On January 26, 2020, the 62^nd annual Grammy Music Awards took place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. Recognized as the biggest night in music, the Grammy’s celebrates musical artists by awarding them with incredibly high honors. The four biggest awards of the night are undoubtedly record of the year, album of the year, song of the year, and best new artists. Though they are many other awards that are given out during the Grammys that are also a great honor to achieve, these four categories lead the pack for a multitude of reasons. During this year’s Grammys, Billie Eilish achieved a milestone and won all four major categories. But, in my personal opinion along with some others, I do not believe Billie deserved to win all four categories that night.

            Billie Eilish was the first woman in history to win all four major categories. She is also the youngest artist to do so and the youngest artist to ever win album and record of the year (Grein). This is a remarkable achievement for Billie and shows how much success she has achieved in this past year. The genre-bending pop star did deserve to win some of the awards she rightfully was given, but compared to the other nominees, I do not believe she should have been given all four major awards. During Billie’s acceptance speech for Album of the Year, she starts off by saying that “I think that Ariana deserves this,” as in international superstar Ariana Grande. Ariana was nominated for two of the four major categories, album of the year and record of the year, and she rightfully deserved to be given album of the year.

            Ariana Grande achieved an immense amount of success this year with the release of her fifth studio album “Thank U, Next.” She was the first solo artist in history to have the top 3 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, with the only other act achieving this being The Beatles (Leon). She also earned the biggest streaming week for a pop album in history (Ashton). “Thank U, Next” was not only a career height in Ariana’s career, but also in the new age of female pop stars. We are entering a new decade of music, and global female pop stars have always been a staple in the music industry. Ariana is arguably the biggest female pop star right now, following the footsteps of Madonna, Mariah Carey, Britney Spears, Beyonce, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and other influential and highly successful female pop artists. Ariana was nominated for 5 awards at this year’s Grammy’s and left empty-handed. Despite being invited to perform and being used in almost every single Grammys commercial, she was completely snubbed. This made me and many others very upset due to the blatant disrespect that was showed to Ariana. When asking my friend Kolbey who also watched the Grammys what she thought of Ariana not winning any awards, she said “Ariana had the biggest album of the year and was not given the award for album of the year. That makes absolutely no sense to me, and even if she was not given that award, the fact that she got nothing is what shocked me the most.” Ariana leaving the Grammy’s with no awards was one of the biggest controversies of the night and did not sit well with many viewers. 

            I am by no means trying to undermine Billie’s success. With her debut album “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” being one of the biggest debut albums in recent memory, and achieving the #1 hit song “Bad Guy” which made her the only artist born after the year 2000 to have a #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100, Billie deserves all the accolades she can get (Abidor). She is an amazing artist who is changing what it means to be a pop star with her unique and distinct style of music. I think the main problem is how the Grammys completely overlooked their other nominees, specifically Ariana, and failed to recognize their achievements. This is not the first time an artist who rightfully deserved to win at the Grammys left empty-handed, and it certainly won’t be the last. Going forward, I can only hope the Grammy’s are able to give credit where it is deserved, specifically to musicians who are undoubtable pioneers in this new era of music.