Updated Sunday, Feb. 5, 2023, to reflect the results of the 65th GRAMMY Awards in 2023.

With a total of 86 categories celebrating the best of pop, rock, R&B, jazz, rap, Latin, classical, Musical Theater, and more, thousands of music creators have been recognized by the GRAMMYs since its inception in 1957.

The prestige of one GRAMMY win can catapult an artist's career to the next level, but there are some who have amassed more than 10, 20 and even 30 career GRAMMY wins. Ever wonder who these elite GRAMMY winners are? Look no further. We've compiled a list of the top GRAMMY winners of all time.

Beyoncé, 32

Beyoncé made history at the 2023 GRAMMYs by becoming the artist with the most GRAMMY wins — ever — when she won the GRAMMY for Best Dance/Electronic Music Album for her 2022 album, Renaissance. Beyoncé now counts 32 total GRAMMY wins.

Georg Solti, 31

Not only does the late conductor Georg Solti hold the record for the most GRAMMY Awards won in any genre with 31, he has the most wins in the Classical Field. Solti's last win was for Best Opera Recording for Wagner: Die Meistersinger Von Nurnberg for 1997.

Quincy Jones, 28

Quincy Jones' GRAMMY career as an artist/arranger/producer spans more than 10 Fields, from Children's to Jazz, Pop, Rap, R&B, and more, including his recent win for Best Music Film at the 61st GRAMMY Awards. He is also one of only 15 artists to receive the GRAMMY Legend Award.

Alison Krauss, 27

Alison Krauss holds the distinction as the female artist with the most awards in the Country Field. Krauss shares 14 of her wins with her backing band of nearly 30 years, Union Station.

Chick Corea, 27

Musician/composer Chick Corea is currently the artist with the most jazz GRAMMY wins, counting 27 GRAMMY Awards as a solo artist. Corea's Latin jazz piano stylings, compositions and arrangements have also earned him four Latin GRAMMY Awards.

Pierre Boulez, 26

Pierre Boulez earned his GRAMMYs primarily conducting the work of renowned 20th century composers such as Bela Bartók, Alban Berg and Claude Debussy. Boulez received The Recording Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015.

Vladimir Horowitz, 25

The late virtuoso pianist/composer Vladimir Horowitz earned GRAMMYs in every decade from the 1960s to the 1990s. He was also awarded a Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990 and has five recordings in the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame.

Stevie Wonder, 25

No stranger to the GRAMMY stage, Stevie Wonder is the only artist in GRAMMY history to win five or more awards on three separate nights. His career and GRAMMY history were celebrated on the television special "Stevie Wonder: Songs In The Key Of Life — An All-Star GRAMMY Salute" in 2015.

John Williams, 25

John Williams has cashed in on cinema soundtrack classics such as Jaws, Star Wars and Schindler's List for a place among the GRAMMY elite. Of his 24 GRAMMY wins, Williams has earned 12 in the Music For Visual Media Field and six for his work on the Star Wars franchise. His most recent win came at the 60th GRAMMYs for Best Arrangement, Instrumental Or A Cappella for "Escapades For Alto Saxophone And Orchestra From Catch Me If You Can."

Jay-Z, 24

Tied with Kanye West for the most GRAMMY wins by a rap artist, Jay-Z has wins in each of the four Rap Field categories. Hova's blueprint for GRAMMY success includes collaborations with other artists such as Beyoncé ("Drunk In Love"), Rihanna ("Umbrella") and Justin Timberlake ("Holy Grail").

Kanye West, 24

Kanye West is neck-and-neck with Jay Z for top GRAMMY-winning rap artist, but he has often competed against himself. For example, he had two nominations (and a win) each for Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song for 2012, Best Rap Album for 2011, and Best Rap Song and Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group for 2007.

David Frost, 22

A giant in the Classical Field, renowned producer David Frost has won the coveted Classical Producer Of The Year GRAMMY seven times. He's also won three GRAMMYs each in the Best Classical Engineered Recording and Best Opera Recording categories over the years. Most recently, he took home two GRAMMYs at the 2023 GRAMMYs: Best Classical Solo Vocal Album and Best Opera Recording.

U2, 22

Led by frontman Bono, U2 hold the record for most GRAMMY wins by a rock act. Their most recent wins came in 2005, including Album Of The Year for How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb.

Vince Gill, 22

Singer/songwriter Vince Gill has earned 20 of his GRAMMY wins in the Country Field, the most of any artist. He earned his first GRAMMY outside of the Country Field in 2017 for Best American Roots Song for writing the Time Jumpers' "Kid Sister." He also holds the distinction of garnering the most GRAMMYs in the 1990s (14), winning one or more GRAMMYs in every year of the decade.

