LOS ANGELES - Teen sensation Billie Eilish swept the Grammy Awards on Sunday, winning all four top prizes - album, song, record of the year and best new artist - in a rare feat at the music industry's highest honors.
Eilish, an 18-year-old newcomer with a unique sound, won for her debut studio album "When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?" while her hit single "Bad Guy" was named record of the year and song of the year. In all, she took home five awards.
She is only the second person, and the youngest, to win all four top Grammys on the same night.
Eilish, distinguished by her green hair and baggy clothes, recorded the album with her brother Finneas in the bedroom of their Los Angeles home. Finneas also won the Grammy for non classical producer of the year.
They seemed taken aback by their Grammy haul, which saw them triumph over established stars including Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and rapper Post Malone.
"We didn't make this album to win a Grammy. We wrote about depression and suicidal thoughts and environmental change," Finneas said as the pair accepted the awards. "We stand up here confused and grateful."
Asked backstage what she would do next, Eilish said, "Being in this moment is all I'm thinking about... I'm gonna do whatever I feel."
The Grammy Awards show opened with a dedication to basketball star Kobe Bryant, who died in a helicopter accident earlier in the day and whose Los Angeles Lakers team has its home at the city's Staples Center and Grammy venue.
"We are literally standing here heartbroken in the house that Kobe Bryant built," said Grammy host Alicia Keys. "We never imagined in a million years we'd have to start the show like this."
R&B star Lizzo won three of her eight nominations, while gay black country rapper Lil Nas X took two for his viral "Old Town Road" collaboration with Billy Ray Cyrus.
Lil Nas X, 20, wearing a cowboy hat and silver lure suit, and country singer Billy Ray Cyrus dazzled the house with a kitschy performance of their viral collaboration "Old Town Road," with contributions from stars ranging from K-Pop band BTS to young yodeler Mason Ramsey.
"He told the world he was gay and overnight he became an inspiration and a role model for hundreds of young people around the world," comedian Ellen DeGeneres, who is also gay, said as she introduced Lil Nas X.
Grande performed a medley of hits from her break-up album "Thank u, Next," including "7 Rings" and "Imagine" but won none of the five Grammys for which she was nominated.
Slain rapper Nipsey Hussle, 33, who was gunned down in his Los Angeles neighborhood last year, won two Grammys and was honored in a tribute by John Legend, DJ Khaled and rapper Meek Mill.
Blake Shelton and his fiancee Gwen Stefani held hands as they debuted their new romantic duet "Nobody But You," while Camila Cabello sang her recent single "First Man" to her tearful father in the audience. Demi Lovato won a standing ovation in her first performance at a major awards show since a drugs overdose in 2018.
The Grammy winners are chosen by members of the Recording Academy, which is currently embroiled in a dispute over the departure of its new chief executive Deborah Dugan and her allegations of conflicts of interest in the nominations process. The Recording Academy has denied the allegations.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
LOS ANGELES - Top nominee Lizzo kicked off the 2020 Grammys on Sunday with a tribute to the late basketball legend Kobe Bryant, before launching into a rousing medley of her hits.
"Tonight is for Kobe," shouted the 31-year-old, who has already won two awards in the pre-gala event that led into music's marquee night.
Bryant -- a hero for Los Angeles who played for the Lakers in the Staples Center, where the Grammys are being held -- died in a helicopter crash earlier in the day, along with eight others, including his 13-year-old daughter.
After a glittering performance of "Truth Hurts" and "Cuz I Love You" -- which featured ballerinas, orchestrals and the artist's signature flute skills -- Lizzo passed the torch to Grammy host Alicia Keys who offered another moving tribute to Bryant.
"We're all feeling crazy sadness right now. Earlier today, Los Angeles, America and the whole wide world lost a hero," she said.
"And we're literally standing here heartbroken in the house that Kobe Bryant built," said Keys, before launching into a soulful rendition of "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye" with the group Boyz II Men.
Top contenders at Sunday's glam gala include Lizzo, Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
UNITED STATES -- Los Angeles is gearing up for the Grammys, music's marquee night, with Lizzo, Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X leading a pack of young, talented contenders hoping to strike gold on Sunday.
