meta-scriptBeyoncé, Sam Smith, Pharrell Williams Top 57th GRAMMY Nominations | GRAMMY.com
Beyoncé, Sam Smith, Pharrell Williams Top 57th GRAMMY Nominations
Pharrell Williams

Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com

news

Beyoncé, Sam Smith, Pharrell Williams Top 57th GRAMMY Nominations

Beyoncé, Smith and Williams earn six nods each; other top nominees include Iggy Azalea, Beck, Eric Church, Jay Z, Miranda Lambert, Sia, and Jack White

GRAMMYs/Dec 22, 2014 - 10:37 pm

Nominations for the 57th Annual GRAMMY Awards were announced today by The Recording Academy and reflected an eclectic mix of the best and brightest in music over the past year, as determined by The Academy's voting members.

This year, Beyoncé, Sam Smith and Pharrell Williams top nominations, garnering six each. Iggy Azalea, Beck, Eric Church, recording engineer Tom Coyne, Drake, Gordon Goodwin, Jay Z, Miranda Lambert, Sia, Usher, and Jack White earn four nominations each.

"This year's nominees are a reflection of the music community's diversity and range of talent, and a testament to The Academy's voting process," said Neil Portnow, President/CEO of The Recording Academy. "The Recording Academy is pleased to celebrate this talented crop of artists, nominated to receive music's greatest honor for their contributions to their respective genres. The tone for Music's Biggest Night has undoubtedly been set, and we look forward to producing one of the most exciting telecasts in GRAMMY history."  

The nominations were revealed on a rolling basis throughout the day, starting with four categories on "CBS This Morning," followed by a series of video announcements posted by a variety of artists and celebrities on Twitter. The day culminated with the unveiling of Album Of The Year nominations on the one-hour entertainment special "A Very GRAMMY Christmas," which featured performances of holiday classics and current pop songs.

Following are the nominations in the General Field categories:

Album Of The Year:
Morning Phase — Beck
Beyoncé — Beyoncé
X — Ed Sheeran
In The Lonely Hour — Sam Smith
Girl — Pharrell Williams

Record Of The Year:
"Fancy" — Iggy Azalea Featuring Charli XCX
"Chandelier" — Sia
"Stay With Me" (Darkchild Version) — Sam Smith
"Shake It Off" — Taylor Swift
"All About That Bass" — Meghan Trainor 

Song Of The Year:
"All About That Bass" — Kevin Kadish & Meghan Trainor, songwriters (Meghan Trainor)
"Chandelier" — Sia Furler & Jesse Shatkin, songwriters (Sia)
"Shake It Off" — Max Martin, Shellback & Taylor Swift, songwriters (Taylor Swift)
"Stay With Me" (Darkchild Version) — James Napier, William Phillips & Sam Smith, songwriters (Sam Smith)
"Take Me To Church" — Andrew Hozier-Byrne, songwriter (Hozier)

Best New Artist:
Iggy Azalea
Bastille
Brandy Clark
Haim
Sam Smith

Following is a sampling of nominations in the GRAMMY Awards' other 29 Fields:

For Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, the nominees are "Fancy" by Iggy Azalea Featuring Charli XCX; "A Sky Full Of Stars" by Coldplay; "Say Something" by A Great Big World With Christina Aguilera; "Bang Bang" by Jessie J, Ariana Grande & Nicki Minaj; and "Dark Horse" by Katy Perry Featuring Juicy J.

The nominees for Best Dance Recording are "Never Say Never" by Basement Jaxx; "Rather Be" by Clean Bandit Featuring Jess Glynne; "F For You" by Disclosure Featuring Mary J. Blige; "I Got U" by Duke Dumont Featuring Jax Jones; and "Faded" by Zhu.

The Best Rock Performance nominees are "Gimme Something Good" by Ryan Adams; "Do I Wanna Know?" by Arctic Monkeys; "Blue Moon" by Beck; "Fever" by the Black Keys; and "Lazaretto" by Jack White.

For Best Alternative Music Album, the nominees are This Is All Yours by Alt-J; Reflektor by Arcade Fire; Melophobia by Cage The Elephant; St. Vincent by St. Vincent; and Lazaretto by Jack White.

The nominees for Best Rap Performance are "3005" by Childish Gambino; "0 To 100/The Catch Up" by Drake; "Rap God" by Eminem; "I" by Kendrick Lamar; and "All I Need Is You" by Lecrae.

For Best Rap Album, the nominees are The New Classic by Iggy Azalea; Because The Internet by Childish Gambino; Nobody's Smiling by Common; The Marshall Mathers LP2 by Eminem; Oxymoron by Schoolboy Q; and Blacc Hollywood by Wiz Khalifa.