Henry Mancini, 20

The composer behind TV and film themes such as "Peter Gunn" and "The Pink Panther Theme," the late Henry Mancini made early GRAMMY history with a then-record five wins in one night for 1961. Mancini's popular "Moon River" and later "Days Of Wine And Roses" each won both Record and Song Of The Year.

Pat Metheny, 20

Pat Metheny is all that jazz. The guitarist earned his first GRAMMY for Best Jazz Fusion Performance, Vocal Or Instrumental for Offramp for 1982. He has earned GRAMMYs in four consecutive decades since, most recently in 2012 as the Pat Metheny Unity Band for Unity Band for Best Jazz Instrumental Album.

Al Schmitt, 20

Working on projects by artists Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Chick Corea, and Paul McCartney, among others, Al Schmitt won his 20 GRAMMYs as an engineer/mixer. Schmitt has also earned two Latin GRAMMYs and he received the Recording Academy Trustees Award in 2006.

Bruce Springsteen, 20

In addition to GRAMMY wins in every decade from the '80s through '00s, Bruce Springsteen has seen his albums Born To Run and Born In The U.S.A. inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame. In 2013 the quintessential rocker was honored as the MusiCares Person of the Year.

Tony Bennett, 19

An artist who truly seems to get better with age, Tony Bennett has won nine of his 18 career GRAMMYs since 2002. Including his 2015 win with Bill Charlap for The Silver Lining: The Songs Of Jerome Kern, Bennett has earned Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album honors 13 times, the most in the category's history.

Aretha Franklin, 18

Aretha Franklin reigns as the queen of R&B. She has 18 GRAMMY wins to date, five recordings in the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame, a Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award (1994) and a GRAMMY Legend Award (1991).

Yo-Yo Ma, 19

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma has strung together 18 GRAMMY wins, earning his first in 1984 for Bach: The Unaccompanied Cello Suites. Since then he's won GRAMMYs in the Folk and World Music Fields, the latter of which came for 2016 for the Best World Music Album-winning project with his Silk Road Ensemble, Sing Me Home.

Paul McCartney, 18

Winning Best New Artist with the Beatles for 1964, Paul McCartney has gone on to earn 18 career GRAMMYs as an artist, composer and arranger. While most of McCartney's GRAMMY history lies in pop and rock, he earned two 58th GRAMMY nominations for Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance for Kanye West's "All Day" with Theophilus London and Allan Kingdom.

Jimmy Sturr, 18

Out of the 25 GRAMMYs ever awarded for polka, Jimmy Sturr earned 18 of them, including 13 wins for Best Polka Album. He will likely remain the highest GRAMMY-winning polka artist in history (given the discontinuation of the category), and was "Born To Polka."

Jeff Goldblum has enjoyed a prolific (and massive) career as one of Hollywood's most beloved actors. But long before making it as a film and television star, he enjoyed an entirely different passion: American standards and jazz.

Now, as Goldblum says, he's "a humble student" of the genres. Four years after releasing his first jazz album with the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra (2018's The Capitol Studios Sessions), the actor-turned-musician unveiled his third project, Plays Well With Others, on March 24. 

Across the EP's six tracks, Goldblum and the orchestra deliver inventive renditions of songs like the Frank Sinatra standard "In The Wee Small Hours of the Morning" and Irving Berlin's "Don't Fence Me In." Though he's already proven that he plays well with others — his previous two releases have featured the likes of Miley Cyrus, Fiona Apple and Hailey Reinhart — Goldblum recruited a disparate list of guest stars including pop star Kelly Clarkson and Brazilian singer/songwriter Rodrigo Amarante for his latest set.

In celebration of the EP's release, Goldbum took GRAMMY.com inside the songs, artists and albums that made the biggest impact on him — and ultimately lead to a whole new career. 

Erroll Garner

My dad was a fan of his, and he's one of the first pianists I heard. He used to sit on a telephone book to play piano. What a genius he is. I've been listening to his recording of "Eldorado" from his 1972 album Gemini. Ooh, how about that one?

Henry Mancini's "Moon River"

That was one of the first songs my first piano teacher, Tommy Emmel, gave me the sheet music for. I really sat and worked on that, and I started to get better at playing by playing that song.

When it comes to Henry Mancini, I saw the first run of The Pink Panther with my sister and it made a big impact on me. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtnNO5_Ao6U&ab_channel=HenryManciniVEVO">Sings [The Pink Panther theme]. That killed me. 

