L.A. Tribute, Chappell Roan Top Favorite Grammy Performances

by Julian Spivey
The 67th annual Grammy Awards, hailed as “music’s biggest night,” were held at Los Angeles’s Crypto.com Arena on Sunday, February 2, and weren’t exactly the shining example of music one would hope they would’ve been.

The award aspect of the ceremony was nothing to complain about. The winners of the four biggest awards of the night: Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter for Album of the Year, Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” for both Record and Song of the Year and Chappell Roan for Best New Artist were all worthy.

But the telecast felt like a slog at nearly four hours in length and the nearly complete erasure of both country and rock music from the stage. Yes, Lainey Wilson performed in the (overlong) Quincy Jones tribute and Dawes, Brad Paisley, St. Vincent, Sheryl Crow and Brittany Howard were all featured in the opening tribute to L.A., but to have no actual country or original rock performances on the stage and push every single rock category to the pre-show is an abomination to the supposed biggest night in music. Among the year's biggest winners were rock star St. Vincent (3 wins) and American Roots performer Sierra Ferrell (4 wins). Couldn't the show find a place for that kind of talent in primetime? 

It also didn’t help that Beyonce, the evening’s most nominated musician, and Lamar, the biggest winner, didn’t perform on the telecast. There was a bit too much pop music and not a whole lot else.

Of all Grammy telecasts in memory, this was both the longest and weakest as far as overall performances.

But these five performances stood out to me the most… 
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1. “I Love L.A.” by Dawes feat. St. Vincent, Sheryl Crow, Brittany Howard, John Legend and Brad Paisley
The most important aspect of the 2025 Grammy Awards was to help raise money for the devastating wildfires that destroyed parts of Los Angeles last month. Throughout the evening, a QR code appeared on the screen to help raise money for victims of the fires. Among those victims were the brothers and bandmates that comprise the L.A. rock band Dawes – Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith – who lost a house (Taylor), a studio (Griffin) and the majority of their instruments and recording equipment. I’ve been a big fan of Dawes since I saw them in concert over a decade ago. They are among the most talented bands few seem to know, especially your typical Grammy viewers. The idea that they’d ever open the Grammy Awards with a performance was unbelievable to me, but it felt so right in this moment, especially to pay tribute to their home with Randy Newman’s classic “I Love L.A.” with an all-star band comprised of Brittany Howard and Brad Paisley on guitar, Shery Crow on bass, John Legend on piano and Annie Clark (St. Vincent) on keyboard. It was the perfect way to begin the show and I knew almost immediately it would probably be hard to beat as far as performances on the show.

2. “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan
Chappell Roan came out of nowhere in 2024 to become one of the biggest music stars, at least in this country, if not in the world. Her Record and Song of the Year nominated “Good Luck, Babe!” topped many lists of best songs of 2024, and her late 2023 album “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” was everywhere. I thought she’d end up being one of the night's biggest winners, but she wound up only taking home the trophy for Best New Artist. Still, her performance of “Pink Pony Club” on her Grammys debut was the best original performance of the night, with her bringing the Pink Pony Club to life with a Troy-sized Pony and backing dancers dressed as rodeo clowns. The whole thing was a ton of fun.

To be honest, those were the only two performances of the evening that I truly loved. But who wants to read a list with only two performances? These would be the next three on my top five list.

3. “Good News/A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey
Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is a whole lot of fun. I’m not surprised it’s one that didn’t win any of the songwriting prizes it was nominated for, but I don’t understand how one could be upset watching a live performance. I said earlier that there weren’t any country music performances on the show, and I guess I should relent and admit I was wrong. It’s not the type of country music I listen to, but it certainly is the kind coming out of mainstream country music in Nashville right now. It’s a bit surprising that the year’s biggest hit, as far as the Billboard charts go, wasn’t 1) nominated for Record of the Year (I think there should’ve been a bigger gripe there than there was) or 2) win anything.

4. “Beautiful Things” by Benson Boone
OK, despite “Beautiful Things” being a big hit in 2024, I somehow managed to avoid it. So, Benson Boone’s high-flying (is this guy a ninja?) performance of it on the Grammy stage on Sunday was the first time I’ve heard it. I was a bit surprised by how heavy it sounded; I figured he was just another pop singer, but other than the Dawes opening, it was the closest thing to rock music seen during the night. I’m not sure I picked up most of the lyrics between his flipping around – man, that could’ve been the most tragic moment in Grammy history – and the heavier sound than I expected, but the whole package (except for when he adjusted his at the end) piqued my interest.

5. “Espresso/Please Please Please” by Sabrina Carpenter
So, Sabrina Carpenter is a bit too bubblegum pop for my tastes. I’m not a fan of her Record of the Year nominated “Espresso,” and I haven’t listened to her Song of the Year nominated “Please Please Please” enough to have much of an opinion of it yet, but her performance won me over on Sunday night. I know she was a child actor, and those acting skills truly made her performance one of the most telegenic of the evening. She’s pretty funny, too.  I think there were songs I dug more on the evening, like Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather,”  Teddy Swims’s “Lose Control” and Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’s cover of the old Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreaming,” but as far as overall performance is concerned Carpenter takes the fifth spot.