Why We (Still) Think the Grammys Are Good Now

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As Grammy nights go, this year’s ceremony was a pleasant surprise. Beyoncé took home the top album prize, ending a decades-long shutout. Kendrick Lamar translated a rap beef into two huge wins, for song and record of the year. And the up-and-comers Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter and Doechii won big prizes and delivered memorable performances.

All in all, it felt like a snapshot of pop music’s rapidly evolving landscape, in which young artists with highly developed senses of self and performance are remaking stardom at a rapid clip.

On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the Grammys’ relationship to its own metanarrative, the use of the Grammy stage as a place of protest and pushback; and whether this year’s show marked a true changing of the pop guard.

Guests:

• Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporter

• Caryn Ganz, The New York Times’s pop music editor

• Jon Pareles, The New York Times’s chief pop music critic

• Lindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic for The New York Times

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