The paradigms started to shift at last night's Grammy awards ceremony before even one major award winner had been announced. Sabrina Carpenter's performance of "Espresso" and "Please Please Please" revamped those hits within a classic Hollywood musical number that had her recovering from several staged mishaps — a shifting spotlight, a hydraulic platform that plunged her out of sight. Yet the 25-year-old ex-Disney star wasn't suffering from nerves; she handled every slapstick moment with confident charm. Moments after she finished, Carpenter took home the night's first trophy — for best pop vocal album — and opened the door for her generation's takeover of both the show and, all signs indicate, pop itself.
Grammy headlines this year may mostly point to the success of two well-established geniuses: Beyoncé, whose Cowboy Carter earned her album of the year after many years of being slighted, and Kendrick Lamar, whose diss track "Not Like Us" was officially recognized as 2024's left-field song of the year. Those victory laps, though sweet, could have been predicted, and neither winner graced the crowd with a performance. More compelling was the widespread emergence of contenders who've found commercial success but are only now clearly defining themselves as lasting talents.
Carpenter is part of a new class of pop stars who made 2024 one of music's best years in recent memory. These Gen Z wave-makers encompass rap, rock, throwback soul, country and pop and were nominated in multiple categories, most crossing paths in the best new artist nomination slot. What they share is a remarkable confidence — in other contexts, it might be called arrogance, but last night it hit like a jolt of much-needed energy.
Far more adept onstage than most rookies, most of these new champions spent their youth training for this opportunity, and attained stardom as complete packages, with well-honed musical approaches and personae. They have tons of attitude and the skill to back it up. Moreover, they radiate a sense of purpose: They're here to usher in a new era of pop stardom, characterized by a kind of audacious self-possession and designed for a time when performance comes as naturally as hitting the camera button on your phone. Usually, pop stars take a little while to settle into themselves, especially faced with the challenge of a live telecast. It took Taylor Swift six years of Grammy performances to come into her own with a fiery and dignified piano rendition of "All Too Well." This year's class did that work mostly behind the scenes and, further, grew up under the mandate to define themselves as both brands and visionaries. This head start supercharged what could have been awkward first steps.
Even as the top awards were claimed by veterans still in their imperial phase, the dynamism of Gen Z is what made these Grammys memorable. Most performed in a medley that shot the night's energy into the stratosphere. It began with glammy anthem slinger Benson Boone rising from his table in the audience to execute trademark backflips and hit every acrobatic note in his global smash "Beautiful Things." Doechii, who won best rap album for her knockout mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal, followed and topped Boone by expanding on the surreal symmetry of her much-discussed performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, surrounding herself with doppelganger dancers and seemingly shape-shifting as she moved through the throng. After an accomplished turn from millennial soul singer Teddy Swims, country's surprise challenger, Shaboozey, led the ever-more-pumped crowd through "Tipsy (A Bar Song)" — he's 29, slightly outside the Gen Z age range, but fits in as a rebel with supreme confidence. Finally, English R&B chanteuse Raye won hearts from the front row to the rafters with a bravado turn. This 20 minutes or so of music argued for pop's vitality beyond the unceasing dominance of top names like Beyoncé and Swift. Their inheritors don't scorn their influence, but don't pay fealty either: They're making their own way.
Awards shows are great platforms for breakthroughs, of course, from Madonna in her wedding dress at the 1984 MTV VMA's to Olivia Rodrigo belting out "Drivers License" at the Grammys in 2022. Rarely, though, does a cohort emerge with such force in one night. Doechii, whose acceptance speech had spiritual aunties like Janelle Monaé nodding vigorously as she spoke out against the music industry's norms — "don't allow anybody to project any stereotypes on you, to tell you that… you're too dark, or not smart enough, or too dramatic or too loud" — embodied its spirit, projecting fresh attitudes grounded in sharpness and discipline. Hours after the show, Doechii dropped a new track, "Nosebleeds," that couched her swagger in terms echoing her speech, shouting out her hometown of Tampa and her mother, who had stood onstage with her as she claimed her award.
But its leader is best new artist winner Chappell Roan, at 26 a veteran of industry mishandling and neglect whose determination to cast off others' dismissals is just one aspect of her inspirational self-fashioning. Roan's performance of "Pink Pony Club" was a typically gaudy Grammy production number, with her riding a giant chrysanthemum-colored model horse as clown-faced cowhands danced around her. But in the middle of this semi-nonsensical glitz, Roan projected calm and clarity. Her ability to hit every note with aplomb and emotional power is a major reason she took 2024 by storm; though she'd gone from small clubs to festival main stages, she had the guts and the gifts to nail the transition. Beyond this, Roan's songs operate on multiple levels: There's the sheer fun of singing (and dancing) along, but also a political message of solidarity with queer people and other outsiders and even a spiritual one grounded in the belief in self-expression as a practice that makes a person whole.
Accepting her award, Roan gave a rousing speech (as always, she read from her bound notebook as her trophy rested on the ground nearby) demanding that record labels consider musicians as workers who deserve support, including a living wage and health care. Her call for humane treatment — not only for herself, but for the generation that will one day arise behind her — recalled the bold activism of Gen Z teens fighting for climate awareness or gun control, speaking back to their elders with conviction and no apologies. Carpenter and others visibly teared up as Roan spoke; here was someone demanding change in an industry that often seems to hold the very artists it fetishizes in contempt.
The bold young stars who electrified the Grammys did more than demonstrate their worthiness: They lovingly but firmly pointed the millennial stars in the room toward elder status. Beyoncé's long-overdue win for album of the year felt like the end of something — not of her career, certainly, but perhaps of an era in which she and Swift dominate every pop conversation. Billie Eilish, only 23 but with a half-life of success behind her, could join this Gen Z team or remain on its edges; though she's settled into her stardom, her rise was more fraught and gradual. Charli xcx, a longtime cult heroine, is like Monaé, the coolest auntie these kids could have. There's still plenty of room for these familiar presences to set new trends and reach new milestones. But this year's Grammys showed a different future, forming around a generation that knows how to both claim space within the establishment and challenge it.
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