The “big four” categories brought the fireworks at the 2023 Grammys. Harry Styles claimed Album Of The Year, leading to widespread dismay that it didn’t go to Beyoncé for Renaissance. Nobody could believe that Bonnie Raitt emerged victorious in the Song Of The Year category, including Bonnie Raitt. Lizzo, in host Trevor Noah’s words, was the embodiment of dopamine while accepting Record Of The Year for “About Damn Time,” and Samara Jay was named Best New Artist.
The confusion over Raitt winning out over monster songs by Adele, Beyoncé, DJ Khaled, Gayle, Styles, Kendrick Lamar, Lizzo, Steve Lacy, and Taylor Swift led to some tweeters differentiating between Song Of The Year and Record Of The Year.
BTW.. Song of the Year is about writing and composition.
Record of the Year is about the recording itself (singing, producer, engineering).
— Michael Eaves (@michaeleaves) February 6, 2023
Haven’t heard the song, Just read the lyrics – pretty powerful songwriting. https://t.co/UmfQuzfoki
— Sarah Spain (@SarahSpain) February 6, 2023
But the official website for the Grammys offered an explainer in December 2017. To sum it up, Record Of The Year “goes to the artist(s), producer(s), and engineer(s) involved in crafting the specific recording (hence ‘record’) of a song,” and Song Of The Year “goes to the songwriter(s) (hence ‘song’) of new material (not including sampled or interpolated material) of a song.”
Raitt won Song Of The Year for “Just Like That,” which she produced and wrote herself. Lizzo shared her “About Damn Time” Record Of The Year victory with producers Ricky Reed and Blake Slatkin, engineers/mixers Patrick Kehrier, Bill Malina, and Manny Marroquin, and mastering engineer Emerson Mancini.
See the full list of 2023 Grammys winners here.
Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.