Frank Sinatra

I have always loved Frank Sinatra. It was in his swimming pool at his former home in Palm Springs where we shot a photograph for the cover of my second album. We put a piano in the middle of his pool!

He's such a good actor, and the gift of his voice. He acts all of these songs so deeply, originally and spontaneously.

Sinatra at the Sands

I've been listening to Sinatra at the Sands a lot lately. What an album. He's with the Count Basie Orchestra, conducted by a very young Quincy Jones. It has all sorts of amazing moments: "Shadow of Your Smile," which he introduces by saying 'Here's a brand new song,' which is amazing. "One for My Baby" is another one, the way he does it on that record is unbelievable with his spoken introduction kills me.

This version of "You Make Me Feel So Young" is one I've listened to several times while I was filming the upcoming Wicked movie with Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo and Michele Yeoh. I was listening to a lot of music to stimulate me even more, and this album and that song was one of them. 

Jennifer Warnes' "It Goes Like It Goes"

It's originally from the movie Norma Rae from 1979 that Sally Field won the Oscar for. The title song is sung by Jennifer Warnes. It knocks me out. I get weepy, rich tears of delicious joy and sorrow.

Thelonis Monk

Right around the time I was taking piano lessons, Thelonis Monk was on the cover of TIME magazine. I checked him out, and developed a lifelong love of what he did and what a genius he is. 

Brian Stokes Mitchell and Audra McDonald's "Wheels of a Dream"

This is from the musical Ragtime, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. When I hear this song lately, it reminds me of the time I worked with Brian Stokes Mitchell [on Fox's hit TV series "Glee"]. We actually played a married couple who was raising our child, played by Lea Michele. As a matter of fact, the week we did that show, we went to the Capitol Records building to record a duet of "You're the Top."

Peggy Lee's "Is That all There Is?"

That song kills me. I first heard it in 1969 when it first came out. Randy Newman actually did the orchestral arrangement.

Glenn Gould

My bandmate and coach, Alex Frank, who plays the bass in our band, turned me on to Glenn Gould, who is from Toronto where my wife is actually from. I've been watching some documentaries on him that I've been eating up. What a great guy he was; a masterful, interesting and original artist. 

Alex's dad was involved in music prominently, so when he was a kid, he once went to a rehearsal of Glenn Gould's because his father had some relationship with the orchestra leader. It was a rehearsal and in the middle of it Glenn Gould said, "Stop, stop, I can't continue. I need a paper bag." 

So Alex, who was 10 at the time, went around the corner to get a paper bag. When he came back with it, Glenn Gould took off his shoes and socks and put his bare feet in this paper bag and said, "Now I'm ready" and continued his rehearsal. Why did he do that? I don't know. 

7 Artists Influenced By The Beach Boys: The Beatles, Weezer, The Ramones & More

For more than eight decades, girl groups have harmonized their way into the collective consciousness, bringing female empowerment to the forefront — and changing culture along the way.

Of course, girl groups have come in many forms: there's the family-friendly Andrew Sisters, the funk rock-infused Labelle, and the R&B-leaning Destiny's Child. As the construct of the girl group has evolved, so has their cultural impact — while acts like the Supremes helped push popular music in a more diverse direction in America, J-Pop and K-Pop groups have helped girl groups be viewed through a global lens in recent years.

What has tied all of these groups together is their infectious and inspirational records, which have encouraged women to express themselves and feel empowered in doing so. Groups like the Spice Girls and the Shangri-Las, for instance, have helped women express all sides of themselves, reminding the world that there is joy and beauty in contrast.

As Women's History Month nears its end, GRAMMY.com celebrates all of the powerful women who have been part of the girl group evolution. (To narrow the field, we characterize a girl group as acts with a minimum of three members and a focus on vocal performance; hence why you won't see bands like the Go-Gos or the Chicks on this list.)

Below, take a look at how girl groups have changed in both construct and impact for nearly 90 years — and counting — and listen to GRAMMY.com's official Girl Groups playlist on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Music, and Pandora.

Though women have no doubt sung together since the beginning of time, the formal concept of the girl group came sometime in the '20s or '30s, with the rise in popularity of tightly harmonizing family acts like the Boswell Sisters and the Hamilton Sisters (the latter of whom would become Three X Sisters). The groups really started to see a rise in popularity around the beginning of WWII — perhaps because the entrance of more women into the workforce opened peoples' minds to the idea of the pop girl group, or perhaps because the soldiers overseas sought comfort and mild excitement via the groups' smooth sounds and attractive looks.

