From Harry Styles to Nicki Minaj: five worst Grammy performances of all time
The 67th Grammys is just around the corner, and the artists who will be taking to the stage this time have been announced. A fun mix of Billie Eilish, Shakira, Chappell Roan and others have all been confirmed to be performing. While this is an honour for any artist, it also comes with a great deal of pressure, as not only are they performing to the millions of people watching at home, but they also need to take to the stage in front of their peers.
For some artists, the Grammy’s performance is a triumph. They take to the stage comfortably and show people exactly why they have been nominated. Who could forget some of the breathtaking performances from the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Prince and Beyoncé over the years? However, where there is the good, there is also the bad.
Throughout the years, while some great acts have graced the stages at the prestigious awards ceremony, there have also been some trainwrecks. Acts such as Nicki Minaj, U2 and an all-star choir performing the Beatles have delivered some shows so terrible that it’s surprising they weren’t asked to return their awards afterwards.
Here, we will look at the Grammy performances that were so terrible that artists should have been forced to surrender anything that they won, whether that was on the night or at previous award shows.
The worst Grammy performances of all time:
U2 (2024)
U2 is no stranger to the Grammy Awards, having won 22 during their time as a band. You would think that after so much history with the award ceremonies, U2 would know the two most important aspects of a Grammy performance: 1) Be at the Grammy’s, 2) perform. However, in 2024, to suggest they did either of these was pushing it.
They performed ‘Atomic City’ from their residency at the Vegas Sphere, which was streamed into the room. It’s one thing that U2 didn’t bother turning up, but the worst part was that their performance was hardly a performance and instead an advert for the new Las Vegas venue.
All-Star Beatles tribute (2006)
On stage, there were too many awards to count, as legends and nominees from various genres of music came together to perform an all-star rendition of The Beatles ‘Across The Universe’. There was a lot of potential with this cover, and a lot of people thought it might be a modern version of ‘We Are The World’, but it fell completely flat.
Slash, Alicia Keys, Stevie Wonder, and Bono are some of the names who took to the stage to perform this cover, and one of two things happened. The first is that there were too many contrasting voices, and this song ended up being a convoluted mess. However, a much more realistic explanation is that the band didn’t rehearse enough, and the result was a shoddy-sounding Beatles cover.
Travis Scott (2024)
Travis Scott fell into the trap that many artists do when performing at the Grammys. He’s an artist renowned for his exciting stage shows, and so when the Grammys provided a big budget and television opportunities, he decided to take everything up a notch, as the stage was laced with fire and pyrotechnics.
It seems that all of his energy was put into stage design rather than the actual songs he was performing. The whole set fell flat, as the crowd could hardly muster the energy to applaud once it was over. While Scott is a great performer and musical talent, this wasn’t a great show. Scott hasn’t actually won a Grammy Award but has been nominated 10 times. This performance should rescind any future consideration, for a few years at least.
Harry Styles (2023)
There was a lot of pressure on Harry Styles when he took to the stage at the 2023 Grammys. He had won two awards on the evening and was receiving praise worldwide for the strength of his live shows. When the spotlight fell on him, and he began to perform songs from his award-winning album Harry’s House, the pressure got to him.
His voice broke at the start of the show, setting the tone for the rest of the gig. While his effort was admirable, his vocals weren’t entirely cutting it. Additionally, his dancers were off-kilter for a lot of the show as they were faced with technical issues with the props on stage.
Nicki Minaj (2012)
When Nicki Minaj finished performing at the 2012 Grammys, the audience wasn’t annoyed; they were just confused. People were left scratching their heads and asking one another what the hell had just happened as Minaj had incorporated a strange exorcism set into her show.
Minaj started by rapping some of her track ‘Roman’s Revenge’ but then jumped into her own poorly executed rendition of ‘I Feel Pretty’ from West Side Story. After that she is exercised and then floats off into the distance. It’s a bizarre spectacle for all the wrong reasons.
