The Battle of the Grammys’ Darlings

The Grammys and its pre-show ran for a total of eight hours on Sunday night, with the main ceremony beginning at 1 am GMT. For many, this means a skip and reading a recap. For me, this means watching the full eight-hour show and writing the recap for you to read. The Grammys is the pinnacle of pop culture. It is the night at the end of the musical year to see how marketing and streaming, as well as financial, commercial, and critical successes translate into the awards season. They are the most important accolades in the music industry, and even if they are misawarded and labelled rigged time and time again, they are still consistently used as a measure of success.

Beyond the music, we have the interactions between A-listers to look at, red carpet looks from designers to analyse, and we also receive future hints to what the upcoming year in music may look like.

Part one: The red-carpet highlights

Billie Eilish, the nine-times winning media-proclaimed "Grammys' darling" (we'll get to this later), wore a simple, clean Prada look complete with a sailor's hat to the evening. This look felt a little underwhelming to me, a comment that can be extended to Billie's entire evening. Chappell Roan wore a vintage (2005) archival Jean Paul Gaultier dress to the red-carpet. Being Chappell Roan, she proceeded to deliver multiple show-stopping looks throughout the night. A special nod to her gigantic princess cone hat that fell off during her acceptance speech.

Charli XCX wore a custom Jean Paul Gaultier look by Ludovic De Saint Sernin (the haute couture guest designer this season). For me, it felt like another Charli XCX tatty rag, while many would say it's "on vogue".

Doechii wore a multitude of Thom Browne looks over the evening. The first was a suit-dress evening wear look, which was the most demure in her rotation. Her more notable looks were her second extreme wide-hipped suit when receiving the Grammy, and her ruched bubble suit on red-carpet after the ceremony.

While Lady Gaga's first gothic Samuel & Lewis dress with a Tiffany & Co yellow diamond necklace was fun, it was Gaga's second outfit, an Americana light gothic look during her "California Dreamin'" performance with Bruno Mars, and her third, an Oscar-reminiscent dress, that really stood out.

Gracie Abrams wore a gorgeous Chanel look. The draping head piece was beautifully done; it felt very virginal Handmaid's Tale. This was a rare high for the singer.

Jaden Smith wore a Transylvania Dracula castle on his head, by the brand Transylvania. It was rather odd and strange, but he was doing more than the countless men who just showed up in a basic tuxedo.

Kanye West and his wife Bianca showed up to the red-carpet and were then promptly kicked out. Bianca wore a fur coat, to then reveal total nudity underneath, with a piece of clear mesh labelled a "dress". It felt like a poor, classic Kanye exhibition of performance art, with a woman's body at the forefront.

Sabrina Carpenter wore a light blue ostrich-feathered JW Anderson dress, and then a second gold, glittery dress during the ceremony with a matching hip flask. They were simple, elegant looks, very Sabrina, playing nicely to her boudoir 1930s old Hollywood wardrobe.

Taylor Swift wore a short, red, custom Vivienne Westwood dress with her signature red lip. While not being very memorable, it was a beautiful look. Many expected her to wear an Easter egg to Reputation (Taylor's Version) this evening, but she threw us all off, and kept it Red (Taylor's Version), or perhaps Kansas City Chiefs.

Troye Sivan wore a lavender, silk Prada suit, and he fittingly looked like the child of Daphne and Fred in a lavender marriage.

Beyonce did not attend the red carpet but wore a gold encrusted Schiaparelli dress to the ceremony. A beautiful look from the highly contested woman of the evening.

Part two: The awards

The night started with the pre-show, taking place before most of the big nominees showed up on the carpet. Sierra Ferrell clean swept, winning all her categories and taking home four Grammys in the Americana categories.

Charli XCX won three Grammys, with all being in the pre-show: Best Visuals for Brat, Best Dance Song for "Von Dutch," and Best Dance Album for Brat. However, she notably wasn't there to collect any of these awards, only showing up with the Album of the Year nominees. In hindsight, this wasn't the best decision, and we consequently didn't receive an acceptance speech from her, which was a real shame. Though Sabrina made the same decision, being the favourite to win Best Pop Vocal Album for Short 'n' Sweet and Record of the Year for "Espresso," she ended up taking the first of these awards home, so we still got an endearing acceptance speech from the artist. Sabrina Carpenter also won Best Pop Vocal Performance for "Espresso" in the pre-show, taking home two Grammys in total on Sunday evening.