The Andrews Sisters, who officially formed in 1937 as a Boswell Sisters tribute act, would become the most popular of the sister acts, riding tracks like "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,""Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree (With Anyone Else But Me)" and "Beer Barrel Polka (Roll Out The Barrel)" straight to the top of the charts. They're considered one of the most successful girl groups of all time, selling an estimated 80 million records and counting. Other girl groups followed the Andrews' act, including the Dinning Sisters, who released "They Just Chopped Down The Old Apple Tree" as an answer to their rivals' hit.

The Andrews Sisters continued to be popular well into the '50s, inspiring similar close harmony acts like the Chordettes, who found success with tracks like "Mr. Sandman" and "Lollipop," and the Lennon Sisters, who became a mainstay on "The Lawrence Welk Show."

Around the middle of the decade, girl groups started pulling a bit more from the doo-wop movement, with songs like the Bobbettes "Mr Lee" helping pave the way for a wave of all-Black girl groups to come. The Chantels — who had come up together singing in a choir — quickly followed with "Maybe," which solidified the genre's style with a blend of rock, pop, doo-wop that would act as a sonic template for years to come.

In 1961, the Shirelles found quick success with tracks like "Tonight's The Night" and "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," which became the first girl group cut to go to No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. The group would have five more hit singles throughout the decade, and inspired acts like the Marvelettes, whose "Please Mr. Postman" would become the first No. 1 single for Motown Records.

Keen to seize on that success, Motown invested heavily in creating more girl groups, crafting trios and quartets out of various singers that they might have previously eyed for solo work or even passed on signing. That kind of business-minded molding is what yielded Martha and the Vandellas, the Velvelettes, and a little act called the Supremes, who would go on to become the most successful American vocal group of all time, according to CNN. The success of the Motown acts — the majority of whom were all Black — was also a sign of American culture's increasing acceptance of the integration of popular music.

Having seen the success that Motown had in consciously crafting its girl groups, other producers and small, independent labels sought to capture some of that lightning in a bottle for themselves. The Philles label cashed in on the sound of the Crystals and the Ronettes, while Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller signed the Shangri-Las and the Dixie Cups to their Red Bird label. Tracks like the Shangri-Las' "Give Him A Great Big Kiss" offered a surprisingly real perspective on teen girl crushes, while  "Leader Of The Pack" helped bring female perspective to a subgenre of songs about macabre teenage tragedies previously dominated by all-male acts like Jan And Dean and Wayne Cochran And The C.C. Riders.

First formed in the '60s as Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles, Labelle pushed the genre out of the sock hop and into the nightclub, becoming one of the premiere girl groups of the '70s. Their funky, rock-infused singles were unlike anything girl group aficionados had heard before, and in 1974, the group captured America's heart with "Lady Marmalade," a slightly suggestive song that broke out of the discos and into the collective consciousness. Other acts originally formed in the '60s found similar success, like the Three Degrees, who had a number of hits, including the sunny and soothing "When Will I See You Again."

Sister Sledge also capitalized on the disco boom, crafting lasting hits like "We Are Family" and "He's The Greatest Dancer." The Pointer Sisters went through a rainbow of genres, including R&B (1973's funky "Yes We Can Can") and country (1974's "Fairytale," which won a GRAMMY for Best Country Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal in 1975), before finding their biggest success at the beginning of the next decade with tracks like the sultry "Slow Hand" and the more frantic "I'm So Excited."

Girl groups went through a bit of a lull in the '80s, as the culture trended toward hair metal and hip-hop. Some acts still managed to break through, capturing listeners' hearts with dance-friendly cuts imbued with Latin freestyle flair. Full of synths and syncopated percussion, freestyle burst out of clubs and parties in New York and Philadelphia, finding a particular hold amongst Hispanic and Italian-American audiences.

Miami's Exposé was one of the decade's biggest freestyle acts, blending girl group harmonies with synthetic sounds for hits like "Point Of No Return" and "Seasons Change." Two New York groups, Sweet Sensation and The Cover Girls, had freestyle success that bridged the '80s and '90s. Sweet Sensation's "Never Let You Go" tore up the dance charts, and while the Cover Girls' "Show Me" and "Because Of You" weren't quite as popular, they still hold a special place in the hearts of freestyle fans.

Girl groups roared back in a big way in the '90s, thanks in part to the emergency of new jack swing and a renewed interest in R&B's smooth vocal stylings. En Vogue was one of the first groups to go big in the '90s, with debut single "Hold On" first hitting the Billboard charts in 1990. Their biggest tracks came later in the decade, with the powerful "Free Your Mind" and "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" showcasing the quartet's vocal range and character.

Two groups from Atlanta also came to prominence around the same time as En Vogue. First was the street-savvy quartet Xscape, who harnessed the sounds of 1993 with tracks like "Just Kickin' It." 