The Best Urban Contemporary Album nominees are Sail Out by Jhené Aiko; Beyoncé by Beyoncé; X  by Chris Brown; Mali Is…by Mali Music; and Girl by Pharrell Williams.

The nominees for Best Country Duo/Group Performance are "Gentle On My Mind" by the Band Perry; "Somethin' Bad" by Miranda Lambert With Carrie Underwood; "Day Drinking" by  Little Big Town; "Meanwhile Back At Mama's" by Tim McGraw Featuring Faith Hill; and "Raise 'Em Up" by Keith Urban Featuring Eric Church.

The Best Country Album nominees are Riser by Dierks Bentley; The Outsiders by Eric Church; 12 Stories by Brandy Clark; Platinum by Miranda Lambert; and The Way I'm Livin' by Lee Ann Womack.

This year's Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical nominations go to Paul Epworth, John Hill, Jay Joyce, Greg Kurstin, and Max Martin.

This year's GRAMMY Awards process registered more than 20,000 submissions over a 12-month eligibility period (Oct. 1, 2013 – Sept. 30, 2014). GRAMMY ballots for the final round of voting will be mailed on Dec. 17 to The Recording Academy's voting members. Ballots are due back to the accounting firm of Deloitte by Jan. 16, 2015, when they will be tabulated and the results kept secret until the 57th GRAMMY Awards telecast.

The 57th Annual GRAMMY Awards will be held Feb. 8, 2015, at Staples Center in Los Angeles and broadcast live in high-definition TV and 5.1 surround sound on CBS from 8–11:30 p.m. (ET/PT). For updates and breaking news, visit The Recording Academy's social networks on Twitter and Facebook

8 Country Crossover Artists You Should Know: Ray Charles, The Beastie Boys, Cyndi Lauper & More
Photo: Martin Philbey/Redferns

news

8 Country Crossover Artists You Should Know: Ray Charles, The Beastie Boys, Cyndi Lauper & More

Beyoncé's 'Cowboy Carter' is part of a proud lineage of artists, from Ringo Starr to Tina Turner, who have bravely taken a left turn into country's homespun, heart-on-sleeve aesthetic.

GRAMMYs/Mar 28, 2024 - 01:07 pm

When Beyoncé announced her upcoming album, Cowboy Carter, with the drop of two distinctly country tracks, she broke both genre and barriers. Not only did Queen Bey continue to prove she can do just about anything, but she joined a long tradition of country music crossover albums.

Country music is, like all genres, a construct, designed by marketing companies around the advent of widely-disseminated recorded music, to sell albums. But in the roughly 100 intervening years, genre has dictated much about the who and how of music making.

In the racially segregated America of the 1920s, music was no exception. Marketing companies began to distinguish between "race records" (blues, R&B, and gospel) intended for Black audiences and hillbilly music (country and Western), sold to white listeners. The decision still echoes through music genre stereotypes today.

But Black people have always been a part of country music, a message that's gained recognition in recent years — in part because of advocacy work by those like Rhiannon Giddens, who plays banjo and viola on "Texas Hold 'Em," one of two singles Beyoncé released in advance of Cowboy Carter.

And since rigid genre rules' inception, many artists from Lil Nas X to Bruce Springsteen have periodically dabbled in or even crossed over to country music.

In honor of Beyoncé's foray, here are eight times musicians from other genres tried out country music.

Ray Charles — Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music (1962)

In 1962, the soul music pioneer crossed the genre divide to cut a swingin' two-volume, 14-track revue of country and western music.

Part history lesson and part demonstration of Charles' unparalleled musicianship, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music covers country songs by major country artists of the era, including Hank Williams, Don Gibson, and Eddy Arnold. An instant success, the record topped album sales charts and was Charles' first atop the Billboard Hot 200 charts.

Ringo Starr — Beaucoups of Blues (1970)

The Beatles' drummer loves country music. Ringo Starr cut this album, which sounds like something you'd two-step the night away to at a honky tonk, as his second solo project. He was inspired by pedal steel guitar player and producer Pete Drake, who worked on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass.

With Drake's help, Starr draws out a classic honky tonk sound — pedal steel, country fiddle, and bar room piano — to round out the album.

Beaucoups includes a textbook country heartbreak song, "Fastest Growing Heartache in the West," a bluesy ramblin' man ballad, "$15 Draw," and a surprisingly sweet love song to a sex worker, "Woman Of The Night."

