Highlights, lowlights and a big pink pony

Sunday night saw Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar win big at the Grammy Awards, which was dedicated to fundraising for wildfire relief efforts in Los Angeles.

It also saw plenty of memorable performances, impassioned speeches and stunning red carpet looks for everyone to emulate over the course of the next year (leather chaps are back, in case you were wondering).

Let’s take a closer look at some of the other highlights and lowlights from the ceremony.

Well, now we’re in a pickle.

On her eighth solo record, Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé sang about the Grammys’ constant, stubborn refusal to award her album of the year.

“AOTY, I ain’t win,” she sang. “Take that s— on the chin.“

But now she has won, for the album that contains that very lyric. Will she have to go back and re-record it? At the very least, we expect a rewrite on the tour she just announced.

Joking aside, this victory was long, long overdue.

In 2017, Adele even flirted with the idea of handing back her album of the year trophy, saying the music on her album, 25, couldn’t compare to Beyoncé’s “monumental… beautiful and soul-bearing” Lemonade.

Eyebrows were raised again in 2023, when Harry Styles’ fun, but conceptually flimsy, Harry’s House bested Beyoncé’s Renaissance – a meticulous exploration of how oppressed black and queer musicians found salvation through house music.

In the end, it took Beyoncé to approach a genre that conservative Grammy voters could understand – country – in order to secure a victory.

But that’s not to downplay the scale of her achievement. Cowboy Carter is a masterpiece that weaves hundreds of musical threads into a thesis about America’s cultural past, and the futility of gatekeeping musical genres along racial lines.

The arguments it makes are both timely and urgent, without suffocating the songs.

As the second part of a planned trilogy, this surely won’t be Beyoncé’s last trip to the podium.

Sabrina Carpenter has literally been practicing for this moment all her life. She made her TV debut in 2011, aged 12 years old, and has been hovering on the fringes of pop superstardom pretty much ever since.

So, after a huge breakthrough in 2024, she was primed and ready for the Grammy stage.

Or was she?

She emerged in a razzle-dazzle showgirl outfit and instantly missed her spotlight. Then she dropped the cane she was supposed to dance with. And, as she descended a grand pearlescent staircase, she suddenly disappeared through a trap door.

Luckily, it was all a humorous ruse! Carpenter skipped back to the stage for a big band version of Espresso, complete with ankle-endangering tap routine.

After changing into a blue, crystal-studded Victoria’s Secret bodysuit, she segued effortlessly into Please, Please, Please… And then the set collapsed on her.

As she leapt into the safety of a dancer’s arms, she couldn’t contain her laughter.

It was a perfect piece of vaudeville, and the audience lapped it up. Host Trevor Noah, however, wasn’t so impressed.

“That was amazing and funny, which I didn’t appreciate,” the comedian said. “Really, Sabrina? You’re just gonna take my job like that?”

Five years ago, people were stunned when The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights – the most-streamed song of all time – failed to pick up a single Grammy nomination.

Among those people were Abel Tesfaye – aka The Weeknd himself.

He declared the awards were “corrupt” and criticised their lack of “transparency”. Since then, he’s refused to submit any of his music for consideration.

So it was something of a coup when he gave an unannounced, unexpected performance in the middle of Sunday’s ceremony.

He was introduced by the Recording Academy’s CEO, Harvey Mason Jr, who acknowledged the star’s criticisms, and described his efforts to revamp the Grammys’ electorate, by boosting the number of women and people of colour.

After that, the star took to the stage with two songs from his brand new album, Cry For Me and Timeless.

It was meant to be a celebration of people’s ability to learn and grow, but the music was so oppressively drab – with the Weeknd constantly shrouded in smoke and shadow – that you wondered whether he’d simply returned to sabotage the Grammys from within.

BBC Sound of 2025 winner Chappell Roan cantered into the Grammys with a theatrical performance of Pink Pony Club – her love letter to LA, as well as a celebration of queer discovery.

Backed by dancers dressed as rodeo clowns, Roan – herself wearing a sequinned cowboy hat and sparkly boots – rode a a giant pink carousel pony, complete with an 80s perm.

“‘My Little Pony’ grew up!” joked host Trevor Noah afterwards.

The performance was part of a segment that raised awareness and funds for wildfire relief.

Roan, real name Kayleigh Amstutz, later received a standing ovation for using her best new artist winning speech to call on record labels to provide up-and-coming artists with liveable wages and healthcare.

Quite a night for the 26-year-old, who might be feeling a little horse in the morning.

Rapper Kanye West arrived on the red carpet dressed in black with his wife Bianca Censori, who was, to all intents and purposes, naked.