TLC had a more dynamic arc, first bursting into the collective consciousness with the new jack swing-infused "Ooooooohh… On The TLC Tip," which featured three top 10 singles, including "Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg." The group's baggy pants and hip-hop aesthetic pushed girl group boundaries, in part because its members actually acknowledged their sexual desires, as well as the need for everyone to have safe sex. Later in the decade, TLC would rise to even higher heights with tracks like "Waterfalls" and the GRAMMY-winning "No Scrubs," the latter of which was actually co-written by two members of Xscape.

Destiny's Child initially emerged from Houston in the late '90s as a quartet, though they'd later lose some members and gain new ones, ending up as a trio. While it was hard to ignore the sheer star power of Beyonce, the threesome did generally function as a group, producing a string of danceable earworms, including "No, No, No," and "Bills, Bills, Bills." By the time they disbanded in 2006, Destiny's Child sold tens of millions of records and earned three GRAMMY Awards (and a total of nine nominations).

Out west, Wilson Phillips' Chyna Phillips, Wendy Wilson and Carnie Wilson were channeling the sounds of their respective parents, who had been members of the Beach Boys and the Mamas & The Papas. Their songs featured  vocal harmonies and were largely about emotional longing, pushing back against the dance and funk that ruled much of the radio dial throughout the '90s.

Girl groups were also gaining major traction in the U.K during the '90s, spurred by a boy band boom in the country around the same time. Two groups — All Saints and the Spice Girls — were actually assembled by managers, something that didn't help allay naysayers' concern that much of pop music at the time was wholly manufactured. (Another U.K. mainstay, Ireland's B*Witched, came together organically.)

Regardless, both All Saints and the Spice Girls found commercial success, with the latter becoming absolutely massive not just because of catchy pop romps like "Wannabe," but because of the quintet's singular personas and the strength of their "girl power" messaging. The Spice Girls even starred in their own movie, "Spice World," which came out at the height of Spice-mania in 1997 and drew instant comparisons to the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night."

Girl groups continued to reign in the early part of the 2000s. A number of 2000s girl groups formed on television as part of reality programming, with U.K. sensation Girls Aloud forming on the ITV show "Popstars: The Rivals" and Danity Kane both forming and developing over three seasons of Sean Puffy Combs' "Making The Band." TV acted as a great launching pad for these pop acts, as fans were often emotionally invested in the group's success from watching the show so when a new single dropped, they were quick to get on board.

Girls Aloud and Danity Kane — as well as their peers, like Dream, 3LW, and Blacque — made pop music that was sexy, confident, and larger than life, with expensive-looking music videos to match. The songs also often crossed over from pop to urban radio.

Another of the most successful (and sexiest) girl groups of the 2000s also formed in a fairly roundabout way. The Pussycat Dolls found success with tracks like "Don't Cha" and "Buttons," but the actual origin of the Pussycat Dolls name and brand came almost 15 years earlier when an L.A. based choreographer named Robin Antin launched a burlesque troupe. After her club events and dancers became more and more popular (even posing for Playboy), she was urged by Interscope Records' Jimmy Iovine to attach the name to a pop group.

Antin recruited five singers who could hold a tune and looked the part, including Nicole Scherzinger — who initially got her start in Eden's Crush, another group formed on a TV show, the U.S. iteration of "Popstars" — and the Pussycat Dolls quickly strutted onto radio dials and Billboard charts with their catchy multi-tracked (and often risqué) hits.

Girl groups were also getting huge around the globe in the '00s, with Spain's Las Ketchup producing the insanely catchy pop ditty conveniently named "The Ketchup Song," Sweden's Play crossed over to commercial success in the American market, and the U.K.'s Atomic Kitten formed purely as a songwriting vehicle for Orchestral Maneuvers In the Dark's Andy McCluskey and Stuart Kershaw. Members of the latter would come and go throughout its career, but songs like "Whole Again" (which was also recorded by Play) have stood the test of time.

Though modern K-pop culture had begun in South Korea in the late '90s, it started to really pick up steam in the '00s, with both boy bands and girl groups benefiting from the surging Hallyu or Korean wave. One of those, Wonder Girls, found quick success in the late '00s with genre-spanning tracks like "Tell Me" and "Nobody," thanks in part to the pop act's ability to perform English versions of their songs while on tour with the Jonas Brothers.

Two of the 2010s biggest girl groups also came from televised reality competition shows. Little Mix, a quartet, was formed on the U.K.'s "The X Factor" and came to redefine the girl group era in Britain, selling more than 60 million records and topping the charts with high octane singles like "Cannonball" and "Shout Out To My Ex." 

