63rd Annual Grammy Awards
The 63rd Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held in and around the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles on March 14, 2021. It recognized the best recordings, compositions, and artists of the eligibility year, running from September 1, 2019 to August 31, 2020.[3] The nominations were revealed via a virtual livestream on November 24, 2020. The performers for the ceremony were announced on March 7, 2021. South African comedian Trevor Noah hosted the ceremony.
63rd Annual Grammy Awards
March 14, 2021
Los Angeles Convention Center[1]
Los Angeles, California
Beyoncé (4)
Beyoncé (9)
8.8 million[2]
Beyoncé received the most nominations with nine, followed by Dua Lipa, Roddy Ricch, and Taylor Swift with six each.[4] Beyoncé received the most awards, with four, surpassing Alison Krauss as the most-awarded woman in the show's history, with 28 awards overall.[5] Her daughter Blue Ivy Carter become the youngest person ever to win a Grammy as an individual at the age of 8 years and 322 days for Best Music Video for "Brown Skin Girl".[6]
Swift won Album of the Year for Folklore, making her the first woman to win the award three times and the first artist to do so since Paul Simon in 1988.[7] Billie Eilish won Record of the Year for "Everything I Wanted", becoming the second solo artist, after Roberta Flack in 1974, to win two years consecutively, and the third overall since U2 in 2002. H.E.R. won Song of the Year for "I Can't Breathe" and Megan Thee Stallion won Best New Artist, becoming the second female rapper to win since Lauryn Hill in 1999.
The ceremony was originally scheduled for January 31, 2021; however, on January 5, 2021, the Recording Academy postponed the ceremony to March 14, 2021, due to a spike in COVID-19 cases in Los Angeles as well as health and safety concerns therein.[8]
Reception[edit]
Pre-ceremony[edit]
Following the release of the nominations, Canadian singer the Weeknd accused the Grammys of corruption after he failed to receive any nominations. Based on the success of his album, After Hours, the Weeknd had been expected by many critics and publications to receive a large number of nominations, including Album of the Year as well as several nods for his single "Blinding Lights". Expressing his disappointment, the Weeknd tweeted "The Grammys remain corrupt. You owe me, my fans and the industry transparency...". He further explained that he was expecting nominations due to discussions between his team and the Grammys to perform at the ceremony but it was later reported by Rolling Stone that these discussions broke down due to the Weeknd also performing at the Super Bowl LV halftime show. In response, the Grammys released a statement saying that they "empathized" with the Weeknd's disappointment but that some "deserving" artists miss out every year. Recording Academy president Harvey Mason Jr. later expanded on this by explaining that "we understand that the Weeknd is disappointed at not being nominated. I was surprised and can empathise with what he's feeling. Unfortunately, every year, there are fewer nominations than the number of deserving artists. To be clear, voting in all categories ended well before the Weeknd's performance at the Super Bowl was announced, so in no way could it have affected the nomination process".[28] Several days later, the Weeknd stated that "I personally don't care anymore. I have three Grammys, which mean nothing to me now, obviously. I suck at giving speeches anyways. Forget awards shows. It's not like, 'Oh, I want the Grammy!' It's just that this happened, and I'm down to get in front of the fire, as long as it never happens again".[29]
American singer Halsey spoke out in solidarity with the Weeknd after her 2020 album, Manic, received no nominations. Taking to Instagram, Halsey wrote "The Grammys are an elusive process. It can often be about behind the scenes private performances, knowing the right people, campaigning through the grapevine, with the right handshake and 'bribes' that can be just ambiguous enough to pass as 'not bribes.'"[30][31] The singer went on to share that speaking out against The Grammys could very well get an artist blacklisted.[32] Halsey, who only has 2 nominations throughout her entire career, was the center of conversation when her song "Without Me", which reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, was passed up for a nomination at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards.[33]
Justin Bieber expressed his disappointment with the academy following his album Changes receiving nominations in the Pop field rather than the R&B field. He explained that he is "very meticulous and intentional about my music. With that being said I set out to make an R&B album. Changes was and is an R&B album. It is not being acknowledged as an R&B album which is very strange to me". The Grammys later responded to Bieber, stating that "we always want to respect the artist's wishes. Art's a funny thing because it's so subjective, and at the Academy our goal is to honor excellence. At some point, decisions have to be made as to how to compare different things, and it is a very tough process and one I don't think we get right every time. We use our best efforts to get people where they wanna be and where they should be and try to evaluate them as best as we can. If he felt that was that type of a record, then, you know... I'll just leave it at that. We try really hard to make sure people's art is respected and evaluated in the right category".[34]
Five days before the ceremony, British artist Zayn Malik posted a tweet criticizing the Grammys and their voting procedures stating that "unless you shake hands and send gifts, there's no nomination considerations. Next year I'll send you a basket of confectionary". After confusion from fans and the media, who noted that Malik's third album, Nobody Is Listening, was ineligible for the 63rd Grammy Awards as it was released after the eligibility period ended in August, Malik stated his intentions in a follow-up tweet, explaining that his prior post was "not personal or about eligibility but was about the need for inclusion and the lack of transparency of the nomination process and the space that creates and allows favoritism, racism, and networking [sic] politics to influence the voting process".[35]