The 65th Annual Grammy Awards took place on Sunday, February 5th at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California. A lot of the winners were rather questionable and very unexpected. Shockingly enough, the Grammys had higher ratings this year in comparison to the last two with 12.4 million. But was it really worth watching? Not really. These are who won in the big four categories and who really should’ve won:

Album of the Year:

• Who won: “Harry’s House” by Harry Styles
• Who should’ve won: “RENAISSANCE” by Beyoncé

This one came as quite a shock. While “Harry’s House” was a big album and received lots of acclaim, it just comes really short to Beyoncé’s “RENAISSANCE”. Styles’ album just feels like an even more watered down version of his already-watered down album “Fine Line”. It has almost no substance to it and produced one of the most annoying songs in a long time; “As It Was”. Beyoncé’s album is the complete opposite. As her career progresses on, the music only gets better. “Lemonade” almost felt like an album that couldn’t be topped and yet she proved everyone wrong. Even then, “Lemonade” lost its nomination for this same category to Adele’s “25”. Most people figured, “well if Beyoncé doesn’t win this year, then it’s going to be Adele.” Even without the two, Kendrick Lamar’s “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers” would’ve been a lot better of a choice than Harry Styles’.

Record of the Year:

• Who won: “About Damn Time” by Lizzo
• Who should’ve won: “About Damn Time” by Lizzo

This was definitely the best win of the night. The song was huge, was on everyone’s summer 2022 playlist, and is just a banger in general. It’s also the first time a Black woman wins a Grammy for Record of the Year since Whitney Houston in 1994.

Song of the Year:

• Who won: “Just Like That” by Bonnie Raitt
• Who should’ve won: “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” by Taylor Swift

Watching this live was ridiculous. When they announced Raitt as the winner, the crowd was silent. The Grammys tend to reward legacy acts quite frequently, and more and more often as time goes on, but why this time? When you look at the nine other songs nominated in this category there’s a good chance you know atleast a few of them. But this song? Unless you’re middle-aged you probably don’t know who Bonnie Raitt actually is. “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” is extremely well written and arguably one of the best works of art in Swift’s career. Comparing it to “Just Like That” is almost an insult to Taylor Swift. Raitt’s song is nothing more than a simple little acoustic guitar song.

Best New Artist:

• Who won: Samara Joy
• Who should’ve won: No one, really

Best New Artist this year just felt like they generated a bunch of random artists and threw them into one category. While Måneskin, Latto, and Muni Long all put out a hit song or two in the past year, they aren’t that special. Samara Joy isn’t someone who most people are familiar with, so it’s hard to really judge if she deserved this award or not. This one wasn’t much of a shock just because most of these artists are pretty irrelevant.

As a whole, the Grammys this year sucked. Beyoncé did make history as the most awarded artist of all time at the ceremony and sweeped all the genre categories she was nominated in, which is a plus. Kendrick Lamar also sweeped the rap categories; expectedly and deservingly so. It definitely wasn’t worth watching and losing valuable sleeping time for. Countless artists were snubbed of nominations because they aren’t as relevant enough or have the chart statistics like other nominees, so really the whole thing is just a popularity contest.