Stateside, Fifth Harmony was birthed on "The X Factor," where all five members had competed individually the season before but failed to advance. But after producers brought them back to compete as a group, Fifth Harmony was born, with viewers picking the name and ultimately helping them take third place in the competition.

The quintet emerged from the show signed to judge Simon Cowell's record label, Syco, and like so many great girl groups before it, embarked on a tour of malls and talk shows before eventually releasing a pop record tinged with both hip-hop and R&B. Fans latched on to songs like "I'm In Love With A Monster" and "Work From Home," the trap-laced monster hit that has garnered billions of hits on YouTube since its release.

The K-pop wave also continued in the 2010s, with groups like Girls Generation and Twice, both of whom broke the mold of a traditional girl group by having eight and nine members, respectively. At the same time, a J-Pop act, AKB48, rose to popularity, with a structure girl groups hadn't seen before — it has 80 members in total, with the group being divided into different "teams" that members are elected into by rabid fans.  All three acts were literally and figuratively massive, selling tens of millions of highly produced bubblegum pop LPs and larger than life dance singles.

The success of K-pop girl groups shot to a new level when BLACKPINK entered the scene in 2016, forming after its members joined a girl group academy and underwent what amounts to girl group boot camp. The result is a fine-tuned musical machine that's produced pop hit after pop hit — including "Boombayah" and "DDU DU DDU DU" — as well as music videos that have been viewed billions of times online.

Spurred by the devotion of their fans (known as the BLINKs), BLACKPINK has also managed to rack up an impressive roster of accolades. They were the first Asian act to headline Coachella, the first female K-Pop artists on the cover of Billboard, and have amassed the most subscribers of any musical act on YouTube. But they're not the only female K-Pop act helping girl groups stay alive: Groups like Mamamoo and Red Velvet released hit after hit in the 2010s, and 2NE1 captured hearts everywhere with tracks like "Lonely" and "I Am The Best." In 2012, 2NE1 set out on what many consider to be the first world tour by a K-pop girl group, visiting 11 cities in seven countries.

A British girl group whose members pull from their individual cultures to create a unique, hip-hop influenced sound, Flo was also influenced by artists like Ciara and Amy Winehouse. Though they've only been together for a few years, their unique retro sound became almost instantly popular in the UK, with debut single "Cardboard Box" racking up almost a million views on YouTube within days of its release in early 2022. Other hit singles, like "Immature" and "Summertime" have followed.

Another thoroughly modern girl group, Boys World, was formed after managers found videos of five different women singing online and then contacted them to see if they wanted to team up. They said yes, launched a TikTok account, and moved into a house together in Los Angeles. Their thoroughly online approach to becoming a girl group has captivated audiences, along with their empowering anthems.

The K-Pop wave has continued to surge as well, with BLACKPINK headlining Coachella in 2023 and the quickly rising NewJeans earning the distinction of being the very first female Korean act to play Lollapalooza later this summer. Like so many girl groups before them, both acts continue to break boundaries and impact the culture at large, proving that the genre is as vital as ever.

While they may not be as abundant as in decades past, the girl group movement certainly hasn't shuttered. And with a diverse array of women still captivating audiences around the globe, girl groups will likely continue to spice up your life for years to come.

Listen To GRAMMY.com's Women's History Month 2023 Playlist: Swim In The Divine Feminine With These 40 Songs By Rihanna, SZA, Miley Cyrus, BLACKPINK & More

When talk turns to the history of American pop vocal groups in the 20th century, the conversation begins — and ends — with the Beach Boys. These California siblings and their high school compadres reinvented modern music, taking listeners on a sonic journey with their melodic harmony-rich hits. More than 60 years on, the group is still considered a touchstone for today’s artists and the pinnacle of pop.  

The Beach Boys formed in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne in 1961. The original lineup featured the three Wilson brothers (Dennis, Brian and Carl), cousin Mike Love and high-school friend Al Jardine. Initially, Murry Wilson (the siblings father) managed the group and helped land their first paying gig: opening for Ike and Tina Turner at the Ritchie Valens Memorial Dance in Long Beach on New Year’s Eve 1961. 

It was an auspicious start to the year. That summer, the teenage quintet with a joie de vivre and a love of sun, surf, and sand signed to Capitol Records. The major label deal followed  the success of their first two singles: "Surfin,’" which reached No. 3 on West Coast regional charts and sold 40,000 copies,  and "Surfin’ Safari." The band’s debut full-length, Surfin’ Safari, climbed all the way to No. 32 on the Billboard charts. 

