Kendrick Lamar's fourth studio album, DAMN., was bound to be a success from the start: It featured a slew of major names in music, both in and out of hip-hop, like Mike Will Made-It and Ricci Riera, James Blake, Steve Lacy, BadBadNotGood, Greg Kurstin, The Alchemist, and 9th Wonder, not to mention Rihanna and even U2. 

The album singles garnered multiple GRAMMY wins, with "Humble" winning Best Rap Performance and Best Music Video, while "Loyalty" won Best Rap/Sung Performance. The album as a whole, meanwhile, won Best Rap Album in 2018. In the latest edition of GRAMMY Rewind, watch King Kendrick accept his award, which came presented by comedian Dave Chappelle.

"This is a special award because of rap music," he told the audience. "This is the thing that got me on the stage, got me to tour around the world and support my family and all that. Most importantly, it showed me the true definition of what being an artist was. From the jump, I thought it was about the accolades and the cars and the clothes. But it's really about expressing yourself and putting that paint on the canvas for the world to evolve for the next listener, the next generation after that... Hip-hop has done that for me."

Watch Kendrick's big GRAMMY win above, and stay tuned for more editions of GRAMMY Rewind. 

GRAMMY Rewind Returns With History-Making Performances, Acceptance Speeches & More

It’s the kind of development even an animated fortune teller voiced by John Leguizamo couldn’t have predicted.

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2021 animated film Encanto was all-conquering, and its success also touched the Billboard charts. The film's "We Don't Talk About Bruno" entered the first Hot 100 chart of 2022 at No. 50, quickly becoming a record-breaking, multi-million-selling phenomenon. It also led to the renaissance of a particular crossover: the soundtrack hit.

With the domestic box office now showing signs of returning to pre-COVID days, the soundtrack single has, once again, become a key marketing tool and chart staple. The nominees for Best Song Written For Visual Media at the 2023 GRAMMYs are proof: Four of the six nominated songs charted on the Billboard Hot 100, with "We Don't Talk About Bruno" sitting at No. 1 for five weeks — the highest tally for a soundtrack release in seven years. (Aladdin favorite "A Whole New World" is also in the exclusive club of Disney animation No. 1s.)

2022 spawned five Top 10  hits from film soundtracks — a feat last achieved in 2018 via Kendrick Lamar’s Black Panther collabs with the Weeknd ("Pray for Me") and SZA ("All the Stars"), Swae Lee and Post Malone’s "Sunflower" (Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse), Khalid & Normani’s "Love Lies" (Love, Simon), and the A Star Is Born cut "Shallow." Yet the once-golden bridge between Hollywood and Billboard was quiet in the intervening years, perhaps due in part to the pandemic.  Not one TV or movie tie-in graced the Top 10 in 2021 or 2020. And although Oscar-winning “Shallow” reached pole position in 2019, it began its chart trajectory the year previously.

Over the past 12 months, however, this drought has been well and truly broken. And for a while, single-handedly by Encanto.

The Encanto OST picked up three GRAMMY nominations — Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media, Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media and Best Song Written For Visual Media for "Bruno" — and spawned seven Hot 100 singles, including another Top 10 smash, "Surface Pressure." Not bad for an album which in its first week entered the charts at No. 197.

Unlike the inescapable "Let It Go" from 2013's Disney juggernaut Frozen, the success of "Bruno" happened more organically. Its chart and streaming dominance wasn't steered by record executives, but by the public who deemed it more stream-worthy than any other track from the film. The biggest soundtrack from a live-action film, Top Gun: Maverick, told a similar story.

Lady Gaga’s power ballad "Hold My Hand" was primed to replicate the chart-topping, Academy Award-winning success of Berlin’s "Take My Breath Away" from the 1986 original. But while Gaga's lead single received a Best Song Written For Visual Media nomination at the 65th GRAMMY Awards, its chart peak was overwhelmingly eclipsed by OneRepublic’s "I Ain’t Worried."

The uptempo Peter, Bjorn and John-sampling track played over key scene where Tom Cruise, Glen Powell and Miles Teller play football shirtless on the beach, and became Ryan Tedder and co.’s biggest hit since 2013’s "Counting Stars" (No. 6 on Hot 100, over 660 million streams). The synergy between moviegoers and OneRepublic fans caught the band's record label off guard; Interscope pulled promotion of then-current single "West Coast" to capitalize on all the buzz.

