Donald Trump, it seems, did not much enjoy the 2026 Grammys. Shortly after the conclusion of the ceremony’s live broadcast in the US, there he was on Truth Social, calling it “the worst”, “garbage”, “unwatchable” and threatening to sue host Trevor Noah.
Perhaps that was the reaction the Recording Academy wanted. You could, if you wished, divine a certain Maga-baiting intent not just in the decision to give the album of the year award to Bad Bunny – a Puerto Rican who attracted criticism from the Trump administration after he was booked to headline the SuperBowl LX half-time show – but the choice of the Buena Vista Social Club, a Broadway hit based on the 1997 album of the same name featuring veteran Cuban musicians, as the best musical theatre album: the latter two weeks after the New York Times reported that Cubans settled in Florida are being deported in record numbers.
Then again, neither win was an upset. Bad Bunny might be the first Latin artist to win the album award, but Debí Tirar Más Fotos was both wildly critically acclaimed – it had already been voted the best album of 2025 by Billboard and Rolling Stone, a suitable reward for its frankly head-spinning eclecticism, in which the author leaps dramatically between salsa performed by a live orchestra and house rhythms, bachata and reggaeton, the folky strains of jibaro and gleaming electro-pop, creating a unique musical fusion between the past and the present day and topping it with pointed lyrics about the relationship between Puerto Rico and the US. It was also hugely commercially successful: a US No 1, it sold more than 300,000 copies in a space of two weeks. Meanwhile, Buena Vista Social Club’s win comes on the back of the show itself winning five Tony awards – ultimately, both awards were given on considerable merit, rather than voters trying to annoy Trump.
Kendrick Lamar was the most nominated artist of the year and ended up going home with record of the year, best rap album, best rap song and best melodic rap performance – making this the second painful year in a row for Drake, Lamar’s thwarted foe in the decade’s biggest rap beef. Drake’s collaborative album with PartyNextDoor, Some Sexy Songs 4 U, was largely absent from the nominations (just one for best melodic rap performance), while host Noah made a gag about declining to roast Lamar for fear of how he might respond. But as with Bad Bunny, Lamar won on merit: tracks from his GNX album occupied the entire Top Five of the US singles chart when they were released, a reflection of quite how good the album is. A distinct emotional shift away from the self-doubt of 2022’s Mr Morale & the Big Steppers into spectacular swagger, filled with wit and sharp wordplay – likely energised by the beef itself – GNX seemed on the surface far less complex than either its predecessor or the album that’s regularly acclaimed as Lamar’s masterpiece, To Pimp a Butterfly, but it still displayed a striking musical breadth. There was room for both the experimental abstraction of its title track and the earworm pop melody of Luther, the SZA collaboration that won record of the year (announced by Cher, wrongly and amusingly, as being for Luther Vandross).
A Lamar guest spot probably helped Clipse to take home best rap performance for Chains and Whips, but the award underlined the standard set by the duo’s comeback album Let God Sort Em Out, the strength of their storytelling and their technical brilliance as rappers, qualities that have often felt undervalued in latter-day hip-hop, and displayed in their performance of So Far Ahead at the ceremony. It was a pretty radical shift from this year’s broadly upbeat and celebratory live performances, given how bleak and tough its depiction of life on the margins is, and how many references to drug dealing the lyrics contain.
Elsewhere, there were perhaps signs of a certain musical shift in Turnstile’s victories in both best rock album and best metal performance: it’s the first time a hardcore punk band has even been nominated in either category, let alone triumphed, albeit one who dabble in the kind of things that would once have been considered forbidden under hardcore’s hard and fast rules, including flute solos and Auto-Tune. But tradition reigned in the song of the year category, as Billie Eilish’s acoustic guitar-driven Wildflower beat a host of more straightforwardly electronic prospects – despite being released in 2024, it was deemed eligible because the Academy decided it “came to prominence” in 2025 – among them Golden by Huntr/x, the cartoon female trio from Netflix film KPop Demon Hunters.
If the astonishing success of said film seemed to suggest that the K-pop industry might shift its attention away from actual human artists – who have started showing a tendency to complain about some of the more high-handed practices employed by South Korea’s entertainment companies – towards animated characters, the Grammys seemed intent on viewing it merely as a film, rather than a potential future path for pop. Also overlooked in the best pop duo/group performance category, the only award the movie soundtrack took home was best song written for visual media.
One other question hung over the 2026 Grammys: how different might the list of nominees and winners have looked had Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl been released a few weeks earlier, and thus qualified for this year’s awards. On the one hand, it was the fastest-selling album in history, the biggest-selling album of the year, and spawned The Fate of Ophelia, which spent 10 weeks at the top of the US singles chart. On the other, it was greeted with a decidedly lukewarm critical reception: even the most ardent Swiftie would have a hard job claiming it among her best efforts. The question of whether overwhelming commercial success would beat out artistic merit in the Recording Academy’s eyes will presumably be answered next year.
