Every 2022 Grammys performance, ranked from worst to best
From BTS to Billie Eilish to Olivia Rodrigo, we count down each live number from this year's show
Music Lists 2022 Grammys
Look, there’s only one major reason to tune into the Grammys broadcast, and it definitely isn’t so you can look deep inside the souls of Academy voters in order to try and fathom why the hell they’d give an award to Louis CK. It’s to see live performances from tremendous artists, who this year ran the gamut from Billie Eilish to Carrie Underwood. The A.V. Club decided to break down this year’s music offerings, and determine which were the best, via deeply scientific processes involving A) watching them, and B) saying, “hey, that was pretty good/pretty bad.” Here, then are the results of that rigorous evaluation, beginning with the worst and moving, ineluctably, to the finest in all the land—or at least the finest in the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas tonight.
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49 Comments
Host told that Roof, outside performance could be watched on CBS.com …. still looking for the link UGH Post the LINK please. Elevation & Maverick City Music, Christain worship
Boy do I disagree. It showed his artist chops and showed that many songs can sometimes work in another style. Yes, I wanted it to get going eventually but I like a spin on a song.
“…Definitely might have been…”
Here’s how the #1 performance is described, “Look, this definitely might have been the performance of the night.”Way to stand up for BTS’ performance as the best. “Might have been?”I miss the good old days when writers here were writers, not Buzzfeed listicle-creators.
This is off topic, but your statement is cheering to me to discover that I am not alone in noticing (and getting irritated by) this particular writing quirk which is EVERYWHERE these day. If you have an opinion about something, just fucking state it and lose the stupid, pointless qualifiers. “This may just be…”, “I think this might be…”, etc. I don’t know what is wrong with saying, “BTS was our pick for the evening’s best performance” or something similar.
While I agree with your point re: general writings, I feel as if it’s an unwarranted critique in this instance. The point of that description was that it didn’t matter if they really thought BTS was the best or not, but they felt compelled to rank it #1 to avoid the retribution of their Army.
Did you read the rest of the description?
I did. Bad writing is bad writing.
You did not read the whole thing, did you?
To me, it seemed that every slide description came off as petty and nitpicking. Even for their top rated performance the writer(s) had something snarky to say. Not that I’m defending any of the performances per se, but if one goes from worst to best it seems like it should be really clear what the difference between the worst and best is. Here, it seems to be a hair’s difference.
“Billie Strings”Err…so is this Billy Strings or Billie Eilish? Or some kind of crazy Strings/Eilish mashup? Since every Billy Strings performance is far superior to every BTS performance, my money is gonna be on this being a Billie Eilish warmup set where she wasn’t very on.
I was worried Billie Eilish was going to drop her microphone in the water and electrocute herself.
I much prefer American Songbook Lady Gaga to Disco Plagiarist with Lots of Costume Changes Lady Gaga.Chris Stapleton’s music was at least good enough that I didn’t want to fast forward, as I did for many of these others.I could really do without the Korean reincarnation of N’Sync, but I can understand why teenage girls might enjoy it.
Brandi Carlile would be my pick for the best. She’s an actual talent.
Co-sign on Carlisle. She was fantastic.And I’m normally ho-hum on Eilish (she mumbles a LOT) and so wasn’t expecting much here, but that one turned into a great rock song. Definitely better than the K pop boys.
It’s very much not punching up to swing at teenage girls. Firstly, girls of all ages are ALLOWED to like things. It’s not shameful or annoying or tacky. Secondly, BTS has a broad fan base. Don’t yuck someone else’s yum.I would have put Carlisle first, too.
I know I’m gonna get hate for saying this, and being a Ride-Or-Die Madonna fan doesn’t help in the eyes of all the Little Monsters out there… but Lady Gaga TRIES TOO HARD. Gaga up to Art Pop was great! Because there’s room in this terrible world for more than one Pop Star. But, yeah. Gaga tries too hard.
This old man is on your camp. I have a new appreciation for Madonna now that I’ve had some distance from the whole blitz, but despite both Madonna and Gaga being both hungry, Madonna maybe did the music part more naturally and convincingly. I think she was a legit trailblazer and it was what she did and felt somewhat genuine despite whatever marketing engine was supporting it. Gaga’s an incredible talent, and maybe I’m less impressed (1) because I’m old, and/or (2) Gaga is in an environment now with more female artists who are breaking barriers and maybe I’m sensing more required effort on Gaga’s part to stand out.I’m also only talking about Madonna’s music career. The acting piece is a whole other story.
Agreed. Although I’m able to forgive Madge’s acting attempts after Desperately Seeking Susan. I can find lots of things to enjoy about her acting performances while still realizing she’s Madonna trying to act.Madonna and her music has been the soundtrack to my life. I truly don’t think we’ll ever see the impact and longevity in another artist alive today – aside from Beyonce – she’s an other-worldly force!And I get the rabid Gaga love. I do. It must be frustrating beyond belief to try and make a splash in today’s world of entertainment. EVERYTHING has been done before and we do live in a reductive age.But it just seems like everything shot at Madonna today is soaked in ageism. That stinks!
She’s still an art kid at heart, and her collaboration with Tony Bennett seems to have taken on an outsized place in how she sees her career. That makes for an interesting combination, because there’s no denying she’s talented as hell. You’ve established you can sing, now let’s hear something fun.
The affected vocals were super weird and off-putting. I was like, did she have a Judy Garland biopic that I forgot about or something, or is this for real?
The only Gaga performance I’ve seen was her Super Bowl show but she certainly tried too hard there. The leap from the roof was initially impressive but ultimately silly, and she could have easily trimmed 2 or 3 songs.
Yes I can agree here 150%. My age will show in my reply here but this 57 year old remembers when The Grammys had real performers and music was music not some recreated MTV live video. I love Madonna as well many other legends of the past. Its time for me to turn away from this awards show its too much for this old man to handle I guess.