The Pointer Sisters — Fairytale (1974)

Remembered for their R&B hits like "I'm So Excited" and "Jump (For My Love)", the Pointer Sisters dropped "Fairytale," a classic country heartbreak song into the middle of their second studio album, That's A Plenty.

Full of honky tonk pedal steel and fiddle, the track earned the band a GRAMMY award for Country and Western Vocal Performance Group or Duo in 1975, beating out Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Bobby Bare, and the Statler Brothers; they were the first, and to date, only Black women to receive the award.

The same year the song came out, the Pointer Sisters also became the first Black group to play the Grand Ole Opry, arriving to find a group of protesters holding signs with messages like 'Keep country, country!'

Tina Turner Tina Turns the Country On! (1974)

Also in 1974, Tina Turner cut her first solo album, Tina Turns the Country On!, while she was still performing with then-husband Ike Turner as the Ike & Tina Turner Revue.

Containing the seeds of the powerful, riveting voice she'd fully let loose in her long solo career after separating from her abusive husband, the album presents a stripped down, mellow Turner.

She covers songs like Kris Kristofferson's "Help Me Make It Through The Night" and Bob Dylan's "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You," and delivers a soaring rendition of Dolly Parton's "There Will Always Be Music."

Turner was nominated for a GRAMMY award for the album, but in Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female, category.

The Beastie Boys — Country Mike's Greatest Hits (1999)

This Beastie Boys cut only a few hundred copies (most reports say 300) of this spoof country album — reputedly conceived of as a Christmas present for friends and family, and never officially released.

Presenting the supposed greatest hits of a slightly dodgy, enigmatic character – Country Mike, who shares a name with band member "Mike D" Diamond — the album sounds like vintage steel guitar country. Think Hank Williams and Jimmy Rodgers with a dash of musical oddballs Louden Wainwright III and David Allen Coe's humor and funk.

Country Mike appears just briefly in the liner notes of the band's anthology album, The Sounds of Silence, (which also includes two of the album's tracks: "Railroad Blues" and "Country Mike's Theme"), as part of an alternate universe wherein Mike temporarily lost his memory when he was hit on the head.

"The psychologists told us that if we didn't play along with Mike's fantasy, he could be in grave danger," the notes read. "This song ('Railroad Blues') is one of the many that we made during that tragic period of time."

Cyndi Lauper — Detour (2016)

The "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" singer enjoyed herself thoroughly by deviating from her typical style with 2016's Detour.

Road tripping into country music land, Lauper covered country songs of the 1950s and 1960s, including Marty Robbins' "Begging You," Patsy Montana's "I Want to be a Cowboy's Sweetheart" and Dolly Parton's "Hard Candy Christmas" with guest appearances by Willie Nelson, Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, and Vince Gill.

Jaret Ray Reddick — Just Woke Up (2022)

It might be hard to imagine the Bowling for Soup frontman, known for teenage pop-punk angst hits like "Girl all the Bad Guys Want" and "Punk Rock 101" crooning country ballads.

But in 2022, under the name Jaret Ray Reddick, he cut his solo debut, Just Woke Up. Drawing inspiration from Reddick's native Texas, the steel guitar and twang driven album features duets with Uncle Cracker, Cody Canada, Frank Turner, and Stephen Egerton.

Self-effacing and personable as ever, Reddick heads off questions about the viability of his country music with the album's first track, "Way More Country," acknowledging the questions listeners might have:

"I sing in a punk rock band/ And I know every word to that Eminem song "Stan"/ And I've got about a hundred and ten tattoos / But I'm way more country than you."

Bing Crosby — "Pistol Packin' Mama" (Single, 1943)

Legendary crooner of classic Christmas Carols and American standards, Bing Crosby decided to try his hand at country music with his cover of Al Dexter's "Pistol Packin' Mama," the first country song to appear on Billboard's charts.

The song, which tells the story of a man begging his woman not to shoot him when she discovers him out on the town fooling around, has since also been covered by Willie Nelson, Hoyt Axton, and John Prine.

How Beyoncé Is Honoring Black Music History With "Texas Hold Em," 'Renaissance' & More

Run The World: Why Beyoncé Is One Of The Most Influential Women In Music History
Beyoncé at the 2023 GRAMMYs.

Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

video

Run The World: Why Beyoncé Is One Of The Most Influential Women In Music History

Relive a few of the moments that made Beyoncé the global icon she is today, from her debut with Destiny's Child in 1997 to becoming the most awarded musician in GRAMMY history in 2023.

GRAMMYs/Mar 27, 2024 - 08:15 pm

Since her debut with Destiny's Child in 1997, Beyoncé has become one of the most decorated, record-breaking artists of all time.

