Diversity rules on music’s biggest night
Women and people of color dominate the Grammys’ top categories. Showstoppers, reviews, fashion in Life
Every Grammys ceremony has its performances that will endure as shining moments in the artists’ careers. ❚ And then there are the duds – the sets the Grammys would just rather let fade into memory. ❚ So who earned the right to perform at music’s biggest night? Read on for highlights, and lowlights. Dolly Parton tribute: Katy Perry, Kacey Musgraves, Miley Cyrus, Maren Morris and Little Big Town
How they did: Worthy of Dolly’s presence
Thank goodness for Dolly, teaching the younger girls how it’s done, with a tribute in which every segment was better than the one before. Katy Perry and Kacey Musgraves kicked off the performance, trading vocals on the least-showy song of the set, “Here You Come Again,” before Parton stormed the stage, serving vocals basically as strong as the women half her age Janelle Monae’s performance of “Make Me Feel” brought the Grammys to life.
around her. To take on her immortal hit “Jolene,” she was joined by her goddaughter, Miley Cyrus, doing a perfect imitation of Parton’s twang. Next came a haunting take on “After the Gold Rush,” made famous by Neil Young, with Parton, Cyrus and Maren Morris singing
over a bare-bones accompaniment that briefly dropped out for a thrilling moment of three-part a cappella harmony. Little Big Town emerged next for Parton’s new song for the “Dumplin’ ” soundtrack, “Red Shoes,” giving her a few minutes to show off just how strong her voice still is. By the time the set ended with a feel-good group singalong of “9 to 5,” Parton had persuaded us to just hand over the rest of the evening to her capable hands.
Janelle Monae, “Make Me Feel”
How she did: Actually worthy of performing the night’s Motown tribute
Finally, some life. Monae brought one of her Prince-iest songs to the Grammys and did the Purple One proud with her
electric guitar and flawless choreography – though she owes the perfect moonwalk she busted out halfway through the performance to Michael Jackson. A break from the relatively bland performances that came before her, Monae transitioned from “Make Me Feel” to a snippet from “PYNK” and ended with a stunning scene of elevated tiers of dancers that somehow never distracted from Monae performing below.
Alicia Keys, “Songs I’d Wish I’d Written” medley
How she did: Makes us want a whole cover album
Alicia Keys gave viewers a valid reminder of the artistry that got her to this level of music fame in the first place – which can be easy to forget, considering she’s almost more famous these days as a TV personality or a talking head than the soulful pianist of her younger years. Keys showed just how many songs sound just as good, or in some cases better, when she’s the one performing them, making a serious case that she should adopt “Lucid Dreams” from Juice WRLD and “Use Somebody” from Kings of Leon. She also graced Grammy viewers with maybe the purest moment in the night when she started playing a sweet snippet of Ella Mai’s “Boo’d Up,” only for the camera to cut to Mai in the audience, looking absolutely overjoyed.
St. Vincent and Dua Lipa, “Masseducation” and “One Kiss”
How they did: Easily the hottest moment of the show
Dua Lipa and St. Vincent are two artists who know exactly what they’re doing – and, in a rare moment, the Grammys knew exactly what they were doing by pairing them up. Both women are subjects of intense attraction among their fan bases, and they both wield their sexuality like swords, making their duet exactly as erotic as their fans could have hoped as they mirrored each other’s movements wearing matching blunt bobs. Their chemistry was matched by the performance with St. Vincent’s “Masseducation” segueing
seamlessly into Dua Lipa’s “One Kiss.”
Cardi B, “Money”
How she did: Take all our money, Cardi
Leave it to Cardi B to deliver a set that was really just a string of instantly meme-able moments – which sounds like a criticism but is truly a compliment, considering how amazing she is at playing this game. Her stripping off her purple velvet cape. Her descending the steps in a showgirl fantasy of a set, surrounded by body-suited dancers in splits. Her climbing atop the crystal piano and posing with aplomb. Her flailing around in a peacock tail of giant black feathers. Even her on-again-offagain boo Offset was in on it, with the camera cutting to him dancing in the audience and sticking out his tongue audaciously. Was she singing? While her critics may crow about the performance’s questionable lack of live vocals, Cardi knows better – and realizes that her visuals, instantly ready to be memed, GIFed and disseminated on Instagram, are far more indelible.
Brandi Carlile, “The Joke”
How she did: Definitely not a joke Honestly, Carlile is a treasure. While higher-profile stars badmouthed the awards or chose to skip them entirely, realizing that they’re already too famous to need the kind of exposure the Grammys can provide, Carlile took a different route, seizing her status as the awards’ most-nominated female artist, appearing in commercials for the Recording Academy and a bevy of pre-Grammys events, plugging LGBT rights whenever she could. She’s a difficult character not to root for, and watching her perform “The Joke” felt like a triumph, as well as an example of the Grammys learning from last year’s mistakes and giving their top female nominees airtime.
Travis Scott, “Stop Trying to Be God” and “No Bystanders”
How he did: Too many bystanders The set badly needed to lose its whole first minute, in which Travis Scott entrusted the vocals of “Stop Trying to Be God” to vocalists James Blake and Philip Bailey, who tried and failed to give Scott the imaginative opening he presumably wanted when he invited them. Things picked up when the set transitioned to “No Bystanders,” a raucous highlight from Scott’s 2018 “Astroworld” album that the Grammys gave an appropriately chaotic live treatment. Invoking Scott’s maybe-brother-in-law Kanye West’s iconic 2015 BRIT Awards’ performance of “All Day,” in which a crowd of flamethrower-wielding dancers stormed the stage, Scott performed “No Bystanders” inside a giant cage with a mob swirling around him, before climbing out and crowd surfing across the sea of bodies.
Diana Ross, “The Best Years of My Life,” “Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)”
How she did: As fabulous as she is “Thank you for celebrating my birthday!” Diana Ross declared midway through her performance, to cheers – and again, at the end of her final song, as she waved goodbye to the crowd. Does it matter that her birthday is in late March? Of course not.When you’re a diva, every day can be your birthday if you declare it so.
H.E.R., “Hard Place”
How she did: No longer anonymous, and it’s well-deserved
Who is H.E.R.? That’s a question that many viewers likely went into the Grammys still asking, after the R&B singer’s surprise windfall of nominations this year. Wearing her trademark dark circular glasses, the singer delivered a succinct lesson on why she deserves to be performing on the Grammys stage tonight, hitting all the marks with an anthemic performance of “Hard Place,” kicking things up a notch when she started shredding on her clear electric guitar.
Dan + Shay, “Tequila”
How they did: Maybe some tequila could’ve made it exciting
Not the most memorable moment of the night, Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney didn’t hit a bum note in their moody take on their breakthrough hit “Tequila,” making drinking the aforementioned agave spirit sound absolutely mournful. Still, this may be one of the performances that non-superfans may struggle to remember in a few weeks – or, more realistically, in a few hours.
Lady Gaga, “Shallow”
How she did: Off the deep end Let’s start with the positives: Gaga’s knack for showmanship and her desire to transform “Shallow” for the Grammys stage and perform it not as her Ally character from “A Star Is Born,” but in a style that’s closer to her own live shows. For Gaga fans hoping for a high-drama set, that’s exactly what she delivered.