The Beach Boys sophomore release, Surfin’ U.S.A., came out less than six months after their debut and saw Brian Wilson experimenting more with innovative studio techniques like double-tracking vocals. The album hit No. 2 on the Billboard charts — but the band's success and innovation had far from peaked. 

1964's All Summer Long capped a year when the group played more than 100 shows around the world and recorded all or parts of four albums,  largely leaving the beachy parts of their sound behind in favor of new sonic textures and more personal  lyrics. Released in May 1966, Pet Sounds was the high point of this experimentation and cemented  the group as innovators. The intricately arranged concept album peaked at No. 10 in the U.S., but reached second spot in the British charts. The record came to represent the future possibilities of pop and signaled a shift in music-making and studio wizardry. Today, it’s considered one of the most influential albums of the 20th century due to its pioneering production and introspective lyrics. 

Dozens of artists have covered the album’s most well-known song: "God Only Knows," including: Glen Campbell, David Bowie, Olivia Newton-John and Wilson Phillips. Graham Nash cites "God Only Knows" as a significant inspiration to him when first learning the craft of writing songs.  

All told, the Beach Boys released 29 studio albums, 11 live recordings and dozens upon dozens of compilations. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and they have been nominated for four GRAMMY Awards. The band have impacted everyone from contemporaries like the Beatles to current indie-folk rockers Fleet Foxes. Beyond commercial success — more than 100 million records sold, four No.1 Billboard hits and more than 33 Platinum and Gold Records (the greatest hits album Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of the Beach Boys sold three million copies alone) — there are few genres these California kids have not had an influence on over the past six decades. 

In advance of the April 9 television special "A GRAMMY Salute to The Beach Boys" — which features Beck, Brandi Carlile, Fall Out Boy, Norah Jones, John Legend, Michael McDonald, Weezer, Charlie Puth and Mumford & Sons —  GRAMMY.com shines a light on seven artists who count these sweet-singing melody-making trailblazers as essential to their musical education.

The Beatles

Listen to the vocal harmonies in songs like "Paperback Writer" and the complex arrangements, orchestration and time-shifts on "A Day in the Life" and try not to hear the sonic similarities. Pet Sounds came out the year before the GRAMMY-winning Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and early demos and acetates of the album ended up in the hands of the British band. Paul McCartney is also on record saying: "God Only Knows" is the greatest song ever written and he cries every time he hears it.  

George Martin, the "fifth Beatle" and GRAMMY-winning producer who was the studio architect of some of the Fab Four’s biggest albums, heralded Wilson and acknowledged the Beach Boys' influence on Sgt. Pepper’s. "Brian is a living genius of pop music. Like the Beatles, he pushed forward the frontiers of popular music," Martin says in Charles L Granata’s book Brian Wilson And The Making Of Pet Sounds.

Bruce Springsteen 

"There’s no greater world created in rock and roll than the Beach Boys, the level of musicianship, I don’t think anybody’s touched it yet," Bruce Springsteen said in the documentary Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road.

Listen to "Girls in Their Summer Clothes" from 2007s Magic, which sonically could have easily fit on Pet Sounds 40 years earlier. Or put on your headphones and zone out to "Hungry Heart," the Boss’ first top 10 hit and try not to hear the Beach Boys' influence in the arrangement. In the documentary, Springsteen praises Wilson, his friend and musical mentor: "[He] just took you out of where you were and took you to another place."  

The Ramones

Surf-rock influencing punk-rock? You bet. The Ramones were well aware of, and influenced by, the SoCal music movement of the 1960s when they exploded onto the burgeoning punk scene in 1974. 

The Beach Boys were one of the messiahs from the past they worshiped and looked to while crafting some of their most enduring punk rock anthems. "Rockaway Beach" was penned by bassist Dee Dee Ramone to mimic the style of the Beach Boys earliest surf-rock hits, but was sped up to match the punk rockers energy. Many of the Ramones’s song titles and lyrics — just like the California group — clung to the innocence of youth and name-dropped local attractions and experiences that kids growing up in the boroughs understood. 

Take these lines from: “I Don’t Want to Grow Up” : “I’d rather stay here in my room/ Nothin’ out there but sad and gloom/ I don’t want to live in a big old tomb on Grand Street.” Remind you of the pensive “In My Room” perhaps? Or, how about "Oh Oh I Love Her So," from Leave Home? Joey Ramone sings of falling in love by a soda machine and then riding the coaster with his girl down at Coney Island all night long. The song even ends with a surf-rock riff.

Weezer 

Not long after moving from the East Coast to Los Angeles, Weezer’s lead singer and songwriter Rivers Cuomo bought a copy of Pet Sounds. The album would go on to influence the early days of the alternative-rock band and Cuomo’s approach to songwriting, especially on their self-titled debut. 

