The Grammys, unlike the usually more-or-less accurately forecasted Oscars, are always full of surprises, this year hardly being any exception. Jon Batiste receiving a leading five wins? Who saw that coming — except for anyone who saw him coming in with a leading 11 nominations and figured the math might translate?
But that arithmetic did not carry over for the highly nominated Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X, who went home empty-handed (but still full-hearted, let’s hope), or produce the results quite expected for Olivia Rodrigo and the Tony Bennett/Lady Gaga teaming.
Meanwhile, during the pre-telecast Premiere Ceremony presentation, live-streamed on the Recording Academy’s YouTube channel, there were other kind of surprises including some seemingly honest confusion about given names and gender involving best new artist nominee and pre-telecast presenter Arlo Parks and veteran bluegrass picker (and pre-telecast winner) Bela Fleck. After all, the Grammys are one very, very long day for all involved.
Here’s a rundown of this year’s biggest snubs and surprises:
SURPRISE: Silk Sonic sweeps
The duo of Bruno Mars and Anderson. Paak had the only perfect record of the night, at least among nominees with a significant number of turns at bat. “We are really trying our hardest to remain humble at this point,” said .Paak, “but in the industry we call that a clean sweep.”
They won in all four categories in which they were nominated: record of the year, song of the year, best R&B song and best R&B performance. If they’d been up for album of the year (Silk Sonic’s collection won’t be eligible till next year, because it came out after the Oct. 1 cutoff), they probably would have gotten that one, too. So anyone wh
would prefer to see the love thrown around a little can be grateful for small favors, and that Silk Sonic will have some different categories to dominate in 2023. In retrospect, Silk Sonic being Grammy bait shouldn’t have been as big a surprise as it was, given the way Bruno Mars swept with six wins when he was last up as a solo artist four years ago.
SNUB: No presenter calls Lil Nas X by his name
“Can’t believe I lost all my Grammys,” wrote the hip-hop artist on Twitter. “I am now no longer gay!” Here’s a man who not only doesn’t avoid the subject of his losses, he leans into it. Of course, he still has his “Old Town Road” victories from two years ago to keep him warm. But any thought that Nas would be rewarded for coming out as boldly as he did were quickly set aside.
Even if he was never the leading candidate to win album or record of the year, how does he lose for music video when he had the water-cooler clip of the year with “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”? That’s easy: He loses when that video stands in the way of the Recording Academy and its love affair with Jon Batiste.
SURPRISE: Jon Batiste is the popular kid
Batiste didn’t “sweep” like Silk Sonic did. Even so, in winning less than half the categories he was up for, he was still the biggest winner of the night, because he came in with an astonishing 11 nominations and prevailed with five of those. That included the album of the year prize as well as some subcategories, like two wins for American roots, where he won over some performers who are far more associated with that genre.
