The Grammy’s, originated in May of 1959, is an annual award show dedicated to the music artists who were relevant in the past year. 

This year, on February 2, 2025, the 67th annual Grammy’s took place at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California. This year’s host was comedian Trevor Noah, making it his fifth straight year hosting the event. 

Many big-name artists were invited, including: Sabrina Carpenter, Beyonce, Charli XCX, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, and Chappell Roan.

The 2025 Grammys did not come without controversy. The category that caused the most uproar this year was the “Album of the Year” Award. 

People on social media were upset when Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter” album was announced as the winner. People on TikTok, in particular, believed that Beyonce’s win was undeserved. When Beyonce was announced as the winner, the camera panned over to Billie Eilish, who had tears in her eyes after hearing the announcement that she had not won. 

This is not uncommon, as award shows like the Grammys are not shy about showing disappointed and heartbroken reactions of losing nominees in past years. However, fans believe it was unfair for Eilish not to win a Grammy because Billie Elilish was very proud of this album and had worked so hard on it. Elilish wrote “Hit me Hard and Soft” as a way to explore her own emotions and focus on the complexities of romantic relationships and her own vulnerabilities,and deeply resonated with Billie,making the album so deeply personal. 

Fans believe that Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter,” the country pop album, didn’t have the same love and effort put into it as “Hit me Hard and Soft”. Fans also believed the album wasn’t as nearly popular as Billie’s Album. Billie Elilish’s album had all 10 songs up in the top 40 for the Billboard Hot 100 and had sold over 8 million copies,and was deemed the second most successful album of 2024 behind “The Tortured Poets Department” By Taylor Swift. Beyonce’s album was the third most selling album of 2024 with over 6 million copies sold. “Who even listens to Cowboy Carter anyways?” said one TikTok netizen in a video with 2.5 million views. However, many say that Beyonce won rightfully, claiming that people are upset that a woman of color won and that Billie Eilish would be just fine. 

In the past, celebrities like Eminem have called out the Grammys for being rigged by saying, “That vote is fake as f***, that is not a real vote, they give it to who they want to” and then he refuses to attend because the Grammys use artists for sales. 

The Weeknd, who had boycotted the Grammys back in 2020, scored zero nominations for his massively successful album “After Hours” and tweeted out, “The Grammys remain corrupt. You owe me, my fans, and the industry transparency.” However, this year – he did have a shocking return with his attendance to the award show this year. Kanye West has had many controversies over the years at various award shows, his most infamous one being when he called out Taylor Swift in 2015, claiming that Beyonce should have won. However, Kanye claims that he was pretty drunk at the time.

A poll was put up that asked Waterford students if they believed the Grammys were rigged. From the results,77.8% of students said the Grammys were rigged, with 66.7% saying they thought Billie Eilish’s “HIT ME HARD AND SOFT” should have won over Beyonce’s “COWBOY CARTER”.  “I think the Grammys have always been rigged, so I don’t bother watching them anymore.” – Emma Lutz