Bad Bunny, Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber

It was a “spread the love” kind of Grammys, with hardly any sweeps to speak of, with Kendrick Lamar clearly coming closest, winning in five of the nine categories. His strength at the 2026 Grammys, mainly in the rap categories, plus a key score for record of the year, hardly counted as a surprise. Elsewhere, almost every major star with multiple nominations had to settle for just one or two, so there weren’t too many really hard shutouts. It felt like “a trophy for everyone!” kind of year…

Well, almost everyone. Somewhat shockingly, Sabrina Carpenter, who came in with six nods, left empty-handed. Meanwhile, Lola Young, who is much admired but not expected to win anything, pulled off one of the big shocks of the night by beating four of today’s top superstars in a major pop category, shaking everyone up watching the nearly four-hour premiere ceremony before the broadcast.

Here are some of this year’s perceived negatives and surprises:

SURPRISE: Bad Bunny goes where no Latin music has gone before at the Grammys. It doesn’t feel quite right to call Bad Bunny’s win in the album of the year category a ‘surprise’… because we Variety successfully predicted. So hurray for us, but as we said at the time, we took that on the road. There were plenty of reasons to think this wouldn’t happen: the strength of the competition, including Kendrick Lamar and Lady Gaga, both of whom had been predicted by many fortune tellers to fall into this category. Perhaps more important to doubters is that a Spanish-language recording has never before won in one of the top four categories. And Bad Bunny’s previous album wasn’t even nominated in the category, so it would have been easy to assume his Academy support was too superficial to push him to the top this time.

But one factor that led us to believe that “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” was in line for a historic win here was the fact that all Latin Grammy voters were recently invited to vote for the standard Grammys — a fairly quick fix for the genre’s perceived underrepresentation. Plus, the album was a very well-reviewed monster, just the way the Academy likes it. And if there was any inclination to stick it to the Super Bowl halftime haters by giving the superstar an extra vote of confidence here, it could have been the irresistible icing on the cake for some voters who were in the bubble about this.

SNUB: Sabrina Carpenter goes home with nothing but love for that “Manchild” production number. Some might say that Carpenter came back too quickly with a follow-up album after her breakout successes of the previous year. Still, it’s hard to see any of her strategy on that front as a mistake, since “Manchild” was a legitimate monster, and so was her album “Man’s Best Friend,” in pretty much every way except the Grammy wins in 2026. When push came to shove, there was simply too much competition for all of this year’s multi-nominated pop superstars to win anything, and Carpenter no longer had a place in the ceremony’s game of musical chairs.

There’s no shame in falling short there, because what viewers will remember most is the performance Carpenter gave at the start of the show, with an apparent cast of thousands joining her on an airport baggage claim set that seemed large enough to expand halfway through LAX. Carpenter rarely fails to deliver a high-concept production number, and the producers were certainly happy to have her get the show off to such an infectiously giddy start, even if she wasn’t compensated in gold for it.

SURPRISE: Lola Young beats all the pop masters in the universe in a key category. Is there anyone whose predictions line up? or the bingo card featured Young winning best pop solo performance? As she competed against Carpenter, Gaga, Chappell Roan and Justin Bieber, who towers over the British singer in American consciousness? Yes, she’s an artist to beat when it comes to her native Britain, and if the critics had voted, we would have been rooting for her to get a chance here. But it also seemed like the wind had gotten the better of her when she dropped out of a recent tour — wisely deciding that her health was more important than maintaining her public momentum, let alone campaigning for a Grammy.

Her album (“I’m Only F**king Myself”) is great, and “Messy” was a huge streaming hit, but Young isn’t for everyone. So consider this left-field pick a lucky one, even if she wasn’t your main interest here — she’s the kind of wildcard that makes watching the Grammys fun. And instead of Best New Artist, for which she was nominated (but always destined to fall to Olivia Dean), this provides a platform for the discovery of a singer with the potential to last for decades, something the Academy is happy to have on her record.

SNUB: Justin Bieber’s record of being underloved at the Grammys continues. Bieber has more credibility than ever right now, with plenty of critical and tasteful support for his two “Swag” albums, which lean toward a more interesting lo-fi sound than the big productions he’s known for. That was enough to earn him four nominations for this year’s awards, but no win. That matches his overall Grammy history: 27 nominations and just two wins.

In reality, Bieber wasn’t particularly favored in any of the major categories this year, despite those four major nods. There were just too many solid favorites against him to imagine that his comeback story after four years out of the spotlight would be enough to have him beat someone who currently has as much money as Kendrick or Bad Bunny. (The loss for Lola Young might be a bit more painful, as it would be for all the other stars in that category.) People enjoyed his unexpected solo appearance on the broadcast – even though it was hard to tell from his off-stage behavior whether he was unhappy to be there or just had a case of resting Justin face – and the classic words will suffice: He’ll be fine.

SURPRISE: Billie Eilish is a force to be reckoned with, even commercially off-cycle. The Grammys love Eilish so much that we should always consider her a possible winner when she’s in contention for something… as we noted when we named her a dark horse in the Song and Place of the Year categories. That said, it seemed like it might not be Eilish’s year, just because “Wildflower” is a late-looming remnant of an album that came out in 2024 and was in contention last year. But apparently voters don’t think “old news” is bad news if they love someone as much as Billie and Finneas do. She is one of those rare nominees who appeals to voters in their twenties as well as in their seventies: a pop classic through and through who also has an endearingly brash appearance.

Besides, a hit is a hit, and ‘Wildflower’ was a huge hit, even though it flourished in the shadow of the even bigger ‘Birds of a Feather’. Speaking of which… why didn’t “Birds” pick up anything last year? Maybe that “snarl” for one of the great songs of recent years put a little wind in the sails of her supporters to bring about justice this time.

SNOB: K-pop (mostly). “Golden” had to settle for silver. The smash hit of “KPop Demon Hunters” wasn’t completely ignored: It inevitably won the award for best song written for visual media, becoming the first K-pop recording ever to win a Grammy. It fell short for song of the year (loss to Eilish) and pop duo/group performance (against Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande’s big “Wicked” number), the other places where it had a shot. But the real criticism was felt at the nomination level, when it failed to secure a nomination for record of the year.

“APT.” by Rosé and Bruno Mars also remained empty despite several nods. It was obviously a huge number, but not one that was favored in forecasting. Rosé was a first, but Mars has a huge history at the Grammys — who may have just felt the need to leave the fields a little fallow between the gargantuan nature of “Die With a Smile” and his upcoming album that will likely be a major force at next year’s Grammys. But do Recording Academy voters still care about honoring K-pop artists, even in collaboration with their A-list favorites? I can’t rule it out.