The 68th Annual Grammys took place at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 1. The Grammys are the most prestigious music awards—being a celebration of the songs, albums and artists that soundtracked the year. It was hosted by Trevor Noah for the sixth and final time.
There are around 95 awards, with most being presented in the hours before the aired ceremony. During this, “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters made history as the first K-pop song to win the award for Best Song Written For Visual Media.
Kendrick Lamar had the most nominations, with nine, while Lady Gaga and Jack Antonoff followed closely behind with seven nominations. The main event boasted a number of performances, from Bruno Mars to Sabrina Carpenter to Lady Gaga.
A highlight of the night was that all eight of the nominees in the Best New Artist category performed back-to-back, showcasing all of their talents in a rapid-fire style. This included The Marías, KATSEYE, Olivia Dean, Addison Rae, Alex Warren, Lola Young, Leon Thomas, and Sombr, with Olivia Dean taking home the award.
Later on, Justin Bieber performed in only his underwear, using a looper to play the instruments and then singing over it.
“I love Justin Bieber’s performance because there were no fancy dancers or fancy backgrounds. It was just him singing, and I think that replicates and shows that in the industry, he got stripped of everything except for his talent,” senior Molly Dell said.
Kendrick Lamar won the most awards out of the artists, with five wins—including Record of the Year for “Luther” with SZA. Other multiple-time winners included Lady Gaga and Bad Bunny, while artists such as Jelly Roll and Lola Young were among the first-time winners.
However, some artists left the night empty-handed—most notably, Sabrina Carpenter, which was a rather surprising snub for such a prolific pop artist.
“Sabrina’s whole entire album is so perfect and beautiful and she should’ve won best pop album. But I am glad that Billie Eilish won,” senior and Sabrina superfan Via Helling said.
But every year, many seasoned artists generally get overlooked by the Recording Academy, like Olivia Rodrigo with “GUTS” and Taylor Swift with “The Tortured Poets Department.”
There were undeniably political undertones to the night, as largely thanks to the situation in Minnesota, many of the artists protested ICE and President Donald Trump.
Artists such as Billie Eilish, FINNEAS, Justin Bieber and more, wore “ICE Out” pins, while artists like Bad Bunny and Olivia Dean even used their speeches to speak out against ICE and in favor of kindness towards immigrants in their acceptance speeches.
“I think it’s very telling that almost every single person who won a Grammy went up and talked about ICE and not the actual award,” senior Morgan Leitzell noticed.
The 2026 Grammys reflect how a lot of celebrities want to use their platform, and a moment where large audiences were paying attention to them, to speak out and call for change.