Weezer once covered the Beach Boys' "Don’t Worry Baby" and, on the GRAMMY-nominated Pacific Daydream (2017) there’s a song called "Beach Boys." In an interview, Cuomo reflected on Wilson’s wide-ranging, everlasting influence: "To me, he’s one of the standout talents of the century or of our culture. I think I’m a pea in comparison. But I certainly emulate him as do countless others." On the forthcoming GRAMMY salute to the Beach Boys, Weezer covers "California Girls."

Fleet Foxes

While his friends were studying algebra, a teenage Robin Pecknold was studying The Beach Boys — specifically how they created their complex stacked harmonies. This musical education began the foundation for his band Fleet Foxes and their approach to harmonizing and making music. In this interview on Brian Wilson’s website, the songwriter refers to the Beach Boys music as his "textbooks." "My parents bought me a four track for my1 5th birthday and I would practice stacking harmonies for hours on end," he recalled.

From the layered harmonies that open "Sun it Rises," the first track on the band’s self-titled 2008 debut, and the intricate orchestration that follows, the Beach Boys comparison is evident. Pecknold acknowledges this influence in the liner notes, writing: "Whenever I hear 'Feel Flows' by the Beach Boys, I’m taken straight to the back of my parents’ car on the way to my grandparents’ place, fourteen with Surf’s Up in my walkman and the Cascade Mountains going by in the window." 

In that same interview posted on Wilson’s website, Peckhold raved about Brian Wilson's influence on him as a young musician. "I remember being so driven as a teenager by how much amazing music Brian made in his early 20s. That he was such a prodigious master of his craft, making Pet Sounds at the astounding age of 23, always pushed me to get as good as I could as a musician, as soon as I could," Peckhold reflected. "But at some point I accepted that haste is no substitute for brilliance, there is only one Brian Wilson." 

And, if this is not proof enough, Fleet Foxes sampled Wilson’s voice from "Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)" on the song "Cradling Mother, Cradling Woman" on 2020s GRAMMY-nominated Shore. 

Phoenix

The French synth-rock quartet that formed in 1995 show how the Beach Boys' influence spans not only generations, but borders. This admiration for the California soft-rock sounds of the 1960s and harmonious pop is most apparent on the GRAMMY-winning band’s sixth album: Ti Amo. Just like Pet Sounds, these cerebral musicians mine the depths of human emotions on this record and find the spaces in between to shed light on what we all feel. In this piece, Phoenix discusses how Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys influenced the sunny sounds of this 2017 record that is a love letter to Europe.    

The Sha La Das

Family harmonies? Check. Summer vibes? Check. Led by father Bill Schalda and featuring the sibling sounds of his three sons — Will, Paul and Carmine — this band hail from Staten Island. Growing up, the brothers often sang on the front stoop with Bill providing guidance. Later, they sang backup on the late Charles Bradley’s Victim of Love. 

Listen to the old-soul and do-wop of "Summer Breeze" from the band’s 2018 debut Love in the Wind and you are transported to southern California, circa 1961, and the first time the sunny sounds of the Beach Boys came across the airwaves. 

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At the height of America's tense political climate, Beyoncé's Lemonade brought confidence to Black women nationwide silenced by misogynoir. It was a celebration of unapologetic femininity and southern culture while also taking back the power in relationships stained by infidelity and generational trauma. As Beyoncé explained in her 2017 GRAMMY acceptance speech, the intention of Lemonade was "to give a voice to our pain, our struggles, our darkness, and our history."

In this episode of GRAMMY Rewind, we turn back the clock to the evening Beyoncé made her empowering speech after winning Best Urban Contemporary Album at the 59th GRAMMY Awards. Fresh off of her iconic, nine-minute performance of Lemonade's vulnerable deep cuts, "Love Drought" and "Sandcastles," Beyoncé was glowing as she took the stage to accept her golden gramophone.

"Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to beautifully capture the profundity of deep southern culture," Beyoncé proudly praised before acknowledging her husband, kids, and fans.

"It's important to me to show images to my children that reflect their beauty, so they can grow up in a world where they look in the mirror... and have no doubt that they're beautiful, intelligent and capable," Beyoncé said. "This is something that I want for every child of every race. And I feel it's vital that we learn from the past and recognize our tendencies to repeat our mistakes."

Press play on the video above to watch the entirety of Beyoncé's thoughtful acceptance speech for Best Urban Contemporary Album at the 2017 GRAMMY Awards, and keep checking back to GRAMMY.com for more new episodes of GRAMMY Rewind.

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