There isn’t a surer method for a younger musician to accumulate a fast coat of gravitas than an look on the Grammy Awards. And there’s no surer method for a younger musician to hurry the best way to the Grammys than by already showing to be previous.
Such is the chicken-egg conundrum bedeviling the awards, and in addition the pop music trade, which coexist in uneasy alliance, trying askance at one another whereas furtively holding arms. On the Grammys, maturity is rewarded, and infrequently demanded, placing it at direct odds with a music enterprise that continues to valorize youth.
On the sixty fourth annual Grammy Awards, which occurred in Las Vegas on Sunday night time, these tensions had been on show in myriad methods. Take Justin Bieber, who started his efficiency of the glistening, slinky “Peaches” sitting on the piano, singing earnestly and with pulp. For Bieber, 28, not usually thought to be a musician’s musician, it was a pointed ploy, or maybe a plea.
Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak — performing as Silk Sonic — gained each tune and document of the 12 months for “Depart the Door Open,” a stunningly slick slice of Nineteen Seventies-style soul. On the present, they nailed the yesteryear aesthetic, too, from fits to hairstyles to mannerisms. Each males, masterful purveyors of retro sonic ideology, are 36.
Jon Batiste, the New Orleans jazz scion and late-night bandleader who gained album of the 12 months, delivered a efficiency that channeled second-line funk, basic soul and simply the faintest contact of hip-hop. He’s 35.
These are the kinds of performances, and performers, the Grammys crave: showing younger however aiming to embody old school values of musicianship. As a result of the Grammys telecast attracts generations of viewers, and since Grammy voters are drawn from a large pool that skews older, what emerges on the present, and within the awards themselves, is a sort of piteous compromise that holds actual innovation at bay. The artists nominated within the high classes had been refreshingly democratic, by way of style and age, however Batiste and Silk Sonic bested all of them.
That meant that the one one remaining for Olivia Rodrigo, nominated in all 4, to win was greatest new artist, which she did. Rodrigo was final 12 months’s clear breakout star, and the prime placement she was given on the telecast, with one of many first performances, indicated the Grammys understood her energy. She was a jolt of uncut youth, performing “Drivers License” with a lightweight eau de grunge, after which later thanking her dad and mom when accepting the award for greatest pop vocal album for “Bitter.”
However that was one thing of a head faux, as was many of the present’s opening run of performances, which additionally included the precocious Grammy fave Billie Eilish, the Okay-pop group BTS, the reggaeton star J Balvin and Lil Nas X, whose mix of raunch and wit felt barely tamped down throughout his medley of current hits. The one different second the present approached a second of sincere freshness was when Doja Cat raced to the stage to simply accept her award for greatest pop duo/group efficiency after leaving the room for a loo break. She and her co-winner SZA giggled on the snafu, and Doja spoke within the unfiltered method she’s turn into identified for, which felt contemporary on this context: “I prefer to downplay a whole lot of [expletive], however it is a large deal.”
As for a number of different younger stars, effectively, they declined to indicate up — Tyler, the Creator, who gained greatest rap album; Drake, who withdrew himself from consideration within the classes through which he was nominated; the Weeknd, who after final 12 months’s no-nomination debacle has acknowledged he’ll by no means once more submit his music for consideration by the Grammys; Cardi B, nominated simply as soon as. (Taylor Swift additionally didn’t attend, however that absence didn’t have the air of a protest a lot as an acknowledgment that this 12 months was unlikely to garner her any trophies.)
That lineup of no-shows may gas an alternate award present, or live performance (as was proposed by the hip-hop mogul J. Prince). And therein lies the Grammys’ Achilles’ heel: It wants artists like these, each for causes of relevance and in addition as tribute-payers. As hip-hop has turn into the dominant sound of pop music, its stars are going to turn into the elders of tomorrow. If the Grammys proceed to alienate its younger titans, its makes an attempt to honor the music transferring ahead will constantly fall flat. (That was emphasised by the oldest featured performer at this 12 months’s present: Nas, 48, who spent half of his set performing 20-year-old songs that deserved a Grammys stage way back.)
This chasm — between the Grammys and youth, between the Grammys and hip-hop — implies that the present has to double down on youthful stars prepared (and excited?) to be in dialogue with the sounds of yesteryear. A number of the most strikingly mature vocals of the night time had been by Rachel Zegler, singing Sondheim as a part of the in memoriam phase. One of many present’s most stirring moments got here from the R&B singer-songwriter H.E.R., who has maybe been over-indexed with awards-show acclaim in recent times. Her efficiency, alongside Lenny Kravitz, Travis Barker and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, related her to 3 generations of funk and rock.
After which there may be Woman Gaga, the onetime pop disrupter who has turn into the embodiment of institutional legacy via her ongoing work with the crooner Tony Bennett. Their newest album, “Love for Sale,” gained greatest conventional pop vocal album, and Gaga carried out a tribute to Bennett, 95 — who didn’t attend — singing two of the album’s songs, which originated within the Thirties. Her singing was sharp and invested, making a case for decades-old requirements on a up to date pop stage, the embodiment of the Grammys’ cross-generational objectives.
It was simple to lose sight of the truth that Woman Gaga is barely 36. And looking out on the subsequent era of pop expertise — Eilish, Rodrigo, Doja Cat, Tyler, the Creator and past — it’s laborious to not surprise how lengthy will they be allowed to be younger earlier than the Grammys insists they develop up.