Grammys TV Review: Beyoncé Makes Winning History; Music’s Big Night Gets A Lot Of Its Beat Back With Hip Hop Celebrations & Mixtape Of A CBS Show

Dr. Jill Biden was in the house tonight at the 65^th annual Grammy Awards, but the real first lady on the live CBS telecast was clearly Beyoncé.

Taking home two awards before the downtown LA show started on the small screen and Paramount+, and then Best R&B song with “Cuff It” and Best Dance/Electronic Music Album for Renaissance in the broadcast itself, Queen Bey is now literally the Queen of the Recording Academy with 32 wins — that’s more than any artist ever in Grammy history.

You rarely see someone as phlegmatic as Beyoncé miss a beat, but even she did when got up to accept her record breaking trophy as the crowd of Grammy winners past, present and likely future and thousands of fans in the arena went wild for the undisputed G.O.A.T.

A bet that almost no one want to wager against all week leading up to music’s big night, the hype of Beyoncé’s barrier breaking victory, along with Harry Styles’ Album of the Year award, was but two of many elements giving the more the nearly four-hour show some real drama on and off stage,

Taking it to the dancer filled stage in the round in DTLA tonight with 2023 winner Bad Bunny and the first fully in-person show in three years, from the get-go, the once again Trevor Noah hosted show even had Taylor Swift busting a genuine move in her front row seat. Turning the often soulless and undoubtedly soon to be renamed Cryto.com Arena partially into a dinner club, the Raj Kapoor Ben Winston and Jesse Collins executive produced show succeeded as a mainly hit filled mixtape of top tier live performances (Lizzo, Harry Styles), pre-recorded advocating fan roundtables, White House residents, tributes, scandal teasing fashions (we see you JLo, Mr. Styles), superstar presenters, a Vladimir Horowitz shout-out from Billy Crystal and more.

To quote past Grammy winner Crystal tonight out of context, third time proved a charm for past and present host Noah with a show that hit almost all the right notes.

Almost.

Yes, there was the comedown of Bonnie Raitt’s Song of the Year win near the end felt very Jethro Tull 1989 when it should have been Metallica or in this case Kendrick Lamar, Lizzo, Beyoncé  or several other nominees, if you know what I mean?

There was also that lame Madonna segment where she had to implore the crowd to make “some noise” for her controversary routine that seemed so old fashioned. There was the gibberish of that fantasy video from Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. Then there were the disrespectfully lame few caught on camera who distinctly didn’t applaud when Dr. Biden came on-stage to present the Grammys’ first Social Change award to Iranian artist Shervin Hajipour for his song ‘Baraye’ and the Song of the Year. Sure, winners Beyoncé and Adele, as well as Swift were attendees, but not performers Sunday, and the show was just too damn long.

Yes, there was all that, but unlike most other awards shows there was still more than enough superstar superpower to go around at the 2023 Grammys. Which, along with records that people actually listen to actually winning for the most part, was in no small part why the vast majority of the fairly fast paced show was fun to watch and dance to.

Spilling out “Trump wanting to learn Spanish,” Chinese spy balloon and actually funny Renaissance jokes from the red carpeted arena floor, plus a Jay-Z quip that floundered and an Adele and Dwayne Johnson meet-up that went by too fast, former Daily Show host Noah sauntered among the illustrious nominees and legends at the beginning of the 2023 Grammys to figuratively set the stage as a hype man deluxe – which is sort of what an award show host should do.  Of course, all of that almost paled next to the wonderfully glacéd intro of Brandi Carlile’s hard rockin’ ‘Broken Horses’ performance by her daughters and wife Catherine Shepherd – which added an intimate feel to the shindig

There was also some non- Beyoncé history to celebrate in a historical fashion.

Later devilish taking the stage to perform “Unholy,” Stan Smith and Kim Petras won the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for their tune about halfway through the show. That victory saw the German singer become the first transgender woman to claim the award at the Grammys.

Then Hip-Hop took the spotlight, and I don’t just mean Kendrick Lamar’s well-deserved win for Best Rap Album this year.

First, a tuxedoed Dr Dre accepted the inaugural Global Impact Award named after the NWA, producer supreme and Beats founder himself.

Then, to paraphrase JFK, the Grammys hasn’t seen so many icons together as were onstage for the hip-hope 50^th anniversary celebration since Beyonce and Jay-Z were last in attendance together. Seriously, Kicked off by the equally iconic and Kangol wearing LL Cool J with a street level backbeat musical backing and curation by The Roots’ Questlove and Black Though, the backstory of the beats that rule the world was centerstage.

The on-stage array of Big Boi, the slaying Busta Rhymes with Spliff Star, De La Soul, DJ Drama, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame nominee Missy Elliott, Future, GloRilla, Grandmaster Flash, Grandmaster Mele Mel & Scorpio/Ethiopian King, Ice-T, Lil Baby, Lil Wayne, The Lox, Method Man, Nelly, Public Enemy, Queen Latifah, Rahiem, the demigod Rakim, the remaining members of the trailblazing RUN-DMC, Salt-N-Pepa and Spinderella, Scarface, Swizz Beatz and Too $hort, plus LL Cool J himself, was glorious.

Moving even the stoic Jay-Z to smile in the crowd, the repeatedly bleeped out Hip-Hop 50th medley was also an exercise in relevance and reverence. A relic in many respects for the past decade or so, the Grammys and the Recording Academy took far to long to give the world’s most popular music genre its true due.

That wasn’t the case tonight.

In looking back to hip-hop’s roots and its present form with Jay-Z outside the arena at the very end of the show doing an elaborate begger’s banquet version of DJ Khaled’s nominated “God Did” with the man himself, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, John Legend, and Fridayy, the Grammys finally got it right. Having delivered the showstopping 75^th Tony Awards back in June last year with powerhouse host Ariana DeBose, CBS is on a bit of a trophy ceremony roll with tonight’s show.

For once, music’s biggest night was a case of believing most of the hype.

It’s a lesson and a strategy that the Oscars might want to consider for next month’s 95^th Academy Awards – let’s hope so, with or without Beyoncé in the house.