And the Grammy goes to…not always who we expect. The 67th Grammy Awards resulted in many controversial opinions regarding which projects deserved to win the most.

Out of the four major categories, the outcomes of half of them were seen as a bit strange. Excluding Best New Artist and Record of the Year, the other ones resulted in snubs.

Billie Eilish was one of the biggest snubs this year. With seven total nominations, the night concluded in zero wins. Even with her widely successful album, “Hit Me Hard And Soft”, no awards led many people to believe she was snubbed.

Album of the Year

Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter”, an album that transitioned from her signature pop sound to a new experimental “country” sound, gave Beyonce her first Album of the Year win. This happened one year prior to her husband, Jay Z, stating on the Grammy stage that she had the most Grammy wins but none of them were for album of the year.

“Hit Me Hard And Soft” was arguably the best album released in 2024 with many hits such as “Birds Of A Feather” and “Wildflower”. Being the second most streamed album in 2024, this project was one of Eilish’s most successful, having very good performance on the charts and gaining more than six billion streams on Spotify alone. Debuting with almost 73 million streams, the album still averages 15 million daily streams nine months after release. The album charted and peaked at number two on Billboard 200 and has stayed in the top 10 for the majority of its total weeks on the charts.

On the other hand, Beyonce’s album with the lead single being “Texas Hold ‘Em” was released in March. Even though it debuted with about 76 million first-day streams, it severely underperformed in terms of popularity and it is now significantly lower on Billboard 200, staying around the top 30s and dropping. With around three million daily streams, this album was somewhat forgotten. This project was definitely successful but compared to competition, the statistics are not very impressive. Currently, it is the 22nd most streamed album in 2024.

Other than popularity and success, after listening to the albums of all nominated candidates, “Cowboy Carter” seems to take advantage of features from artists like Dolly Parton, Miley Cyrus, Post Malone and Shaboozey. All the songs are pretty well put together, but there is nothing that sticks out. The album was definitely experimental which deserves some credit. Production-wise, it’s a pretty strong album but that doesn’t make this album any better than the competition. Some songs such as “Jolene” and “Blackbird” being remakes with similar instrumentals and lyrics from the originals give some songs a head start. Other than the album itself, barely any effort was put into anything after the album release, performances were rare and Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter Tour wasn’t even announced until the night before the Grammy show. Even though this album is definitely not bad, it probably had the least potential out of all nominees. This win was also strange because other Beyonce albums such as “Lemonade” were significantly better and deserved a win way more especially when you compare her albums.

Coming off a win in the Song of the Year category for “What Was I Made For?” and six wins from her debut album “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” with her massively popular track, “bad guy” Eilish’s sweep was expected this year as this album somewhat mirrored the success of her debut. Even though there were no singles prior to the release of the album, her hit song “Birds Of A Feather” became extremely popular, becoming one of the fastest songs to hit one billion streams on Spotify and standing as the fastest song to hit two billion as of Feb. 2025. With large success, this single song received hundreds of millions more streams than Beyonce’s whole album. 

The hooks, occasional transitions, lyrics, and vocals on “Hit Me Hard And Soft” were far superior and it definitely deserved more recognition. During a Vanity Fair interview, Eilish claimed this was her most genuine piece of work, she was endlessly proud of and it was the best album she has made. It was definitely disappointing that something she put so much work into didn’t get recognized.

Honorable mentions for Album of the Year are Charli XCX’s “Brat” which made a culturally large impact with, most notably, being a big part of Kamala Harris’ campaign. The music itself is pop and dance/electric with Charli’s signature club music vibe. André 3000’s “New Blue Sun” also stood out to me. The flute-based, non lyrical album’s production was very interesting which made it seem especially special. 

Song of the Year

Kendrick Lamar’s diss track, “Not Like Us”, sweeping five out of seven nominations including Song and Record of the Year was not entirely expected but it does make some sense. The cultural impact and influence this song had ever since release and during the Kendrick/Drake beef was major. While deserving of the Record of the Year which deals with the recording of a song, “Birds Of A Feather” was more deserving of the Song of the Year category. Song of the Year deals with the songwriting/singing of a song which “Birds Of A Feather” was predicted to dominate in.

Billie Eilish and Finneas are known for their emotional and exceptional storytelling in their lyrics. Everything from production to lyrics and the total composition made every part of this track exceptional, making it very deserving to win in this category. In addition, “Birds Of A Feather” was the most streamed song of 2024 on Spotify which shows the popularity and how much people enjoyed it.

Best New Artist

A more neglected artist during the 67th Grammy Awards was Raye, a British singer-songwriter. Even though she was one of the least popular artists out of all the nominees, her performance and music really shows her talent. With a very impressive discography with fun and upbeat to emotional and lyrically powerful music, she definitely deserves more attention.

Best R&B Album

Usher’s “Coming Home” was a really nice R&B album. After eight years of no albums, he finally dropped in Feb. 2024 with his long awaited comeback. Including his original sound, the album was a mix of pop but mainly R&B. This versatile long awaited album was definitely a good one and it was definitely a strong competitor for this category.

Best Country Album

Although the breakthroughs in this year’s Best Country Album category with Beyonce’s win is impressive. Some other country albums were also very impressive including Post Malone’s “F-1 Trillion” with zero wins, continuing his losing streak. This album was an experimental one which was met with pretty positive reviews. Being a fusion of country and pop, “F-1 Trillion” had deep lyrics and while being experimental, it still kept parts of Malone’s signature sound. With eight total nominations, Malone left with no awards meaning with a total of 18 career nominations, he has still never won an award. 

Recap

The Grammy’s are the biggest night in music but not every artist is able to walk away with something to reward themselves for their hard work. Countless artists and groundbreaking albums this year have been shockingly overlooked by the Academy but people will always have something to say about the show anyways. Although this is true, some artists and pieces of work really do deserve more recognition for their accomplishments in 2024.