The 66th Grammy Awards ceremony is a blessedly fading memory. Nearly a week after Tracy and Joni made everybody weep and Miley dazzled in her tribute-to-Jane-Fonda-in-Barbarella dress, the uncharacteristically vociferous discourse has simmered down. If you’re an always-online person, you might be worn out from both the emotional outpouring surrounding those elders’ emergence and the inevitable backlashagainst those sweet but not uncomplicated moments. But I think there’s something more to be said about what went down and how the world reacted.
First, the facts: Women swept all nine top categories during the telecast. They also ruled the performance segments, divided between heralded returns from Joni Mitchell, Tracy Chapman and Annie Lennox and victory laps from SZA and Miley Cyrus, among others. And several winners gave the kinds of speeches that deflect the glitz. The chance for fans to see their idols nervous and giddy and a little bit drunk, thanking their parents and getting embarrassed by their own crying jags, keeps viewers on their couches for the long haul.
It was a speech – actually two, and the hubbub surrounding them – that led to this year’s biggest controversy. Unsurprisingly, it was generated by Taylor Swift, pop’s reigning gravitational force and sunlight blocker. Winning best pop vocal album for Midnights, Swift pushed the edge of decorum by using the moment to announce her new album The Tortured Poet’s Department, instantly creating a vortex that sucked all the room’s energy toward her. Then, winning album of the year at the end of the ceremony, she excitedly made several faux pas: She dragged her current bestie Lana del Rey onto the stage, where the chanteuse awkwardly stood in the background; grabbed her gramophone from ailing legend Céline Dion’s hands without so much as a hug and blurted out a speech that seemed to indicate besting the likes of SZA and Del Rey herself meant less to her than, I kid you not, “shotlisting a video.” Intending to extoll the value of the work itself, Swift ended up seeming self-absorbed and ungrateful.
Reaction online was instantaneous and fierce. Some posters pointed out that Swift’s win excluded deserving Black contenders in a way that echoed Jay-Z’s fiery speech about inequity given earlier in the evening. A few sympathetic souls, most eloquently the always-sensitive Anne-Helen Petersen, defended Swift while acknowledging the issues her win raised. Most critics agreed with the nuanced reading Slate’s Carl Wilson gave: It isn’t Taylor’s fault that all good things come to her right now, but the way she receives so much glory is starting to feel off.
What struck me, however, was the bigger picture. Why did Swift’s speeches, mere seconds of a four-hour telecast, cause so much consternation? Looking at the whole arc of the evening provides an answer that illuminates not just the state of pop, but the cultural politics in which we’re all mired right now.
At the root of it all is the tension between two pronouns that define point of view: “I” and “we.” Popular culture, especially music, constantly veers between both. Most mainstream artworks are highly collaborative – this was one point of Swift’s dragging her current squad, made up now of musical collaborators instead of the actors and models of the past, onstage with her. And they also cultivate feelings of community, generating singalongs, dance parties, friendship bracelet exchanges. The celebrity machine, on the other hand, is all about “I,” the elevation of individual talent, glamor and achievement in league with the endless competitive push of capitalism. Many people create, execute and love the music that wins Grammy Awards, but even surrounded by collaborators, the winners stand alone. In 2024, when the often-female individual performer defines pop stardom more than the group, this singling out process has been intensified.
A similar paradox plays out in contemporary feminism. Think about the two biggest catchphrases of the 2000s: “lean in” and “shine theory.” The first, coined by former Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg, privileges individual success earned through women’s ability to defeat the double standard – in the words of Robin James, to “pull herself out of structural/economic feminization.” To become more than just an ordinary woman. The second – familiar within Swift’s mythology – is all about helping other women to benefit as you yourself ascend. For much of the 2000s, leaning in dominated the view of women defeating sexism: the athletic achievements of Serena and Simone, the entrepreneurship of “girlboss” Sophia Amoruso, Greta Gerwig’s Hollywood moves. Lately, though – and specifically in the case of Gerwig’s Barbie barrage – shine theory seems to matter more, and to be morphing into something closer to mutual aid, as collective calls for change and non-hierarchical activism define a new generation’s attempts to engender progress.
Sunday’s ceremony started out in a very “we” way. The opening number by Dua Lipa was pretty generic, but it also illustrated that good-natured superstar’s gift for doing what’s necessary and blending in, a very sparkly hard worker who generates hits via group effort. More enticing was the scene among the audience, where the women of the night dished and hugged, forming a phalanx of pussy power. Speeches like Miley Cyrus’s gushing paean to presenter Mariah Cary and Victoria Monét’s testimony to her female manager, who pulled her music out of a slush pile, reinforced the communal vibe. So did those treasured appearances by Chapman and Mitchell. The first was a duet with “Fast Car” cover boy Luke Combs happily ceding all ground. The second was a perfectly calibrated performance by the Joni Jam, the all-star group that Brandi Carlile has cultivated to support Mitchell in her unlikely post-illness renaissance.
It was Swift who threw out the “we” for the “I.” She didn’t do it with her words, mostly. Swift is ever-gracious in her awards acceptance speeches, always enthusiastically crediting her collaborators and acknowledging her competition. But as she stands in the eye of a hurricane of popular fetishization and media hype, Swift can’t help but block out everything and everyone around her. She knows it, or at least the attack of the 50-foot Tay in the “Anti-Hero” video suggests she does. But that doesn’t stop it from being true. She wants to continue to present herself as an ordinary musician who loves the studio more than the spotlight, but crowd hunger – for a distraction from the world’s horrors, a hero who doesn’t wield weapons, a boost to the economy, a symbolic antidote to the shrinking of women’s rights – has turned her into the strangest kind of star: a mutli-dimensional monolith. In popular culture right now, Taylor Swift stands for everything, yet she also stands firmly for the center, unmoving, unable to share the light.
I think this is her superpower – echoing Anne-Helen Petersen here, I’d say that Swift adapts and adjusts to dominate any conversation her work enters. Her gift for constantly seizing the cultural conversation makes her the ultimate “I” whose “we” only exists because of her. For all of her fan service, she dominates. And I think people are getting a bit tired of that kind of girl-bossing. Swift herself seems to be getting tired of it.
What could she have done to keep the Grammys’ mood a “we?” She did try to share the space with her friends and her peers. I think she might have had no chance to adjust the lens so that it could encompass more than her. The first words she uttered when she won album of the year are telling: “Guys,” she said to those onstage with her, “You’ve got to come closer. I feel really alone. I feel so alone.” Even at the top, no one wants to feel that way right now.
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I did enjoy the Grammys. I won’t apologize! Here are some other things that brought pleasure and mental stimulation this week:
My pal and colleague Sheldon Pearce wrote a great piece contextualizing Usher’s sure-to-be-grand Super Bowl halftime show. (Which we also talked about a little on this week’s episode of the New Music Friday podcast.)
If you think you know Nashville, you’ll probably think again after you hear the excellent new podcast from WPLN reporter and frequent NPR Music contributor Jewly Hight, all about the organization Lovenoise and the growth of the city’s Black live music scene. It’s called Making Noise.
A lot of people found out who Mojo Nixon was after his death on board the Outlaw Country Cruise ship last week. Do yourself a favor – read this interview and familiarize yourself with his rowdy, brilliant life.
I was chatting with a Peruvian chef last week and mentioned I’m going to Florida next week. On his advice, I might have to change my itinerary to make a pilgrimage to this ceviche palace.
This song from Madi Diaz’s album length deep dive into clarity, Weird Faith, is handy for anyone trying to figure out if that Tinder swipe or bar flirtation can give them what they need.
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