But revelations of infighting at the Recording Academy, which organizes the awards show, and an explosive allegation of rape has cast a dark shadow over the glitzy gala and rattled the institution's efforts to shed its out-of-touch image.
On Tuesday, Deborah Dugan -- the first woman to head the Academy, a move meant to usher in a new era for a body long accused of favoritism and a lack of diversity -- filed an explosive discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
She says she was suspended after raising concerns over sexual harassment, voting irregularities and other misconduct within the Academy, one of music's most influential organizations.
In the complaint, the former CEO -- who was put on leave last week days before her filing, accused of bullying behavior -- also alleged that her predecessor, Neil Portnow, had raped a foreign female musician, an allegation he has rejected as "ludicrous and untrue."
The ongoing tempest is swirling in stark contrast with the Recording Academy's efforts to reinvent itself, and thereby appease critics who long have lambasted the Grammys as too white, too male -- and too generous to music world mainstays.
DIVERSE NOMINEE FIELD
This year's diverse slate of nominees -- which celebrates a mix of established and budding stars -- did appear to be a move in a new direction.
Leading the pack is the effervescent 31-year-old Lizzo -- beloved by fans for her sassy, body-positive persona and unflinching messages of feminist empowerment, sexual freedom and black pride.
She nabbed 8 nominations, including in all the top 4 categories.
The 18-year-old goth-leaning pop iconoclast Billie Eilish and the genre-bending overnight sensation Lil Nas X, 20, both have 6 chances at Grammy gold, while the enigmatic 22-year-old R&B prodigy H.E.R. has 5.
The newbie front-runners will square off against veteran powerhouses including Ariana Grande and Beyonce, as well as alt-leaning acts Lana Del Rey, Bon Iver and Vampire Weekend.
The shift follows years of sharp critique from top-tier artists including Frank Ocean, Drake and Jay-Z, who have all slammed the Grammys as irrelevant, especially citing its failure to recognize black artists.
DIVERSE WINS 'MORE POSSIBLE'
For John Vilanova, a professor at Lehigh University who has extensively researched the intersection of race and gender at the Grammys, this year's field of nominees is evidence of "an environment that feels more possible" for different kinds of artists to have a chance.
"It's quite interesting, to see what will happen when you have artists who are really having their first chance at this," he told AFP.
"Their work is being appraised by the academy for the first time."
In her first public interview since unveiling her scathing allegations that the Academy is a "boys' club" where powerful men line their pockets and promote a misogynistic culture with impunity, Dugan told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Thursday: "I actually wanted to make change from within."
In her complaint, she said that some nominated artists have sat on the voting boards for their prospective categories.
But when asked if the Grammys are "rigged," Dugan sidestepped.
"I was trying at each step to take a deep breath and say, 'OK, I can make a difference, I can fix this, I can work with this team,'" she told the ABC morning news program.
'OLD TOWN ROAD' ALL-STAR SHOW
Though one-time Grammy darling Taylor Swift is up for several awards including Song of the Year, many mainstay artists are not "looming significantly" over the ceremony as they have in years past, Vilanova said.
"They aren't leading the discourse, they're afterthoughts -- and when has Taylor Swift been an afterthought?"
Often remembered as much for its performances as its winners, the Grammys will feature Lizzo, Eilish and Grande, along with a genre-blending rendition of Lil Nas X's mega-hit "Old Town Road" that will feature K-pop sensation BTS, country star Billy Ray Cyrus and the eclectic DJ Diplo, among others.
Artists including John Legend, Meek Mill and DJ Khaled -- all up for Grammys this year -- will perform a tribute to the late rapper Nipsey Hussle, who was shot dead last year and is up for 3 posthumous awards.
Though the Recording Academy drama has threatened to cloud the gala, Vilanova said that in terms of expanding possibilities for artists, the Grammys appear to be taking baby steps toward structural change.
"I hesitate to call it a sea change -- progress in these areas rarely happens in a straight line," he said.
"It's not that one artist should win -- what we want to ask is, 'Do the Grammys actually represent what the music industry sounds like and looks like?'"
source: news.abs-cbn.com
