Grammys analysis: What did we learn from 2024’s winners?

Jaime Rodriguez
·5 min read
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The 2024 Grammys aired on February 4, and as usual, I have some thoughts. For passionate awards pundits, the Grammys are often best enjoyed afterwards, when you can analyze the results properly and theorize about what they might be telling us about the voting process, the Recording Academy and the music industry as a whole. Here are my five main takeaways.

SEEGrammy winners list in all 94 categories

Pop voters have refined taste
Listen, I don’t wanna dunk on any artist or song, but Taylor Swift’s remix of “Karma” featuring Ice Spice is just not that good, with some simply feeling like the added verse was out of place. Regardless, the track was predicted to win the Grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, mostly due to the fact that the original version topped pop radio and all the other nominees were deep cuts and/or album tracks.

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Grammy voters rejected “Karma,” though, because the win ended up going to SZA’s “Ghost in the Machine” featuring Phoebe Bridgers. The win is hard to argue against; it’s an amazing song that also had virality on TikTok and was from the two top nominees of the year. In the end, pop voters chose the more prestigious track, so let’s keep that in mind the next time a singer tries submitting a not-so-well-received remix.

Winning Best Pop Vocal Album is an easy route to Album of the Year
Unsurprisingly, Taylor Swift took home her fourth Album of the Year trophy for her hit record “Midnights.” Its only other Grammy was for Best Pop Vocal Album. The win mirrors last year’s Grammys, when Harry Styles won those two categories as well. It seems like, in years where there is limited pop competition, the Best Pop Vocal Album winner will probably take the cake.

Granted, that didn’t work for Olivia Rodrigo, who won Best Pop Vocal Album for “Sour” in 2022 and an additional two Grammys but didn’t win Album of the Year. However, the overload of pop albums in her Album of the Year lineup (seven, counting Rodrigo) and the fact that they were all big hits (unlike some of the competition Swift and Styles faced) probably worked against her. So when you see an Album of the Year lineup without that many competitive pop albums, it might be a good bet to just predict the strongest of those for the top prize.

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Rock voters are more in tune with young audiences than we think
Some expected the rock categories to be a Foo Fighters sweep, since they often do win there. At minimum, most expected a Best Rock Album victory for their acclaimed release “But Here We Are,” especially after the passing of their drummer Taylor Hawkins. However, when Rufus Wainwright announced the winner during the Premiere Ceremony it turned out to be Paramore, for their equally acclaimed comeback album, “This Is Why.” The Rock Song and Rock Performance categories went a different way, going to the critically beloved supergroup Boygenius for their viral hit “Not Strong Enough.”

It’s hard to argue with either win, especially considering how much more culturally relevant the Paramore and Boygenius releases were. But the wins also show that Grammy voters are starting to favor younger artists over veterans. This is a good change of pace given how many times the rock field has been dominated by older male artists. One of the many concerns people had after the Grammys eliminated their nomination review committees was whether they’d be able to keep up with the times, but it seems like the Recording Academy members are up to date.

R&B will favor passion picks
One great thing about R&B academy voters is that they often deliver a surprise win or two. These also tend to be for amazing songs. This year there were two upsets. Coco Jones took home Best R&B Performance for her hit “ICU” despite SZA’s massive “Kill Bill” being nominated. Similarly, field favorite PJ Morton managed to grab a surprise Best Traditional R&B Performance win for “Good Morning,” which faced cuts from some of this year’s biggest stars like Victoria Monét, SZA, and Jones. It seems like, when predicting R&B categories, you always need to bank on an upset or two instead of anticipating a clean sweep for any particular artist.

Chris Stapleton, period
From this point on, if Chris Stapleton is the lead vocalist on a nominated song in the country field, you might just want to go ahead and predict it to win. Stapleton managed upsets against massive top-two hits from Luke Combs (“Fast Car”) and Zach Bryan (“I Remember Everything” featuring Kacey Musgraves), establishing himself as the absolute Grammy darling in the country field, if he wasn’t already. As a solo artist, Stapleton has only lost three country Grammys: two to Musgraves’s juggernaut “Golden Hour,” which won Album of the Year, and the other to Little Big Town’s Song of the Year-nominated “Girl Crush.” So just a head’s up: if you don’t have a potential general field nominee on your hands, you might want to wait a year or two instead of releasing any country music near Stapleton.

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