Grammys Review: Telecast Is the Best in Years, Between the Horse Races, Conscience for L.A., Hot New Artists and Cool Quincy Acolytes
Not many awards shows that have lasted 3 hours and 45 minutes have ever had a preponderance of viewers agreeing that this length was justified. Sunday night’s 67th annual Grammys telecast might be the exception that belongs in that very rarefied strata — a show so solid, so relatively fat-free, that you might not even have minded if it’d stretched a bit further to take up a few minutes in the east coast’s following calendar day. It had everything you could want out of a Grammycast: horseraces that people actually cared about, a sense of connection to the real world outside of that suspense, and nary a dud across 16 packed performance slots.
Sure, you checked your watch… but at least partially in amazement that the show was still sustaining itself this flawlessly, this many hours in. Easily the best Grammys yet to be produced under the Ben Winston/Raj Kapoor/Jesse Collins administration, the show provides a good example of what can happen when you get handed some golden material — including compelling nominees, an unusually superior best-new-artist crop, and an outside crisis the music community is equipped to address — and then make hay with it.
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Keep in mind that the producers pulled this off with the two biggest stars in music participating only as spectators, or at least participating only as a presenter and acceptance speech-giver. As performers, it’s become a given that Beyoncé and Taylor Swift simply Don’t Do Awards Shows, or haven’t in a good number of years now. But if that’s a handicap for producers, the two superstars’ presence in the big races — and, in Swift’s case, as a reaction-shot dancer nonpareil — guarantees a certain amount of tune-in anyway. There was an extent to which the 2025 Grammys defied the old maxim about how it’s the performances, not the winners. Ever since the nominees were announced in November, there’d been a possibly unprecedented degree of popular interest in the Grammys as a contest, especially with the ongoing cliffhanger over whether voters could possibly deny Beyoncé album of the year again … a Susan Lucci situation on steroids.
Well, she got it, and the world heaved a sigh of relief. (Not just the Beyhive, but even Bey-phobes, who just hoped never to have to hear about it again.) The Grammys had their happy day-after headline, in place of a headache. But for those watching at home, investment in what might go onto the Bey-Z family mantle is not enough to sustain a 235-minute running time. And so in the end, it really did come down to the performances after all — and to the globe’s interest in two more freshly minted stars, Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan, neither of whom needs to save up all their choreography for a billion-dollar tour. Carpenter and Roan have followed Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo as the Grammys’ insurance policy, further warding off the possibility of the show becoming an oldies act any time soon.
But those two fresh stars were just the cream of a new-artist crop that previous Grammy producers would have given their CBS-eye teeth for. Or that even the current producers would have, as recently as last year. It was only 12 months ago that Variety reviewed the ‘24 Grammys with this half-admiring, half-snarky headline: “Joni Mitchell and Tracy Chapman Made for an Outstanding Grammys, but the Show Has Forgotten How to Spotlight New Artists.” What a difference a year makes. It’d be nice to suppose that that headline helped spur producers to spotlight the BNA nominees this time, but it would also be stupid to suppose, because it was the luck of the draw — followed by the will of the voters — that delivered this estimable a new-artist lineup on a silver platter to CBS this year. The Grammys realized what they had and gave all eight nominees a performance slot on the show… even odd-nominee-out Khruangbin (who got the shortest spot, but a couple of minutes of to-die-for exposure nonetheless).
No one could argue that it was particularly unfair to give Roan and Carpenter their own full-length performance slots, separate from the lengthy, medley-like segment the other best new nominees were put into. First up was Carpenter, doing her own medley of greatest hits from the “Short ‘n Sweet” record (a surprise winner for best pop vocal album). The ex-Disney star has developed an interesting kind of sexy/kooky persona: part Marilyn Monroe, part Gracie Allen. Her recent Christmas special showed that what she really wants to do is foul-mouthed comedy, and her Grammys segment expanded on that, minus the F-bombs. She took her place on a staircase as big as anything Busby Berkeley ever constucted, looking like a sex bomb in a glittery unitard… and then proceeded to do pratfalls. There was also the first example in a while on the Grammys of choreographed tapping, albeit tap-synching. (Can we please make this a scandal?) If you like old show-biz virtues, whether it’s from the MGM or TV variety-special eras, Sabrina Carpenter is there for you. And it’s an unexpected pleasure to be there for her in return.
Roan is primarily a more serious-minded artist than Carpenter, although in the process of making her brilliant debut album, she came to embrace a goofy side, too. The production design for her performance of “Pink Pony Club” leaned in that unsolemn direction, putting her atop a literal giant pony as she was surrounded by a phalanx of rodeo clowns. There was a good joke buried in that conceit: maybe only clowns spend as much time in the makeup chair as the drag artists that have provided Roan the inspiration for her primary look. The setpiece didn’t play up the LGBTQ+ angle too hard, but let’s face it, “Pink Pony Club” is already the gayest major song of the decade — it doesn’t need reinforcements. She sounded spectacular, for the five people just getting their first exposure. Grammys-wise, this was her first rodeo… and the first of dozens, most likely, for the much-deserving best new artist winner.
