A record breaking evening for the books

On Feb. 1, the 68th Annual Grammy Awards were held at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. For years, this event has been a celebration of music and art spannings over genres, eras, and cultures and this year was no different with artists such as Kendrick Lamar, Billie Eillish and Bad Bunny all breaking records.

Best New Artist:

Olivia Dean went up against Alex Warren, Lola Young, Addison Rae, KATSEYE, The Marias, Leon Thomas III and Sombr to win her first Grammy as Best new artist this year. Personally, I think this is a very deserving win for the 26 year-old jazz-pop musician. She has two albums under her belt with her debut “Messy” coming out in June of 2023 and her most recent, “The Art of Loving” which came out in Sept. of 2025. As of Feb. 22, 2026, it has reached 2.4 billion streams on Spotify. Dean’s youthful jazz inspired sound really feels like a breath of fresh air in an industry that can tend to feel a bit repetitive. I think the category of “Best new artist” is a tough one because what makes an artist “new”. The official qualifications for being a “new artist” are quite complex, but in short they must have not been nominated for best new artist more than three times in the past, and must have not been previously nominated as a performer, which can create strange matchups that some people could consider well-seasoned in the industry, up against small-town solo acts.

Best Traditional Pop album:

Laufey is now a two-time Grammy winner, having won, after this year’s Grammy’s, the award for Best Traditional Pop Album twice in a row. Her category included other nominees Barbra Streisand, Lady Gaga, Elton John and Brandi Carlile, Jennifer Hudson and Laila Biali. Her album “A Matter Of Time” is, in my opinion, incredibly deserving of this award. It includes varying songs, from a fun instrumental interlude titled “Cuckoo Ballet,” to the lead single, “Silver Lining.” The album reached up to a top 20 hit in the Billboard 200 and as of Feb. 12, “Lover Girl,” one of the four singles on the album, has 163,781,408 streams on Spotify, making it her eighth most streamed song that she has released. This album overall is really good and a great choice for the winner of Best Traditional Pop album.

Best Jazz Vocal album:

Samara Joy is a 26 year-old American jazz singer who received two nominations, one for Best Jazz Performance for “Peace of Mind/Dreams Come True” and another for Best Jazz Vocal Album for her newest album,“Portrait,” at the 68th Grammy Awards. Her album “Portrait” won its category, marking Samara Joy’s sixth Grammy of her career. The album consisted of American jazz standards and one original, encapsulating a true spellbinding sound throughout the entirety of the album. One notable song within the album is “Reincarnation of a Lovebird.” Originally a jazz instrumental by Charles Mingus, Samara Joy took the melody and wrote lyrics to accompany the music. This award truly reflects the spirit and heart within Joy’s album, giving the new take on jazz standards the recognition it deserves.

Best Música Urbana Album:

Bad Bunny is a 16-time Grammy nominee and six-time Grammy winner. At this year’s Grammy’s, his album “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” was nominated for Best Album Cover and won Best Música Urbana Album, along with Album of the Year. Bad Bunny is now the first person to win Album of the Year with a fully spanish album. His music was nominated for two other Grammys, with “DtMF” being nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. He also won the Grammy for Best Global Music Performance for his song, “EoO.” Colbie West ‘27 said, “Bad Bunny’s new album is amazing. It has so many good collaborations and is the best to dance to. I’m so glad he won a Grammy to award his amazing art.” I wholeheartedly agree with that opinion as his music is very entertaining and is as popular as it is for a reason.

Best Pop Solo performance:

Lola Young won Best Pop Solo Performance for her song “Messy.” While I do believe she is a good performer, I think the other nominees in that category deserve it much more, especially when referring to “Subway” by Chappell Roan, another nominee in that category. The other nominees included “DAISIES” by Justin Bieber, “Manchild” by Sabrina Carpenter and “Disease” by Lady Gaga. I strongly disagree with the choice for “Messy” to have won in this category due to the fact that the live performances of it don’t properly showcase Lola Young’s talents nor do they do the song justice. In my opinion, the other live performances provided a better demonstration of the artists talents, especially in performances like Chappell Roan’s which evoke stronger investment and enjoyment from said performances. Especially because of the lyricism and quality of the songs, I feel that “Messy” did not entirely deserve to win in this category despite it still being an enjoyable song. Ella Hughes ‘27 said, “I think that it was good that Lola Young won because it’s important to see new faces at the Grammys.”

Song of the year:

Many people thought it was unfair for “WILDFLOWER” to be considered for this category because Billie Eilish released this song in her album “Hit Me Hard and Soft” in 2024 , so people felt like it shouldn’t be considered in this year’s Grammys, but to be fair to Billie Eilish she isn’t the only artist to ever do this and end up winning a Grammy. For instance, Roy Orbison re-recorded one of his songs “Oh, Pretty Woman” from 1964 and won a Grammy in 1991. A similar example to this is when Frank Sinatra won Album of the Year in 1967 for “A Man and His Music” when it was an album full of just of re-recording of his past hits. In my personal opinion I think that “WILDFLOWER” was still deserving of song of the year, as song of the year is about lyricism and I think out of the choices for song of the year ‘‘WILDFLOWER’’ should and did win. This win makes her and her brother Finneas the first to win the award three times.

Best Pop Vocal album and Best Dance Pop recording:

Lady Gaga won not one but two awards in the 2026 Grammy she has won 16 Grammy’s and she has had 45 nominations making her win-to-lose ratio over one to four.  Lady Gaga first won Best Dance Pop recording: “Abracadabra” and then won Best Pop Vocal album: “Mayhem” which is the second time she has won this, first time being when she won it for The Fame Monster way back in 2011. Even though part of me wanted Sabrina Carpenter to win, I think that in the end “Mayhem” made the most sense to win, especially with a pop icon like Lady Gaga herself writing it.

Best Pop duo/performance:

I don’t really understand why Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande chose this song because “Defying Gravity” isn’t a duet or what I would categorize as a duo performance. I think other songs in wicked would have been a better choice. For instance, “What is this feeling” feels more like a duo performance.

Record of the Year:

Kendrick Lamar had a very successful Grammys season taking home a whopping five Grammys: “Record of the year” for “luther” with SZA, “Best Rap Album” for GNX, “Best Melodic Rap Performance” for “luther” “Best Rap Song” for “TV Off” and “Best Rap Performance” for “Chains and Whips” (with Clipse). These wins pushed him to beat out Jay-Z to become the most awarded rapper in Grammy history with a total of 27 Grammys. Winning so much in so many competitive stories is an incredibly impressive feat. The twice-awarded “luther” is Lamar’s eighth collaboration with SZA and one of two collaborations between the two on GNX alone. By January, GNX  has surpassed four billion streams on Spotify.