Producer of the Year went to Daniel Nigro, for his work on Chappell Roan's The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, and Olivia Rodrigo's GUTS (spilled). Being such a prominent figure in the music industry right now, this felt a long time coming. Beyonce's producer for Cowboy Carter was also nominated for this award. Jack Antonoff (producer of The Tortured Poet's Department and Short 'n' Sweet) was not, although he has won it for the last three years. Surprisingly, FINNEAS was also not nominated in this category for his work on Hit Me Hard and Soft. These should have been early main tell signs for the events that unfolded that evening.

Doechii won Best Rap Album for her mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal, becoming the third woman to win the category, after Lauryn Hill and Cardi B, something she emotionally noted in her speech. She then went on to cement this win with a standout live performance of her songs "Catfish" and "Denial is a River".

Chappell Roan beat Sabrina Carpenter, Doechii, and Raye to Best New Artist, using her speech to address the misfortune dealt by labels to upcoming artists. She also gave a powerful performance of her song "Pink Pony Club" earlier in the evening, citing it as an ode to Los Angeles. It was almost as good as her Joan of Arc inspired performance of her Grammy-nominated song, "Good Luck, Babe!," at the VMAs this year.

To no one's surprise, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars took home the Best Pop Duo award for "Die with a Smile".

Beyonce made a surprise appearance to collect Best Country Album for Cowboy Carter, an award presented by Taylor Swift, as she won the category back in 2010 for her country album Fearless. This gave many fans a full circle "Tayonce" moment, referencing back to the 2009 VMAs moment in which Kanye West (who at this point had been kicked out of the venue) interrupted Taylor Swift collecting the award to say Beyonce was better deserving.

Kendrick Lamar then went on to win Record of the Year for his hit song "Not Like Us," presented by Miley Cyrus (winning last year for her song "Flowers") who also won earlier that evening for Best Country Duo with Beyonce. With "Espresso" having been the favourite to win the category, Lamar's win was unprecedented. An even bigger surprise was that Lamar went on to collect Song of the Year moments later, when the favourite to win had been "Birds of a Feather" by Billie Eilish. Kendrick Lamar clean swept Sunday evening, winning five Grammys in total, becoming the most awarded artist of the night.

The final award of the night, the highest accolade in music, Album of the Year, was long-awaited to be Billie Eilish's first Grammy of the evening, for her third album Hit Me Hard and Soft. However, when the LA fire brigade announced Beyonce's Cowboy Carter to be the winner, this led to much outrage online and even tears from Eilish. Many believe the award was rigged and "tainted," owing the win to Jay-Z's speech while collecting the Global Impact Award Grammy last year: "[Beyonce] has more Grammys than anyone and never won album of the year. So even by your own metrics, that doesn't work". This meant that Billie Eilish, the favourite to win of the night in the major categories, went home Grammy-less.

Though I do agree that Billie Eilish's Hit Me Hard and Soft and "Birds of a Feather" were the deserving winners of the evening, arguing that the Grammys are biased is like arguing that the sky is blue, unfortunately. Artists are misawarded every single year. This year's snub of Eilish for Album of the Year is no larger than SZA's snub last year for SOS, the prize going to Taylor Swift's Midnights instead, to say the least. If I were to call it "the biggest snub of all time," as many are, I would have to address Arcade Fire's The Suburbs beating Katy Perry's Teenage Dream for Album of the Year, or the posthumous nomination of Mac Miller's Swimming, inviting his parents to the ceremony, only to give the award to Cardi B's Invasion of Privacy. Though Kendrick may have been over-awarded on Sunday, he certainly was not when Taylor Swift's 1989 beat out his magnum opus To Pimp a Butterfly. Beyonce may not have been deserving this year, but she was when Renaissance was unfairly seconded to Harry's House. The voting academy is constantly correcting their past mistakes, and in turn, creating new ones every year.