2022 also witnessed a return-to-form from pop music-savvy director Baz Luhrmann, whose expert curation helped Romeo and Juliet, Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby spawn radio hits. Luhrmann was never going to give his Elvis Presley biopic a traditional soundtrack; instead he favored a mix of nostalgia and anachronism.

Elvis is peppered with songs performed by The King himself, as well as covers sung by former teen idol/lead actor Austin Butler and a host of newcomers and established artists. Yet the film's sole Top 10 hit was contemporary: Doja Cat's "Hound Dog"-sampling "Vegas." For Luhrmann's vision, Elvis was nominated alongside Encanto, "Stranger Things," Top Gun: Maverick and West Side Story for Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media GRAMMY Award.

Even Rihanna came out of self-imposed musical retirement for a film soundtrack, releasing the lead single from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in late October. While the dramatic balladry of "Lift Me Up" might not have been the floor-filling banger many fans hoped for — the song is Rihanna's first solo single in six years — it still returned the Barbadian to the upper echelons of the hit parade, reaching No. 2.

No stranger to the film soundtrack, Taylor Swift’s contribution to haunting drama Where the Crawdads Sing, "Carolina," is also nominated in the Best Song Written for Visual Media category alongside "Nobody Like U" — Turning Red’s fictional boyband song co-penned by Billie Eilish. And while the monolithic state of the comic book universe has rarely translated to the singles chart, The Batman’s use of Nirvana’s "Something In The Way" catapulted 1992's Nevermind up the charts.

As movie hits were abundant, so were songs featured in big-time TV shows — bringing new songs and decades-old hits back into public consciousness. Chief among these small screen-to-chartoppers was  Kate Bush's 1985 single "Running Up That Hill," which played over a significant moment in the mammoth fourth season of Netflix’s "Stranger Things."

The song was the British singer/songwriter's first Top 40 hit in the U.S., peaking at No. 30 on the Hot 100 in the '80s. Nearly 30 years later, without any label backing, the majestic synth-pop classic enjoyed a much-deserved second wind, shooting all the way up to No. 3 faster than you can say "flesh-eating Demogorgon."

The sci-fi nostalgia-fest also gave another, although much heavier, ‘80s gem a new lease of life when Joseph Quinn’s Eddie Munson shredded Metallica’s "Master of Puppets" in its season finale. The thrash metal favorite subsequently enjoyed a belated chart debut at No. 35, returning the headbangers to the Hot 100 for the first time in 14 years.

Elsewhere, video game adaptation "Arcane" spawned the first TV theme hit in eons with unlikely dream team Imagine Dragons and JID’s "Enemy," while "Euphoria" regular Labrinth scored a chart hit with "I’m Tired," a gospel-tinged song he performs in the second season's fourth episode as Zendaya's Rue imagines entering a church. The new golden age of television combined with the return to multiplexes ensured that 2022 was a banner year for the OST.

2023 looks promising, too: Dua Lipa is rumored to be contributing to Barbie’s long-awaited cinematic debut; Disney is set to give The Little Mermaid the live-action treatment featuring Chloe x Halle’s Halle Bailey; and several franchises that previously spawned No. 1 soundtrack songs have new installments on the way (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Fast X). Regardless, expect the soundtrack hit renaissance to continue growing like the "grapes that thrive on the vine."

Watch The 2022 Nominees For Best Song Written For Visual Media Nominees At The 2023 GRAMMY Awards

Nearly two decades after its release, Green Day's American Idiot remains one of the best-selling punk rock albums, both from the group's discography and within the genre. Home to Green Day's iconic tracks "American Idiot" and "Wake Me Up When September Ends," the 2004 album solidified Green Day's reputation within the rock world — and helped them win a GRAMMY.

In this episode of GRAMMY Rewind, revisit the trio's GRAMMY win for Best Rock Album for American Idiot in 2005. The group's seventh studio album brought in five other nominations that year: the prestigious Album of the Year category, as well as Record of the Year, Best Rock Duo/Group Vocal Performance, Best Rock Song, and Best Short Form Music Video for "American Idiot."