In 2023, Queen Bey became the artist with the most GRAMMYs in history with 32 wins, after her seventh album, RENAISSANCE, won Best Dance/Electronic Music Album. That same LP also helped Beyoncé become the first female musician to have their first seven studio albums debut at No. 1 in the United States.

Earlier this year, she became the first Black woman to top Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart with "TEXAS HOLD 'EM," the lead single from her forthcoming album, COWBOY CARTER.

Beyond her chart achievements, Beyoncé has dedicated much of her work to uplifting women and exploring the Black experience, from Destiny's Child's "Independent Women, Part 1" to 2011's "Run the World (Girls)" and her 2016 album, Lemonade.

To add to her extensive resume, Beyoncé is also an active philanthropist and businesswoman. Through her BeyGOOD charity, she has championed countless causes, including education for young girls. Earlier this year, Beyoncé launched her hair care brand, Cécred, alongside an annual student scholarship and salon grant.

Among the many ways Bey has uplifted women around the world, her message to 2020 graduates perfectly summed up her influence: "Make those power moves, be excellent."

Press play on the video above to learn more about Beyoncé's colossal career. Check back to GRAMMY.com for more new episodes of Run the World, as well as for more news on Beyoncé's highly anticipated COWBOY CARTER.

Enter The World Of Beyoncé

On 'Heavy,' SiR Wants People To See The Weight Of His Humanity
SiR

Photo: Ro.lexx

interview

On 'Heavy,' SiR Wants People To See The Weight Of His Humanity

In an interview with GRAMMY.com, the TDE singer opens up about his new album, overcoming addiction, and how he leaned on his labelmates to carve a new path forward.

GRAMMYs/Mar 21, 2024 - 01:20 pm

SiR admits that a good chunk of his past five years were a blur. Following the release of his last album, 2019’s Chasing Summer, the singer fell into a deep depression. To cope, he began to "self-medicate," which ultimately spiraled into addiction.

The Inglewood, California native isn’t the first artist under L.A. powerhouse label Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) to struggle with mental and physical health. Isaiah Rashad, Ab-Soul and ScHoolboy Q have all experienced their own bouts with addiction and depression; however, all three have also found their way back to their art, releasing critically acclaimed come-back albums in the past few years. SiR is the latest example of Black male resilience amongst TDE artists. 

On his new album, Heavy (out March 22), the 37-year-old singer documents his life’s ups and downs. The record is "as personal as I’ll ever get in my music," he says over Zoom from his home in Inglewood. 

Sir Darryl Farris grew up in a musical family. His mother sang background for Chaka Khan and Michael Jackson back in the day, and urged SiR and his brothers — rapper D Smoke and fellow R&B singer Davion Farris — to sing in church every Sunday during their adolescence. While becoming a musician wasn’t an obvious career path, SiR rediscovered his passion in his early 20s and locked in.

The singer released his debut album, Seven Sundays, independently in 2015. He signed with TDE two years later and released the critically acclaimed November in 2018. Chasing Summer followed in 2019 and, together, the albums underscored him as a missing piece in the neo-soul/R&B landscape. Songs like "D’Evils," "Something New" (feat. Etta Bond), "John Redcorn" and "Hair Down" (feat. former labelmate Kendrick Lamar) especially showcased SiR's soulful storytelling and overall vibe. 

"My life experiences helped shape how I write songs," he told GRAMMY.com in 2019. "I appreciate my time away from music, but also I'm glad I found my way back because I don't know what I'd be if I wasn't a musician."

This time around, SiR found his way back to music in a more transformative way. Shortly after revealing his addiction to his wife in 2021, he checked into rehab and began the process of getting clean. Despite relapsing twice in 2022, as of writing this, SiR is a year and three months sober. He still dabbles with marijuana but is on a new path forward — forgiving himself along the way. "Finding sobriety, in my opinion, means finding your own version of it. I’m healthy and that’s what matters," he shares.

SiR recently earned his first two GRAMMY nominations at this year’s ceremony; Best R&B Song and Best R&B Performance for his collaboration with Alex Isley and Robert Glasper on the latter’s "Back to Love." SiR spoke to GRAMMY.com about creating his new album, overcoming his vices and how he leaned on his support system, including his labelmates, to carve a new path forward.

I was told that you struggled with an addiction in between releasing 2019’s Chasing Summer and now. Walk me through the ups and downs of your last five years.

I try not to go into detail as far as naming what I was actually going through because I don’t give my [drug of choice] power, and that’s just my personal thing. But I was a full-blown addict, and it started from a string of depression [and] relationship issues and issues at home that I wasn’t dealing with. Living one way when I’m actually built a different way. I started to self-medicate, let’s call it that, and it became an issue right around Chasing Summer and a full-blown problem heading into 2020, right before COVID. 