That left Benson Boone, Doechii, Teddy Swims, Shaboozey and Raye to succeed one another in the night’s all-purpose new-artist segment. To their credit, in any other year, any one of them might have been the BNA front-runner and standout, and they all treated their time on stage like hitting a grand-slam was their province and theirs alone. The showcase commenced with a fake-out start of Boone, seemingly relaxing in the audience, suddenly having his formal duds torn off by Heidi Klum and Nikki Glaser to reveal a baby-blue jumpsuit. From there he was up on stage and executing two acrobatic head-over-heels flips while otherwise looking and sounding like Freddie Mercury. (He knows they already made a Queen biopic, right?) This was an impressive bit of glam, and Boone capped it all off with a crotch adjustment. Hard to tell if that was deliberately intended as a sort of mic-drop moment or if he already thought he was off-camera and just had to deal with the fact that, after all that jumping and jumpsuiting around, things had gotten mismanaged down there.
No one else in the new-artist lineup was showing off their gym-class prowess, but all had sufficient other chops. Doechii might have had the most to gain here, as someone who requires no further exposure in the hip-hop community but still has legions existing outside it to make a first-time impression upon. She did not squander the opportunity, going from a silver suit-and-tie to skimpier gym-wear (tear-away costuming was big with this bunch) in delivering a stop-the-presses performance of “Catfish” and “Denial Is a River.”
Some observers thought Doechii’s appearance was so climactic, she should have been placed last in her segment. But no one else in her category was willing to be easily overshadowed. Not the velvet-voiced Teddy Swims, whose formal white duster was adorned with oversized roses and what looked like either moss or the hair of his victims. Not Shaboozey, who had the biggest hit of 2024, is giving line-dancing a good name and seems altogether ready to be a career artist. And not the magnificent Raye, who stood in front of a small orchestra and knocked it out of the park, capping off “Oscar Winning Tears” with a Grammy-win-deserving wail that is still reverberating in outer space. This is how you win best new artist without winning best new artist.
Fortunately, the Grammys were not just about the pleasant shock of the new. An extended tribute to Quincy Jones felt unusually leisurely… something we mean only as the highest compliment, amid the show’s usual rush-rush tempos. It got off to a slightly odd start, as segment emcee Will Smith told an anecdote about Jones’ attention to quality catering for below-the-line workers — a tale that had its larger applications, but still… if there was time to tell just one story about the legend, maybe there was something bigger or better than a craft services story.
The Jones salute picked up from there, and then some. Having Cynthia Erivo stand along Herbie Hancock to breeze through “Fly Me to the Moon” was heavenly. Country star Lainey Wilson and pianist/album-of-the-year-nominee Jacob Collier proved to be an ideal odd couple on “Let the Good Times Roll.” A switch back to Hancock found him joined this time by Stevie Wonder, sitting on the piano bench to talk about togetherness and blow harmonica, blissfully, on the classic jazz instrumental “Bluesette.” And then Janelle Monae earned her mic-drop by doing an expert Michael Jackson impression, with just a little bit of her own personal feral energy, on a segment-closing “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough.”
It wasn’t the only all-star team-up. The night began with a salute to Los Angeles in the form of Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.,” fronted by the wonderful Angeleno band Dawes and with Sheryl Crow, John Legend, Brad Paisley and St. Vincent as the world’s most overqualified backing band. Later, the theme came back to SoCal, in more solemn form, following a short documentary recap of the wildfire devastation, with Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars teaming up for a suitably sad cover of the Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreamin’,” rendered like a dream. Eilish and her brother Finneas added a tender homegrown touch to the L.A. celebrating with a sweet rendition of “Birds of a Feather” set in a pre-fire visual rendering of Eaton Canyon.
The In Memoriam segment seemed to recognize that the supply of eulogy-appropriate classic pop ballads has about been exhausted, and instead let Coldplay’s Chris Martin sing Coldplay’s original “All My Love,” with the surprisingly deft idea of having him joined for instrumental interludes by rising guitar hero Grace Bowers, whose playing was soulful far beyond her teen years.
Also sublime in its own fashion was the sheer joyful physicality of Shakira, showing from the outset of “Ojos Asi” that she has not lost a step or lost an abdominal undulation. Things got a bit murkier with the Weeknd — as is the Weeknd’s wont — as his medley of “Cry for Me” and the Playboi Carti-assisted “Timeless” proved probably harder to penetrate for the average viewer, though the fans who have already embraced his new album were surely sated… and fans of kissing and making up were happy to have him forgiving the Recording Academy for perceived past voting slights. (Whether he’ll be back even if “Hurry Up Tomorrow” gets shut out next year, we’ll have to wait and see.)
And Charli XCX, ending a night that otherwise had a lot of choreographed precision with a very loose rave? It worked, as far as it making it seem like the after-party was getting started early (actually, the Grammys went without after-parties this year, in deference to lingering wildfire awareness, so Charli’s number had to suffice). It also left the audience on a sort of cliffhanger, wondering if all that flying underwear is really going to be donated to women in need, as promised. Maybe it’s the support-garment thought that counts.
Throughout the show, it was easy to feel fine lines being walked: Go wistful and tragic or emphasize rebounding in dealing with the wildfires? Embrace using the show to send a post-inauguration message, as Lady Gaga did about trans people and Alicia Keys did about the demonization of diversity and DEI, or avoid polarizing subjects, as host Trevor Noah has done before and continues to do in his Grammys role? There was a bit of all these things, but one of the triumphs of this year’s telecast is that the producers never let us see them sweat in achieving that fine balance. Upholding this recent high-water mark will be tough, but may the show always seem so effortless under duress, and the nominations relevant enough to give it this much grist.
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