Grammys 2025: Highlights, lowlights and a big pink pony

Sunday night saw Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar win big at the Grammy Awards, which was dedicated to fundraising for wildfire relief efforts in Los Angeles.

It also saw plenty of memorable performances, imioned speeches and stunning red carpet looks for everyone to emulate over the course of the next year (leather chaps are back, in case you were wondering).

Let's take a closer look at some of the other highlights and lowlights from the ceremony.

Well, now we're in a pickle.

On her eighth solo record, Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé sang about the Grammys' constant, stubborn refusal to award her album of the year.

"AOTY, I ain't win," she sang. "Take that s--- on the chin."

But now she has won, for the album that contains that very lyric. Will she have to go back and re-record it? At the very least, we expect a rewrite on the tour she just announced.

Joking aside, this victory was long, long overdue.

In 2017, Adele even flirted with the idea of handing back her album of the year trophy, saying the music on her album, 25, couldn't compare to Beyoncé's "monumental… beautiful and soul-baring" Lemonade.

Eyebrows were raised again in 2023, when Harry Styles' fun, but conceptually flimsy, Harry's House bested Beyoncé's Renaissance – a meticulous exploration of how oppressed black and queer musicians found salvation through house music.

In the end, it took Beyoncé to approach a genre that conservative Grammy voters could understand – country – in order to secure a victory.

But that's not to downplay the scale of her achievement. Cowboy Carter is a masterpiece that weaves hundreds of musical threads into a thesis about America's cultural past, and the futility of gatekeeping musical genres along racial lines.

The arguments it makes are both timely and urgent, without suffocating the songs.

As the second part of a planned trilogy, this surely won't be Beyoncé's last trip to the podium.

Sabrina Carpenter has literally been practising for this moment all her life. She made her TV debut in 2011, aged 12 years old, and has been hovering on the fringes of pop superstardom pretty much ever since.

So, after a huge breakthrough in 2024, she was primed and ready for the Grammy stage.

Or was she?

She emerged in a razzle-dazzle showgirl outfit and instantly missed her spotlight. Then she dropped the cane she was supposed to dance with. And, as she descended a grand pearlescent staircase, she suddenly disappeared through a trap door.

Luckily, it was all a humorous ruse! Carpenter skipped back to the stage for a big band version of Espresso, complete with ankle-endangering tap routine.

After changing into a blue, crystal-studded Victoria's Secret bodysuit, she segued effortlessly into Please, Please, Please… And then the set collapsed on her.

As she leapt into the safety of a dancer's arms, she couldn't contain her laughter.

It was a perfect piece of vaudeville, and the audience lapped it up. Host Trevor Noah, however, wasn't so impressed.

"That was amazing and funny, which I didn't appreciate," the comedian said. "Really, Sabrina? You're just gonna take my job like that":[]}