At the time, my wife was pregnant and it was too much [for me] to handle so I reached out for help [and] I had a strong support system around me. It took about a year, year and a half before I actually figured it out. But as of right now… I’m back at home with my family, and through all of this, I was creating. I love what I do and it’s part of how I pay my bills, so I tried to stay as busy as possible. By 2022, I was looking at the [track]list that I was accruing as I was trying to get sober, and noticed a throughline of my personal life struggles on wax. 

I did a great job of diving deep, as far as my own personal issues. I kinda did that [by] accident this time around and after about a year of changing the playlist — taking songs off, putting new songs on — we finally got to a place where we fell in love and started doing all the work towards preparing to release the album.

At what point were you like OK, I need to get it together?

I couldn’t really hide the fact that I was sick at a certain point. My wife couldn't tell what it was. She thought I was sick, like, physically. I would wake up throwing up, it was an ongoing thing for a few weeks when I was at the worst. It just got to a point where it wasn’t a secret to anybody else. 

Tough questions came out and I was ready to talk about it, I just didn’t know how. It’s such an embarrassing thing for a lot of people, you know? Once the cat was out of the bag, it was a lot easier for me to accept help and really try to work through what I needed to work through. 

When did you go to rehab?

The first time? [Laughs.] I was there for 21 days [in 2021]. [The] second time, I was there for two months and the third time wasn’t technically rehab; we took my phone [and] keys and put them in a locked room type situation. I did personal therapy, and, man, [that] did wonders. There’s that stigma that our community has on therapy and I would’ve never done something like that if I was in any other position, so I’m thankful for my issues because they led me to a lot of self-reflection and forgiveness. 

I think the only reason why I was sick for so long is because I wasn’t able to forgive myself for all of the mistakes that I had made and I wasn’t addressing the real issue, which was my depression. Once those things worked themselves out, it was all light from there and we were heading forward. [But] once an addict, always an addict — I had slip-ups. I was committed to being sober but I had two relapses that kinda set me back in 2022. I had a great 2023, started this year off strong, ended 2023 off strong with music and [I] wanna keep that going. 

I tell people all the time, I’m so sick of talking about this. We had to shoot a documentary the last couple of days and I had to fake doing drugs and fake getting drunk for the visual, and it’s very beautiful and artistic, [but] that kind of stuff has been uncomfortable. Even this conversation. It’s not uncomfortable for me, but it’s tough because I have to be honest and it’s important for me to tell my side of the story. 

I understand it’s tough and I appreciate you opening up about this. How did you find the strength to create through these low points?

The playlist that we have was pretty much done [at] the end of 2022 when we dropped "Nothing Even Matters." We were ready to go but I wasn’t sober. One thing about [TDE CEO Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith] is he protects people. He doesn’t care about when things happen as far as the music industry, he knows we’re gifted beyond the situations that we be in. He wants to make sure that he protects us as people so that our careers are built around longevity — and he won’t let me drop nothing unless it’s ready. 

And I’m glad that last mess up happened because it gave us time to really, really decide to put the right stuff on this playlist, and I had another six months to just chisel down. I added two songs back in that weren’t gonna be on the project. "Only Human" is an eight-year-old song, but it wasn’t going to be on there. "Tryin’ My Hardest" wasn’t gonna be on there but I put them back on and I changed the playlist up, got a couple extra features and I’m glad it worked out.

How have you leaned on your labelmates through your low points and what were those conversations like?

The conversations are always love because the situations are very similar. Circumstances are different but the solution was all the same. We were all going to our own different vices, but I talked to Ab-Soul a lot and leaned on him to get my mind right. When I was going through what I was going through, it was the same time he was going through what he was going through, and I didn’t know it. 

We started talking candidly about our experiences, which helps while you’re in the addiction, and it became a normal thing. Eventually, we both got to a point where we were healthy-minded and the conversation shifted. We don’t talk about that kind of stuff anymore but he was instrumental in pulling my mind away from the worst of it. 

Same with Zay [Isaiah Rashad]. Me and Zay was watching each other struggle. [Laughs.] It’s beautiful to see somebody win but it’s even more beautiful to see your brother make it back. Even [ScHoolboy] Q, whenever I seen him, it was all love. I was showing up places messed up and they always showed me the same respect and that went a long way.

Was collabing with Isaiah and Ab-Soul intentional, then?

