Best and Worst Moments From the 2025 Grammys
The New York Times
Doechii and Chappell Roan brought dramatic performances and heartfelt speeches, new artists stole the spotlight and men took a back seat at the 67th annual awards.
The most awards at the 67th annual Grammys went to Kendrick Lamar, who swept the biggest song prizes with his Drake diss “Not Like Us” on his way to five trophies. But the story of the night was Beyoncé, who after losing album of the year four previous times, won for her genre study “Cowboy Carter,” becoming the first Black woman since 1999 — and fourth in the show’s history — to take home the top honor. Chappell Roan triumphed in best new artist and advocated for artists’ rights in her acceptance speech. And the show worked to balance celebration with a different imperative: raising money for those impacted by the wildfires that recently devastated parts of Los Angeles. Here are the show’s highlights and lowlights as we saw them.
The final performance at the Grammys, right before the announcement of album of the year, is a thankless slot — the show is invariably running long, and there’s an itchiness to move quickly. But Charli XCX, who won three Grammys in genre categories Sunday night, used it to bring some after-hours sweat and raunch to a show that had largely been reverent and dignified. She strode in flanked by the tastemaker supermodels Alex Consani and Gabbriette, then merged with an onstage dance party that despite its contrivance nevertheless felt frisky and reckless, populated with a who’s who of the New York and Los Angeles creative elite: Julia Fox, the Dare, Richie Shazam, Niki Takesh, Quen Blackwell and more. It was a brat ending (and presumably, the ending of “Brat”). JON CARAMANICA
Best new artist nominees haven’t always gotten the best exposure on the Grammys. Too often, they’ve been sidelined or squeezed into medleys and snippets. But with contenders who have racked up hundreds of millions of streams, this year the show trusted their star power and lavished them with production values and stage time. Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan each got big song-and-dance numbers, and the other competitors held forth in a long, elaborate segment that — for once — didn’t cram their songs together.
