Thanks to four prizes for her album RENAISSANCE, Beyoncé has now won more Grammys than any other performer. She received her fourth award of the year, giving her 32 in total, two thirds through the live broadcast of the event, breaking the previous record for the most Grammys received by one artist in the 65-year history of the award.
She was unable to win any of the evening’s top awards, however. Instead, the Grammys used the standard vote split to separate the general categories. The award for song of the year went to Bonnie Raitt for “Just Like That.” Lizzo’s song “About Damn Time” won song of the year. Harry Styles’ album Harry’s House won Album of the Year. He was awarded best pop vocal album as well. As Beyoncé gave him a standing ovation, Styles remarked of the album of the year prize, “This is very wonderful.”
Beyoncé has won 28 Grammys as a main artist prior to the ceremony this year, but just one of those prizes was in a general category. She had nine nominations this year, and just after 7 PM PT, when she took home the award for best electronic/dance music album, she set a new record. I’m simply trying to absorb this night, she sobbed as she took the stage. Later, while speaking to the house music that helped to ground RENAISSANCE, she acknowledged her forebears and sources of inspiration, saying: “I would want to thank the LGBTQ community for your love, and for developing the genre.”
The Grammys believed that by creating history this year, they would increase the glitz and glamour after years of dropping and average viewing. Urban development thwarted the Record Academy’s hopes for an earlier, major live television moment. When Beyonce and a group of co-writers won best R&B song for “Cuff It” 30 minutes into the presentation, Beyoncé, who was allegedly late to the awards ceremony due to LA traffic, equaled the record for the most Grammys ever won. The-Dream and Nile Rogers, two of the composers of “Cuff It,” collected the trophy for best R&B song on behalf of the group. Nile Rogers is a legendary musician and composer. The late classical conductor Georg Solti achieved the previous Grammy record of 31 victories.
The nine other finalists for album of the year had to settle for other honours. As she began to claim her award for record of the year for “About Damn Time, Let me tell you something, Adele and I are really having a blast here, Lizzo stated. (For her song “Easy on Me,” Adele won best pop solo performance.) Lizzo also paid respect to Beyoncé, mentioning how she missed fifth grade class to attend the superstar’s concert.
Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers’ Kendrick Lamar won the Grammy for best rap album, and during the afternoon event, Lamar also won for best rap song and best rap performance, both for “The Heart Part 5.”
Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican rapper who competed with Styles for album of the year, started the evening with a performance of songs from his album Un Verano Sin Ti, which dominated streaming platforms and earned him the award for best urban music album last year.
The talented young jazz singer Samara Joy took up the prize for best new artist in a flashback to a very specific kind of Grammy voter favourite. The 23-year-old sobbed during her whole acceptance speech as she expressed her amazement at having earned one of the Grammys’ top honours “simply by being myself.”
Iranian singer Shervin Hajipour received a brand-new award for writing the protest song “Baraye,” which was created in support of Iran’s “Woman, Life, Freedom” campaign, and attracted followers from all over the globe on social media. Currently detained in Tehran’s infamous Evin prison, Hajipour received the honour from First Lady Jill Biden.
In addition, Biden gave Bonnie Raitt the Song of the Year award. She was up against authors like Beyoncé, Lizzo, Steve Lacy, Kendrick Lamar, and Adele, and she seemed shell-shocked when she won. Raitt said, “I don’t compose a lot of tunes.
The year 2023 also saw the first publicly transgender lady win a Grammy and the first openly non-binary person win a Grammy. When Sam Smith and Kim Petras won for best pop duo/group performance for their song “Unholy,” both glass ceilings were broken. (Musician Wendy Carlos won three Grammy Awards in 1970 for her album Switched-On Bach; but, at that time, she had not yet come out to the world as a woman.)
the pre-telecast celebration known as the Grammy “premiere” show, where the Recording Academy presented around 80 prizes. On Sunday afternoon, when she received a Grammy for the audiobook version of her biography, Finding Me, actress Viola Davis became an EGOT, the proud owner of the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony trophies.
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