Yes and no. I’m a fan of their music and everybody knows I’m a huge Ab-Soul fan, but these were the songs that were created in the turmoil and they fit for everyone. It was easy for us to write these things, especially "Karma" where me and Zay both were in the midst of the worst, and "I’m Not Perfect" was easy for Soul to gravitate towards because of the message, he understood it. 

That’s the beautiful thing about TDE, we all know what each other [is] capable of. Looking back, I think we’re blessed to have been in similar circumstances at the same time because the music wouldn’t sound the same if it was any other way.

What does the title Heavy mean to you?

This album is literally the most personal I’ll ever be. I don’t want to be in this kind of pain ever again. It’s as personal as I’ll ever get in my music. When I hear the word "heavy" I think of pressure and weight. With this album, I feel like I was under so much pressure as I was writing the songs — all I could do was make diamonds. These songs are all their own little diamonds of my writing, they’re stories that come from me, they’re born from my mistakes. 

It feels heavy. When I listen to the music, I feel the things I was going through weighing me down. When I perform it, it feels like I got on 300 pounds. This is four years coming. Five years since the [last] album but four years [that] I’ve been trying to get myself back to where I need to be to drop this. It’s the perfect title for what you’re hearing.

Why did you decide to drop "No Evil" and "Karma" as the first two singles?

Everything’s a team effort. We played the music until we were sick of it and whatever songs we were sick of the least, those were the ones that we wanted to work on. 

"No Evil" kept surprising us. The more we played it, the more we were like, "This s— is undeniable." It has so many things going for it. If people [are] just really willing to listen to it, it might do something. With "Karma," that was like …let’s just give [the fans] something that’s straight down the middle.

Why the decision for the D’Angelo homage in the "No Evil" video? Was that to show off your fitness transformation?

I think it was more so [the latter] than D’Angelo. The shot was something the director suggested, but it was more so my big reveal. I’ve been working on myself and part of the thing that I was going through the most was my weight gain. I got up to 250lbs and nobody was really saying anything. [While I was] trying to get sober, I had a lot of time to figure out my dieting and that’s what really helped get me down to the weight I’m at now.

The ode to D’Angelo, I didn’t really see until we started editing the video. I’m on the [other] side of the camera so I had no idea that we were going that far. I’m like, Hell yeah. My shirt’s off, I’m buff as f– that’s all that mattered to me. [Laughs.] Anytime I can pay homage to anybody like D’Angelo that helped shape me as an artist, I won’t hesitate to. 

"Ricky’s Song" also stands out to me because it sounds like you’re talking to someone. Walk me through the inspiration behind that.

I literally was talking to my nephew Ricky, that’s my n—. Ricky is 20 now. I wrote that right when he was going into his senior year. To me, it’s a Black love story, a love story that you don’t hear everyday. It’s my family and that’s how we take care of each other: through the lessons that we learn. On the song right before this, "Life Is Good," there’s an interlude where my dad tells a story about a robbery that he committed back in the day. He was telling us these stories because he wants us to know all the mistakes he’s made in his life so we don’t go through the same stuff. That’s where the line in "Ricky’s Song": "You learned from me, don’t wanna see you make the same mistakes," [comes from]. 

That’s why that song is so important to me and for other people to hear. It’s OK to love your family and nurture them. Me and Ricky’s relationship is so strong. That man is the coolest. [He’s] my workout partner, video game partner, we play "Call of Duty" all day together and we talk all the time, constantly encouraging and lifting each other up, giving each other advice from the other perspective because I’m 37 and he’s 20. I can learn so much more from him than he can learn from me in certain instances because he’s watching the world happening in his time, and I don’t see it like that and I never will, we’re in two different places. I definitely brush off on him and vice versa. He keeps me young.

What do you want listeners to take away from Heavy?

It’s OK to be vulnerable. We all go through things, it’s just about how you handle them, being honest about it with yourself and the people around you. I want people to see my humanity because a lot of times it feels like as artists, we’re put in these places and expectations are set for us and if we don’t abide by them, we can lose our whole career or we can get too lost in the image of what we’re supposed to be. I want people to see that I’m normal, I’m very human when you meet me. I’m regular and I love that part of my life. SiR is great but SiR is a job. It’s a career that can end, but my life is my life and I want people to recognize that it’s a blessing to get music from artists.

I want people that are going through similar situations to hear that I was crying for help in these instances and to know that it’s OK to ask for help. That’s the biggest thing with addiction and drug use: People are so embarrassed or ashamed that they won’t reach out to the person that wants to help them. For people that are watching someone go through this, take some of the pressure off yourself because…an addict will never get help until they choose to help themselves. So all you can do is support, give love and help in any way you can. 

