Every performance at the 2024 Grammy Awards, ranked from worst to best

In some ways, SZA’s performance functioned as an answer to Dua Lipa’sfull-throttle opener: it was every bit as big a production but less eager to please. The staging for “Snooze,” the first segment of the two-part medley, took the track’s slow-burn literally: SZA performed in a back alley with fires smoldering in the dumpsters. Once the performance shifted toward “Kill Bill,” the stage lightened and expanded, finding space for dancers miming swordplay—including one bastard who ascends skyward after tangling with SZA—a direct nod to the song’s cinematic inspiration that nevertheless conveyed the track’s sense of queasy unease.

The grand finale of the 2024 Grammys was the return of Billy Joel, performing “Turn the Lights Back On,” his first new song in over 30 years. Joel’s comeback is momentous, but “Turn the Lights Back On” doesn’t feel triumphant. It’s a ballad that hails back to his days as an introspective young singer/songwriter. The key phrase in the chorus is “Did I wait too long/To turn the lights back on?” and both the song and his sinewy, stately performance find Joel answering his own question: he didn’t wait too long at all. That said, everybody involved recognized that the sturdy ballad ended the show on something of a down note, so it makes sense that he returned to close the evening with the sure-fire “You May Be Right,” sounding every bit as muscular as it did on those many nights he played it at Madison Square Garden.

Supported by her brother Finneas and a string section, Billie Eilish sang the Barbie ballad “What Was I Made For” seated next to the piano: her most dramatic movement was removing the sunglasses she sported at the start of the song. It was the quietest moment in the first hour of the Grammys which hardly means it was dull. Watching Eilish sing with such a masterly sense of control is compelling.

The crowd nearly drowns the first lines out of Tracy Chapman’s mouth as she launches into “Fast Car” with Luke Combs, the country singer who turned her 1988 single into one of the biggest hits of 2024. Combs wisely cedes the spotlight to Chapman—he stands to the side of the stage, armed with nothing but his mic stand, singing along off-mic as she drives the song forward. There’s a genuine warmth to this duet: Combs seems thrilled to be sharing the stage with his idol, while Chapman seems delighted by the palpable enthusiasm from the audience.

Let’s start at the ending: “Vampire” concluded with the backdrop behind Olivia Rodrigo starting to bleed, a deliciously over-the-top conclusion to a melodramatic masterpiece. It wasn’t the first time Rodrigo played with fake blood while onstage. As she built the tension on “Vampire,” she smeared it over her face and neck, a subtle gesture on a song that doesn’t bother with nuance. That’s a feature, not a bug: “Vampire” roils and boils, building to a cathartic release, and the crimson-clad Rodrigo teased out every bit of its overheated emotions.

Joni Mitchell’s first-ever Grammy appearance isn’t her first performance after her brain aneurysm in 2015—earlier in the day, she won the Best Folk Album for Joni Mitchell At Newport, a document of her 2022 return to the stage—but it is effectively a re-introduction to the public at large. Mitchell decided to sing “Both Sides Now,” an early song of hers turned into a standard by Judy Collins in 1968. The passing years give “Both Sides Now” a new, bittersweet dimension, especially when delivered by an 80-year-old woman who proudly wears her wisdom. Seated with a cane, Mitchell sounded strong and clear, and not much different than she did 24 years ago when she debuted this slow-burning torch arrangement on the Grammy-winning Both Sides Now album. The basic contours of the song sound similar but the feeling is deeper and richer: it’s a quiet triumph, easily the most moving moment of the night.