By Lauren Heskin
15th Mar 2021
15th Mar 2021
Instagram @recordingacademy
Everything you need to know and might have missed from last night's 2021 Grammy Awards.
The Grammys have been in for some understandable criticism as of late, and the controversy around how its nominees are selected (aka Emily in Paris levels of Parisian trips for judges and plenty of handshaking) has definitely tainted it.
The 2021 Grammys was a ghost of its former self. While the multi-stage set design may have seemed cool in theory, the result was just plain awkward as brightly costumed artists watched other brightly costumes artists perform from their separate stages. Trevor Noah hosting duties were negligible at best, he stepped in as the flight attendant giving us the COVID safety procedures at the beginning of the show and then disappeared for the rest of the night, appearing every so often for a tepid crack at one of the artists followed by a performance introduction.
However, while the whole show is not worth watching, there were some stand-out moments.
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Women dominated
Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish took home two of the biggest awards of the night, Album of the Year and Record of the Year, while Beyoncé became the most Grammy-lauded female artist in history with her 28 wins, taking four awards last night. She now needs just four more to pass all-time Grammy winner, conductor Georg Solti. H.E.R. took home the trophy for her anthem “I can’t breathe” about the Black Lives Matter movement
Billie Eilish, who swept up five Grammys including all the main categories last year for her debut album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? and hit single “Bad Guy”, her follow-up song “Everything I Wanted” was a surprise winner for Record of the Year. She spent much of her speech directing praise as fellow nominee Megan thee Stallion, waxing poetic at how much she loved her work and wanted her to win for “Savage”.
While the comments are nice, it proves that while artists like Billie Eilish and Adele before her, winning Album of the Year over Beyoncé’s Lemonade, might be embarrassed by the whiteness of the awards, The Grammys judges still haven’t caught up.
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Harry and Megan are back
This Sunday though, it’s a different Harry and Megan. This week’s Harry and Megan left us out of leaving us out of breath for different reasons. Harry Styles’ show-opener of “Watermelon Sugar” had us all a little high – no thanks to those vocals and that shirtless Gucci suit and feather boa.
There are officially no humans left on earth who don’t crave some HS after watching that. Absolutely none. Harry also picked up his first Grammy, Best Solo Pop Performance for that very song.
Meanwhile, Megan thee Stallion and Cardi B went all-out for their performance of “W.A.P.” – the cardio element alone had just sweating. The NSF song played out on a giant bed and well, you can see for yourself. Megan the Stallion came away with Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song for “Savage” and the coveted Best New Artist award too.
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Dua almost doesn’t
Widely tipped to take at least one and potentially all of the night’s top awards, Dua Lipa came away with just one award for her six nominations for her sophomore album Future Nostalgia, despite being hotly tipped to take Record of the Year and Song of the Year for “Don’t Start Now”.
She did win a Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album, but frankly, her medley performance of the disco album was one of our favourite performances of the night (even if her dance moves still aren’t quite to par).
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Fashion flat
Normally, The Grammys are only overshadowed by the Met Gala for the wild fashion, as music stars take greater risks than their acting counterparts. However, without the likes of Lady Gaga – who lived streamed herself watching from Italy where she’s filming House of Gucci with an Aran-sweatered Adam Driver, only to be asleep when she and Ariana Grande won for Best Pop Duo – there was really not much to coo over or gasp at.
Dua looked smoking (as always) Taylor Swift looked like her album artwork (as always), Phoebe Bridgers wore that skeleton dress (as always) and as Holly O’Neill pointed out, “shoes I wore to the races in 3rd year”, and Beyoncé kept it classy is a LBD (she killed, as always).
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