As the couple stopped to pose for cameras, the Australian model removed her black fur coat to reveal a sheer body stocking that left little to the imagination.

The pair then made a swift exit, electing to skip the ceremony, driving off into the LA night.

Early reports suggested they had been kicked out, but the BBC understands they left of their own accord, with one source saying that West, “walked the carpet, got in his car and left”.

They may well have been home by the time West’s track Carnival lost out to Kendrick Lamar in the best rap song category.

But he probably won’t mind: He already has 24 Grammy awards, and now he has the headlines he craves, too.

Among the three awards Charli XCX picked up was one of the night’s most obscure: Best artwork.

At first glance, that might seem odd. The album cover is a plain green square, with the word “brat” printed in a deliberately low-resolution Arial font.

But the cover took five months to put together, with designer Brent David Freaney testing around 500 shades of green to produce a garish, nausea-inducing effect.

Charli wanted the artwork to be deliberately off-putting – reflecting the album’s dual themes of partying and self doubt. And she said it was important to challenge the convention of women dressing provocatively to promote their music.

“Why should anyone have that level of ownership over female artists?” she asked Vogue magazine.

She added: “I wanted to go with an offensive, off-trend shade of green to trigger the idea of something being wrong. I’d like for us to question our expectations of pop culture – why are some things considered good and acceptable, and some things deemed bad?

“I’m interested in the narratives behind that and I want to provoke people. I’m not doing things to be nice.”

Towards the end of the ceremony, the star’s live performance of Von Dutch and Guess saw her transform the biggest and glitziest night in music into a packed and sweaty nightclub.

Emerging from a black SUV, she strutted towards the camera, throwing a glass of champagne against the wall of a parking garage, before launching into what appeared to be an underground rave.

As the performance progressed, she appeared on stage with model Julia Fox and hundreds of dancers, who were then showered in underwear (a reference to the song’s lyrics).

The Grammys said all of the unworn garments were donated to domestic violence survivors after the show.

I can’t be the only person desperate to know what Taylor is whispering, right?

Beyoncé’s stunned reaction to winning best country album is a gif that will never stop gif-ing.

Music lost one of its biggest legends in 2024, when Quincy Jones died at the age of 91.

As the producer for everyone from Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson, the Grammys gave him a star-studded send-off that lasted almost 20 minutes.

Cynthia Erivo and Herbie Hancock played a beautiful version of Fly Me To The Moon; while Stevie Wonder’s sang We Are The World with choirs from two schools affected by the devastating LA fires.

But it was Janelle Monaé’s performance of Michael Jackson’s Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough that blew the roof off.

Dressed in MJ’s Billie Jean outfit, she pirouetted and moonwalked and jumped on the tables as if she’d been possessed by the man himself.

Towards the end of the performance, she threw off her jacket to reveal a t-shirt bearing the legend “I Love QJ”.

And guess who caught it and wore it for the rest of the night?

Taylor Swift.

Even with 94 awards to consider, some people will get overlooked – but nobody expected two of the Grammys’ biggest darlings to go home empty-handed.

Taylor Swift was blanked despite scoring six nominations. Voters clearly decided that The Tortured Poets Department wasn’t worthy of comparison with her four previous album of the year winners (Fearless, 1989, Folklore and Midnights).

Billie Eilish’s wipeout was even more unexpected. She had been the bookmakers’ favourite for album of the year, for her third release Hit Me Hard And Soft – but she lost all seven of the categories she was nominated for.

Still, there was a lot of competition this year, especially in the pop categories. And Swift has spoken in the past about how losing album of the year for Red inspired her pop opus, and biggest-seller to date, 1989.

Don’t count either of these artists out just yet.

There’s a reason they keep inviting Trevor Noah back to host the Grammys: He’s got the tone right.

He’s relaxed, he’s engaged with the music, and his humour never punches down.

Here are some of his best quips from the night:

• “Yesterday, Beyonce announced her new tour. Everyone saw that. I will say, though, Beyonce, there’s tariffs. We can’t afford a new tour, right? Maple syrup is about to be $50.”
• “Taylor Swift could become the first artist ever to win album of the year five times. Which means she would break the record of four wins, set all the way back in 2024 by Taylor Swift. I’m just gonna say Taylor, if you break Taylor’s record, the Swifties are gonna come for you. And you don’t wanna mess with them.”
• “The Beatles are nominated tonight for Record of the Year. Yes, the legendary band from Liverpool used AI to put out a new song after 53 years. So good luck to the Beatles. I think if they win, this could open up a few doors for them.”
• “And who knows, through the power of AI, one day, we could even get another Rihanna album.”