Danielle Ponder's Powerful Song Of Reckoning: How The Singer/Songwriter Melds The Personal & Historical On "Manhunt" Theme

The Taylor Swift Effect: 8 Ways The Eras Tour Broke Records & Shattered Sales
Taylor Swift performs during the Eras Tour in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Nov. 24, 2023.

Photo: Buda Mendes/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management

list

The Taylor Swift Effect: 8 Ways The Eras Tour Broke Records & Shattered Sales

As the Eras Tour hits Disney+ with 'Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor's Version)', take a look at some of the mind-boggling feats the pop superstar has accomplished with her culture-shifting trek.

GRAMMYs/Mar 14, 2024 - 05:13 pm

Taylor Swift has continuously redefined what it means to be a pop superstar for almost two decades. But 2023 might have been her most defining year to date, thanks to the Eras Tour.

With 152 dates in stadiums across five continents, the Eras Tour isn't just Swift's personal biggest tour to date — it's a feat few other artists have accomplished. The sprawling 3 1/2-hour show is an impressive feat in itself, but the tour has gone on to break records and boost economies, firmly cementing Swift's stratospheric position as one of pop's all-time greats. 

There's a reason why the term "The Taylor Swift Effect" has been coined — it captures the impact Swift has had not just on music, but society as a whole. Swift's latest concert tour weaves through her 10- (and soon to be 11-) album discography, totaling a whopping 44 songs across 10 different acts for each "era." Between the allure of each set's surprise song and the next-level fan engagement, the tour has become far more than your average concert — it's a full-on cultural moment. 

Though the trek still has a bewildering nine months to go (it will hit Europe and another North America stretch from May to December), Swift is celebrating the Eras Tour's one-year anniversary by bringing its record-breaking concert film to Disney+ on March 14th. 

As fans get ready to stream Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor's Version), GRAMMY.com looks at the impact of the Eras Tour so far, exploring the records Swift has shattered since it first began.

Becoming The Highest Grossing Tour Ever

In eight months, Swift's Eras Tour did something no other artist has ever done: gross over $1 billion on a single tour. Pollstar reported the news in December 2023, stating that the 60+ shows she played in 2023 accumulated to 4.3 million tickets sold. 

This number is even more staggering when compared to Elton John's farewell tour, which lasted five years and had 328 shows and accumulated $939 million. Not only has Swift been able to do the same with 152 shows, but she still has nine months to go — and at the pace she's going, Pollstar projects that she could pass the $2 billion mark.  

Shattering Attendance Records

From breaking the all-time record for attendance during her three shows at Nashville's Nissan Stadium in May 2023 to playing the largest shows of her career at Melbourne's Cricket Ground in February 2024 (performing to 288,000 fans over three days), Swift couldn't stop breaking attendance records at various stops. Including those venues, she's broken eight attendance records at seven so far: Seattle's Lumen Field, New Jersey's MetLife Stadium, Pittsburgh's Acrisure Stadium, AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and Sao Paolo's Allianz Parque (where she broke one-day and three-day attendance records).

Although her friend and collaborator Ed Sheeran already broke some of her attendance records during his own 2023 world tour, Swift has done the impossible again by creating an entirely new record to break: how many people are both inside and outside the venue. Cities like Tampa and Detroit all had "Taygating" — mass parties with thousands of fellow Swifties that include singalongs, cookouts, and trading handmade friendship bracelets like the fans inside. In Philadelphia alone, cell phone usage data in the area determined that around 57,000 fans "taygated" outside throughout the tour's three nights.

Spiking Craft Sales

Creating costumes for Taylor Swift concerts is something that fans have been doing since Swift's Fearless Tour in 2009 and 2010, but a lyric from MIdnights' "You're On Your Own Kid" created a new way for fans to engage with each other. The lyric "So make the friendship bracelets/ Take the moment and taste it" sparked a friendship bracelet frenzy, and caused a 40 percent chainwide increase in jewelry sales overall at Michaels craft stores, with locations within Eras Tour stops seeing a 300 percent sales increase in beads and jewelry categories leading up to the concert.

Since the start of the tour, Michaels has also helped Swifties create over 22,0000 bracelets in their bracelet-making classes in-store. And that simple lyric has inspired other fandoms to take part — Formula One fans are handing bracelets off to drivers before races, and British soccer players are making them to help boost team morale.