It’s not an unfair criticism and I think how people perceive her and her performances at this point is a fully baked in – I’m a ride or die Little Monster and have been since day one, so take this all with a grain of salt – but for me the “tries too hard” is endearing. She will always be that theater kid who made it and she probably cares too much, so she can be over the top. I get that people can find that annoying – like we get it you’re doing Jazz™ or you’re an Actor™ or you’re Italian™ – but for me she’s still genuine at her core and delivers the overwhelming majority of the time, so even if she’s being extra I’m still entertained. She’s just a lovable kook to me! Part of this is also based on having known a number of people that have worked closely with her and have all reported that she is incredibly kind and generous.As for last night I’ve seen her jazz residency in Vegas, two performances with Tony Bennett (both before and after his dementia diagnosis), and one very intimate impromptu 2AM solo set in the back room of a downtown NYC bar for maybe thirty people, and I can say she definitely throws herself into her Jazz Gaga with gusto and to great effect, but for the Grammy’s I think she was maybe just a little over excited and nervous for a tribute to someone that means a great deal to her. I still think she did fantastic, but her recent CBS concert from Radio City is more representative of her work and talents in that field.Anyways that’s my two cents from the other side of the stan war – my best friend is definitely in your camp and we (lovingly) trade barbs back and forth about our preferred queens (and for what it’s worth I do think you could describe Madonna as a “try hard” at various stages of her career, both then and now), but as you say there’s room in this world for more than one pop star.
How can you leave out the amazing Sondheim tribute during the obits?Clearly the best performance of the night. Beyond that, John Baptiste clearly brought down the house, and should be higher.
Yep. Baptiste gets my vote for performance of the night.
Brothers Osbourne are definitely not The Chainsmokers of country music. That being said, Dead Man’s Curve was a horrible song choice with an audio mix that absolutely sucked.
I don’t know a thing about them, but it was a pretty wretched way to close the show. The song sounded like a updated “Devil Went Down to Georgia,” which absolutely no one needs, and the sound was so muddy I couldn’t make a single word he sang.
John Legend is the blandest ideal of modern soul R’n’B. I can count on him to show up on the Grammys, but to have him show up for the mawkish political moment of the show is just obnoxious for all concerned except for John Legend.
Zach Galifianakis to John Legend on Between Two Ferns: “Would you say that your work in ‘La La Land’ really helped pave the way for white people to explain Jazz to black people?”
I had never heard a Chris Stapleton song before, but I thought he gave an excellent performance and it was a cool, memorable song. Bluesy, soulful. I’m not sure what kind of “showmanship” you expected. It’s not the kind of music that relies on choreography and costume changes.
Why on earth is CBS making it near impossible to watch any of these performances anywhere? Great job, everyone!
Wow. I had no idea the reams of shitty dismissive racist misogynistic takes on BTS were such derring-do of journalistic integrity.
I’m so old, none of these bands matter to me, nor do I have any of their product. I like looking at their colorful costumes, tho
It’s clear that you hate all of this, but I can’t from this list if there’s anything you actually like.
Why do you even care remotely what anyone is going to say regarding you putting bts at number one?? Your opinion as a journalist don’t really matter to army. It’s ironic to say that we harass people for not putting bts at number one, when you as a renowned journalist shouldn’t even care what other people think about your opinion. I apologize if this sounds rude, but on behalf of the “Kpop fans” I do apologize for them “ threatening and harassing you“ which I see no point of them doing since this article isn’t in fact even relevant enough to have a sustained impact in anyones point of view regarding what you consider number one and number seventeen. Consider other peoples points of view and ask yourself why army are so protective of bts. The racism, the Asian hate, the harassing and attacking or all things individuals that have no relations to bts other than supporting them have to deal with on a daily basis. Despite bts army being “a bunch of K-pop fans who can’t tolerate opposing points of view” maybe consider not caring what other people will think about your opinions. Bts will always be relevant enough without you giving them a number one spot. Just like an article I once read mentioning “who really needs who?” Ask yourself that to. Consider really what was your reason for putting bts at number one? It can’t possibly be because you were afraid of a bunch of “ K-pop fans” harassing you over the internet that cannot nor will ever harm you or your journalist blog. Thanks for giving them the number one spot. But I don’t think it was needed considering eveything I mentioned!
lol point for the team BTS fans are crazy
take a breath
That just sounds super weird and needy.
Are we really ignoring that BTS makes horribly corny, theme-park-ready music? Whenever I hear them live I cringe. Their music makes me feel like I’m in line for a coaster next to a performance pavilion at a Six Flags or Disney. It’s so bad. And that performance, though stacked with tricks/choreography, was as milquetoast as their music.
Disappointing. If you’re so afraid, maybe you could get out of journalism and go into something else. Fiction writing might suit you. You seem able to string a narrative together that is plausible yet made up.
Batiste followed many other performers tonight in starting off at the
piano (was there some sort of requirement?). … Say what you will about
the man’s music—it can be a little, um, corny at times—he knows how to
put on a show.
Well, he’s a jazz pianist by trade, and arguably one of the best improvisers of his generation. His background is New Orleans jazz, which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but he’s one of the most authentic composers I can think of.
Let’s celebrate that. Not everything has to be snark and criticism. Please and thank you.
Ok, argue it. Who are you pitting against him in the top 5, say?
I wasn’t even thinking of it as a competition or top 5.
He’s from Louisiana, everything I’ve seen and heard him do seems to have where he’s from as the foundation of his music, hence me saying he’s one of the most authentic composers I can think of in my experience.
I just don’t get the impression he’s trying to imitate or sound like anyone else. He’s always true to himself and writes/performs what he knows.