helped keep things interesting.
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7. Chappell Roan
On paper, this was the motherfucking shit. "Pink Pony Club" rocks. I am rooting hard for Chappell Roan, and I love to see any evidence that she still enjoys performing popular music in front of crowds of people. Her voice is immaculate live, and she radiates presence. If you're going to fill a show with tributes to the city of Los Angeles, then you should make them fun and inventive, not staid and dutiful, and this fit the bill. We want to see a pop star seize her moment and put on a memorable show, and Roan did that. The lighting during the guitars solo was sick. I just have a thing where I don't really like looking at rodeo clowns, so this was a bumpy ride for me. That's probably a personal failing on my part. When all of our biggest pop stars are total theater kids, this kind of thing is just going to happen. You can't fight it; you just have to accept it. I accept you, rodeo clowns.
?| Chappell Roan’s full performance of "Pink Pony Club" tonight! pic.twitter.com/BlEqFgBzC5
— Chappell Roan Now (@ChappellRoanNow) February 3, 2025
6. Benson Boone
This caught me off-guard! It's objectively funny to throw all the miscellaneous not-quite-as-famous Best New Artist nominees into one breathless montage, but the concept works a lot better when you've got a kid like this setting it all off. I don't think Benson Boone really has songs, but the kid does have juice. The surprised look when his music started? The tearaway tux with the way-too-tight '70s jumpsuit on underneath, and the subsequent on-camera junk adjustment at the end of the performance? The crazy Tony Jaa flips he kept hitting? He's fun to watch, and on a show like the Grammys, "fun to watch" can get you everywhere.
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5. The Weeknd with Playboi Carti
This was the one true surprise performance that wasn't even on the network rundown before the show began. The Weeknd has been ostentatiously boycotting the Grammys for years, and I'm pretty sure he's back now because he's got a new album and a stadium tour that align with the timing of the show and because his commercial profile has dimmed to the point where he needs the boost, not because the Grammys are suddenly good now. That said, the Grammys are suddenly good now, and the Weeknd knows how to put on a spectacle. On this night, the Grammy telecast was a great vehicle for that spectacle. The Weeknd up on a pyramid, bathed in red light, while faceless poor unfortunate souls krump underneath him? That's good shit. Playboi Carti didn't do much, but for someone who doesn't really play the music-business game, he has now performed on two Grammy telecasts in a row. Maybe he's not quite the outsider that he pretends to be.
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4. Shakira
This was good, right? I slipped into a catatonic trance the moment that it started, but I was in a floaty and blissful state when I woke up, so I'm pretty sure it was good. That soccer player really blew it.
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3. Charli XCX
She gets out of the limo, someone hands her a flute of champagne, and she waits a beat before carelessly flinging it over her shoulder, undrunk. That's beautiful. When Charli did the host/musical guest combo on Saturday Night Live a little while ago, her Brat songs did not make the transition unscathed, and there was no guarantee that she could bring them to the Grammys without looking corny as hell. But she pulled it off, stalking through the parking garage and staging a proudly sleazy freak party onstage on a telecast that has always needed more sleazy-freak-party excitement. Shout out to the Grammy producers for understanding, at long last, that you can't put lullabies on TV after 11PM. If you're going to make everyone stay up that late on a Sunday, you need to hit us with some energy. That's what they did. I appreciate it.
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2. Sabrina Carpenter
She's so good at this. All the goofy little physical-comedy bits at the start of the performance -- the roving spotlight, the surprise stage elevator, the fumbled baton twirl -- were so goofy and natural and fun. The joke is that she's not a classic song-and-dance lady, that she fucks it up whenever she tries, but then she busts out a slick little tap-dance routine like it's nothing. Her pretend pratfalls are cleaner and more professional than most of her peers' slickest moments. When the songs are as overwhelmingly familiar and "Espresso" and "Please Please Please," you can't just sing them. You have to have some fun with the presentation. Carpenter is up to that task. She's naturally a whole lot funnier than Trevor Noah, and he made sure to point that out when she was done singing. That's why it's sometimes good to have a former Disney-sitcom kid as an A-list pop star. You can't do the silly-charming shtick unless you're actually silly and charming. She can do it.
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1. Doechii
Theater-kid energy strikes again. This was the discovery, the Ricky Martin moment for this show. Doechii is so ridiculously talented that she almost seems to be playing the game on easy mode when she does any kind of televised performance. She's got energy and flair and precision. She hits every bar with fearsome efficiency, and she makes every moment feel both theatrical and fun, even if it sometimes comes off as effortful effortlessness. This time, Doechii did the tearaway-suit gag mere seconds after Benson Boone did the exact same thing, and it still popped. I thought the big-bang jazz arrangement for her medley was cheesy and obnoxious, but it was the kind of cheesy and obnoxious that works in the context of the Grammys. I went back and forth on whether Doechii or Sabrina Carpenter deserved the top spot on this list. But if Doechii actually does become a huge star in the next few months -- and after last night, it seems almost inevitable -- then that performance will be one of the key turning points of her rise, the climax of the biopic's first act. Ultimately, some of us watch the Grammys in the often-frustrated hope of catching a moment like that one.
this entire performance is absolutely sensational like the star power is off the charts doechii has ARRIVED!!!! + the whole creative direction, the dancers and set design FLAWLESS pic.twitter.com/sfeMUi3tRb
— tanu (@yelyapple) February 3, 2025
