Winners And Losers At The 64th Grammy Awards

The 64th annual Grammy Awards were held on Sunday, filled with much less drama than the Oscars in the previous week. Here are some highlights. 

• Host Trevor Noah opening the event by saying: “we’re going to be laughing, we’re going to be singing, we’re going to be keeping peoples names out of our mouths and we’re going to be giving out awards,” in an obvious nod to the Will Smith and Chris Rock debacle.
• Among the long list of winners, Silk Sonic won four Grammys, one being Record of the year, and Jon Batiste won a whopping five Grammys, with one being the coveted album of the year.
• Cryptocurrency emerged as a winner with the announcement that Binance, a leading crypto exchange, is the official partner of the Annual Grammy Awards.
• Olivia Rodrigo had the opportunity to win in the big four categories (album of the year, record of the year, song of the year, best new artist) and won in in three of the four categories.
• The Foo Fighters, who recently lost their drummer Taylor Hawkins, were nominated in three categories and won all three.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared at the Grammys via a pre-recorded cameo in which he called for the support of the United States, saying, “Fill the silence with your music. Fill it today to tell our story. Tell the truth about this war on your social networks, on TV. Support us in any way you can. Any – but not silence. And then peace will come.”
• Thespeech was followed by a performance by John Legend of his newly released single “Free.”
• Justin Bieber was snubbed, with eight nominations and no wins. 
• Billie Eilish was nominated in seven categories and did not win in any of them.
• Cultural sensation BTS was nominated for best pop duo/group performance and did not win.
• Kanye West, who was nominated in five categories and won in two on Sunday, was not in attendance to accept the awards, as he was invited but chose not to go as he was barred from performing at the show.

Jon Batiste photo by Rhododendrites via Wikimedia.