Two years ago, Billie Eilish made history at the Grammys by becoming the youngest artist to win the four broad field categories – Album, Record and Song of the Year and Best New Artist. And this year, some pundits predicted that Olivia Rodrigo could follow in Eilish’s footsteps, or at least win some of the Big Four awards.
But instead of those four awards, Rodrigo only won Best New Artist, while the sour singer-songwriter picked up three more awards at the 2022 Grammys, albeit not in the general field categories. Plus, Eilish, who recently won the Oscar for Best Original Song and has won seven Grammys over the course of her young career, didn’t win a Grammy this year despite receiving seven nominations.
Rodrigo, meanwhile, had been enlisted for a possible win in the Record and Song of the Year categories, but both awards went to Silk Sonic, which Anderson .Paak described as a “clean win” after winning the Record of the Year award with Silk of the Year” Sonic won Grammys for all four of the group’s nominated projects.
Silk Sonic’s success came as a bit of a surprise as many pundits didn’t predict they would take home record of the year or song of the year.
But Jon Batiste’s win in the highest category for Album of the Year, the final award of the night, came as a bigger surprise. Although Batiste was this year’s top nominee with 11 nominations and won four more awards over the course of Sunday’s awards ceremony, Grammys pundits didn’t predict he would win the grand prize, instead arguing that it would likely go to Lady Gaga’s Tony Bennett or Rodrigo.
Another of the 2022 Grammys’ biggest surprises came at the non-televised premiere party, where most of the awards were presented, when Louis CK for his stand-up special, in which he addressed the sexual misconduct allegations against him, won the award for Best Comedy Album.
Also during the preshow, former President Barack Obama suffered his first Grammy loss when he failed to win his third Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album.
During the main broadcast, top nominee Doja Cat raced back onto the stage for her moment among the winners for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, but a host of other top nominees went home empty-handed, including fellow eight-time star Justin Bieber and five-time nominee Lil Nas X, who some pundits had predicted would win Best Music Video.
And HER, which won song of the year last year, won just one award out of eight nominations.