As the group accepted their Best Rock Album gramophone, each member took a turn at the mic thanking various contributors to American Idiot, including producer Rob Cavallo and their manager, Pat Magnarella.

"Everybody at Warner Bros., thank you for your hard work here," bassist Mike Dirnt praised. "All the fans. Everyone at radio that plays rock and roll music still."

To close out the speech, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong echoed the support for rock music. "We know rock and roll can be dangerous and fun at the same time," he said, "so thanks a lot!"

Press play on the video above to watch Green Day's complete acceptance speech for Best Rock Album at the 47th GRAMMY Awards, and keep checking back to GRAMMY.com for more episodes of GRAMMY Rewind.

2022 In Review: 5 Trends That Defined Rock

Did you know that among all of the students in GRAMMY U, songwriting and performance is one of the most sought after fields of study? We want to create a space to hear what these students are creating today!

The GRAMMY U Mixtape, now available for your listening pleasure, highlights the creations and fresh ideas that students are bringing to this industry directly on the Recording Academy's Spotify and Apple Music pages. Our goal is to celebrate GRAMMY U members, as well as the time and effort they put into making original music — from the songwriting process to the final production of the track.

Each month, we accept submissions and feature 20 to 25 songs that match that month’s theme. This month we're ringing in 2023 with our New Year, It's Poppin'! playlist, which features fresh pop songs that bring new year, new you vibes. Showcasing talented members from our various chapters, we felt these songs represented the positivity and hopefulness that GRAMMY U members embody as they tackle this upcoming year of exciting possibilities.

So, what’s stopping you? Press play on GRAMMY U’s Mixtape and listen now on Spotify below and Apple Music.

Want to be featured on the next playlist? Submit your songs today! We are currently accepting submissions for songs of all genres for consideration for our February playlist. Whether you write pop, rock, hip hop, jazz, or classical, we want to hear from you. Music must be written and/or produced by the student member (an original song) and you must be able to submit a Spotify and/or Apple Music link to the song. Students must be a GRAMMY U member to submit.

About GRAMMY U:

GRAMMY U is a program that connects college students with the industry's brightest and most talented minds and provides those aspiring professionals with the tools and opportunities necessary to start a career in music.     

Throughout each semester, events and special programs touch on all facets of the industry, including the business, technology, and the creative process.

As part of the Recording Academy's mission to ensure the recorded arts remain a thriving part of our shared cultural heritage, GRAMMY U establishes the necessary foundation for music’s next generation to flourish.

Not a member, but want to submit to our playlist? Apply for GRAMMY U Membership here.

Today, MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" is known as one of the defining rap classics of the early '90s. Of course, the song was a massive hit upon its release, too — and it scored Hammer two golden gramophones at the 1991 GRAMMYs, in both rap and R&B categories.

In this episode of GRAMMY Rewind, turn back the clock to 1991 and revisit Hammer's heartfelt, off-the-cuff acceptance speech for Best Rap Solo Performance. As he stood at the podium, the rapper admitted he didn't have the complete list of names of people he wanted to thank — so instead, he spoke from the heart.

"First of all, I would like to thank God for this honor," Hammer said. "Without Him, I know it's not possible."

He went on to thank the people at his record label who supported him throughout the creation of the song, and concluded with a mention of something that was weighing heavy on the hearts of many in early 1991: the Gulf War.

"Once again, I would like to send this one out to the family and the men and women who are putting their lives on the line for us in the Persian Gulf," Hammer concluded before he left the stage, receiving a rousing round of applause. 

The early-'90s Middle East conflict was a hot topic in the U.S. at the time of the 33rd GRAMMY Awards. Just before the 1991 GRAMMYs took place, Hammer was part of a star-studded, all-genre cast of singers who recorded a new group version of John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" in light of the war. 

Press play on the video above to watch Hammer's full acceptance speech for Best Rap Solo Performance, and keep checking back to GRAMMY.com for more new episodes of GRAMMY Rewind. 

Meet The 2022 Nominees For Best Rap Album At The 2023 GRAMMY Awards