Spawning The Highest Grossing Concert Film Of All Time

When she announced that the Eras Tour concert film would be headed to the big screen, Swift opted to "bet on herself" by personally investing $10-20 million to bypass Hollywood entirely to facilitate a partnership directly with AMC. To say that bet worked would be an understatement: the Eras Tour concert movie became the highest-grossing concert film of all time, amassing $250 million in worldwide movie ticket sales. On the day it was announced, movie ticket buyers broke AMC's single-day advance ticket sales record, amassing $26 million within 24 hours.

The Eras Tour film would not only become a huge box office achievement, but would become the first concert film to ever be nominated for a Golden Globe, competing against other major box office blockbusters like Barbie and Oppenheimer.

Igniting Social Media

If fans can't physically be at the concert or "Taygate" outside the venue, they can tune in thanks to TikTok's live-streaming capabilities. Fellow fans provide streams of the entire concert for those who want to watch the gig. Although the viewer count varies, anywhere from 30k+ people can be tuning in on one stream (statistics have shown that most fans tune in for Swift's surprise songs).

Since the start of the Eras Tour, TikTok has been flooded with over 1.9 million videos, with Variety reporting that Taylor-related content can average around 380 million views per day and no day falling below 200 million views. Swift took note of some of the fan-fronted trends, too, including the viral "Bejeweled" dance, created by fan Mikael Arellano, as part of her choreography on tour.

Read More: Behind The Scenes Of The Eras Tour: Taylor Swift's Opening Acts Unveil The Magic Of The Sensational Concert

Boosting The Economy

Every weekend, cities that hosted the Eras Tour awarded Swift with something special — Nashville placed a bench in Centennial Park as a nod to a lyric in "Invisible String," Santa Clara made her an honorary mayor, Minneapolis renamed the city 'Swiftie-apolis,' and Rio de Janeiro projected Swift's junior jewels shirt from the "You Belong With Me" onto Christ the Redeemer. No matter how the cities honored Swift, her visit was certainly beneficial for their local economies — one stop of the Eras Tour averaged around $1,300 spending per person on travel, hotels, food, and merchandise. 

The U.S. Travel Association likened it to the Super Bowl, but happening 53 times across 20 cities, estimating the economic impact to be around $10 billion by the time the tour wraps. It's a tour that has single-handedly changing travel, according to CNN, with fans choosing their travel based on where they can get tickets. And since money talks, politicians and world leaders — from Canada's Prime Minister to the Chilean President — have come out in spades to beg for Swift to add their countries to the worldwide tour. 

Breaking Niche Records

Two nights in Seattle resulted in a "Swift Quake" after so many fans danced to "Shake It Off," which caused seismic activity equivalent to a 2.3 magnitude earthquake. Seismologist Jackie Caplan-Auerbach collected 10 hours of data — from the music to the speakers to the dancing — to see how that energy can impact the ground enough to shake it.

Although not an official record, within the Swiftie community, fans have had battles to see which city can have the longest-standing ovation after "champagne problems," as detailed on Reddit and Billboard. Right now, Swift's penultimate Los Angeles show at SoFi Stadium is the winner, clocking in at 8 minutes.

Elevating Swift's Discography

After the start of a tour, it's natural for artists to see their discography have a short influx of listeners and then taper off again. But after the first 10 weeks of the Eras Tour, Swift's catalogue was growing more and more with every stop — up to 79 percent more than where she was before the tour began. And instead of listeners streaming specific singles or albums, the streamers were all over Swift's set list; Billboard reported that 23 of the 42 songs performed have doubled in weekly streams. 

The tour even helped the resounding fan favorite from 2019's Lover, "Cruel Summer," transform from beloved deep cut to chart topper. Streams of "Cruel Summer" went up 304 percent, resulting in the track becoming both her 10th No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and her sole longest-leading No. 1 on Billboard's all-format Radio Songs chart.

Using the Eras Tour to work in tandem with her rerecording release schedule has also become an integral marketing tactic. So much so that coinciding the tour and the releases (as well as the announcements) has helped contribute to her having six albums in the top 20 of the year-end Billboard 200, more No. 1 albums than any woman in history with 13 (as of press time), and 1989 (Taylor's Version) outselling the original — a staggering 1.3 million albums in its first week. 

Swift wrapped her first 2024 Eras Tour leg in Singapore on March 9, as she's now preparing to release her highly anticipated 11th album, The Tortured Poet's Department, on April 19. Three weeks later, the Eras Tour will pick back up in Nanterre, France, on May 9, with dates nearly every week until it wraps in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Dec. 8. 

With an already record-breaking tour and a new album on the way, there's no doubt that the world will continue to feel the impact of Taylor Swift and her pop star prowess — throughout 2024 and beyond.

5 Reasons Why Taylor Swift's Eras Tour Will Be The Most Legendary Of Her Generation