Grammys 2021: 10 Takeaways From A Big, Weird Night 


On the off chance that we could in a real sense remove one thing from the Grammys, Harry Styles' quill boa may be it. 



KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES FOR THE RECORDING ACADEMY 


The 2021 Grammys by one way or another endure a COVID-enlivened six-week delay, also furious tirades from The Weeknd, and set up a consistent, engaging, music-pressed broadcast that likewise demonstrated totally, bafflingly incensing. How might all that be valid? Peruse on! 


1. The actual transmission was a victory. Give immense measures of credit to chief maker Ben Winston, making his Grammys debut: His broadcast moved breezily across numerous stages, cut past years' fat and a significant part of the filler, featured a tremendous and different cluster of music and permitted the entertainers to be displayed at their best. A normal Grammys broadcast has tremendous highs and humiliating lows, yet Sunday night's exhibitions were too capably and exquisitely delivered to consider train wrecks. After a confused, inconvenient, Zoom-escalated Golden Globes broadcast only a couple weeks sooner, Winston showed the world how it's finished. 


2. The actual honors? Hoo kid. You could see it coming, yet it actually felt stunning: The Grammys paused for a minute, after giving Beyoncé the 28th Grammy of her a-list profession, to recognize that she'd recently outperformed Alison Krauss for the most Grammys at any point granted to a female craftsman. (Watch your back, Georg Solti!) Unacknowledged at that time was that Beyoncé has a long history of getting ignored for the significant honors of the evening; she's always lost record of the year or collection of the year and just won tune of the year once, in 2010, for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)." Scan a rundown of the Grammys Beyoncé has won and note the occasions the modifier "R&B" shows up. 


All in all, when the opportunity arrived to grant the night's last prize, it must be Megan Thee Stallion and Beyoncé's "Savage," correct? Megan had effectively won best new craftsman; "Savage" had effectively won best rap execution and best rap melody; Beyoncé's "Dark Parade" had effectively won best R&B execution, and her "Earthy colored Skin Girl" had effectively won best music video (which implies that Beyoncé's 9-year-old little girl, Blue Ivy, presently has her first Grammy). Billie Eilish, as far as concerns her, had won just best melody composed for visual media, for "No Time to Die." But record of the year went to Eilish, who spent quite a bit of her discourse saying 'sorry' to Megan Thee Stallion for winning. 


With no lack of regard proposed toward Eilish, who took care of the circumstance well, that is the Grammys for you: They gain ground; they make changes; they get your expectations up; they pull the football away finally. 


3. The call for blacklists will get stronger. In the approach the current year's Grammys, The Weeknd reported that he'd never present his music for Grammys thought again after the account institute neglected to such an extent as choose him for his blockbuster collection After Hours. Beyoncé joined in however didn't perform, and appeared to use as little energy as conceivable all in all issue. The Grammys have a long history of scorning Black specialists at untimely minutes — see, for an infamous model, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis beating Kendrick Lamar in the honors' 2014 hip-jump classes — and persistence is wearing ragged. 


4. It was a hodgepodge for the enormous champs. Numerous onlookers anticipated that the night should be one more crowning celebration for Taylor Swift, whose collection old stories procured her six Grammy assignments and a portion of her best surveys. In any case, Swift went 0 for 5 to begin, just to take collection of the year close to the furthest limit of the broadcast. Eilish, who broadly ruled a year ago's honors, hadn't made a big deal about a sprinkle during the remainder of the evening. In the two cases, the large successes sneaked up on them. 


5. There was better information in the down-voting form races. While it was a disgrace to see Phoebe Bridgers go 0-for-4, Megan Thee Stallion was the unmistakable and right pick for best new craftsman (however it was somewhat of a head-scratcher when she wasn't named in that classification a year ago). Fiona Apple, mysteriously shut out of selections in the significant classifications, won best stone execution (for "Shameika") and best elective music collection (for Fetch the Bolt Cutters). H.E.R. took melody of the year for "I Can't Breathe," a thunderous and amazing track. Kaytranada turned into the main Black performer to win best move/electronic collection in the class' 17-year history — a ludicrous achievement, given the class' roots, yet an achievement in any case. 


6. Prepare for a tedious new front in the way of life wars! A year ago, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion delivered probably the filthiest tune at any point to top the Billboard Hot 100, and "WAP" made its Grammys debut in terrifically offensive, dangerously engaging style. Have confidence that "drop culture" and Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head are going to need to make room on some traditionalist blacking out love seats, conceivably when you read this. 


7. By one way or another, despite seemingly insurmountable opposition, none of the exhibitions really smelled. This specific sort of exhibit — with cautious stage the executives, great sound blends, a mix of live and pre-taped minutes, numerous stages to oblige set changes, etc — permitted specialists to accomplish their best work. This was the three-and-a-half-hour music-industry infomercial the Grammys desired, and the recipients included both the actual artists and a home crowd that has been starving for unrecorded music. 


8. The Grammys remembered battling settings. Without transforming into a pledge drive or hindering the transmission, the show made a pleasant showing highlighting a couple of the numerous music settings whose drawn out endurance has been undermined by the pandemic. It was invigorating to see the Academy comprehend that their industry's prosperity depends on streaming and deals, yet in addition the arrival of unrecorded music and the settings that make it conceivable. 


9. Trevor Noah merits more applause than you may might suspect. The Daily Show have kept a genuinely serene presence for the duration of the evening — he didn't direct any dramas and his speech was restricted to a couple of fast jokes — however he made a deft showing moving the home crowd through a confounded hunk of entertainment ceremony hardware. Entertainment pageant facilitating gigs are for the most part difficult, and he made a difficult occupation look simple. 


10. At long last, it can't be sufficiently repeated: The Grammys actually have a great deal of work to do. It is anything but a matter of saying, "If Beyoncé or Kendrick Lamar put out an incredible record in 2021, it needs to win collection of the year." It's that the Grammys are not trusted, period, by wide areas of their crowd and participation, and any push to address that requirements to begin there. They need to make trust. 


That trust can just come through straightforwardness about their interaction, their participation and their endeavors to more readily mirror their industry and its enormous overall crowd. The Grammys' commonplace reaction to contentions will in general include craftsman explicit endeavors to review earlier years' complaints; that is important for how Metallica ended up winning eight Grammys across six unique years after scandalously losing best metal execution to Jethro Tull in 1989. 


The issue isn't that Beyoncé ought to have won collection of the year in 2015 over Beck's Morning Phase, or that Lemonade ought to have won collection of the year in 2017 over Adele's 25, however both of those results were — with no shade tossed at one or the other champ — difficult to stomach. The issue is that it's getting harder for the Grammys to keep on like this without confronting an enormous scope revolt from the craftsmen whose up front investment they need to hold a similarity to significance. 


As such, they need to venture up.