The year is 1999. At the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, Lauryn Hill has just become the first woman to take home five Grammy awards in a single night, while her debut solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, is the first hip-hop album to win Album of the Year. In the same evening Celine Dion collects Record of the Year for “My Heart Will Go On”, Madonna opens the show and wins three awards, while more go to Shania Twain, Alanis Morissette and the Dixie Chicks (now known as The Chicks). This is the Grammy’s Year of Women.
Twenty-five years later, at the 2024 Grammys, we could be in for another one. Female acts have largely dominated the conversation in the past 12 months, from Swift’s record-breaking run of live shows, album releases and a concert film, to Beyoncé’s glittering, celebratory Renaissance tour. Rihanna headlined the Super Bowl in February, during which she sent heads spinning with the most dramatic pregnancy reveal in living memory, while Dua Lipa and Billie Eilish were among the highlights on the soundtrack of another cultural landmark: the Barbie Movie.
