Billie Eilish’s Barbie track wins song of the year at Grammys 2024

Billie Eilish’s contribution to the Barbie film soundtrack, What Was I Made For?, has won one of the top prices at the Grammy Awards, song of the year.

The track underscores one of the most emotional moments in the hit movie, as the doll questions her reality.

It also won the Grammy for best song written for visual media at Sunday’s ceremony in Los Angeles.

The other winners included SZA, Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift, who used her speech to announce a new album.

Swift could make history later if she scoops her fourth best album award. She is currently tied on three wins with Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon and Frank Sinatra.

Pop star Dua Lipa opened the ceremony with an athletic medley of her songs including Dance the Night, which was also up for song of the year.

She was followed on stage in Los Angeles by Tracy Chapman, making a rare appearance to join Luke Combs, who covered her song Fast Car last year.

R&B star SZA is the show’s leading nominee with nine nods. For her performance, the singer staged a recreation of the Crazy 88 fight scene from Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill to accompany her song of the same name.

She was joined by a phalanx of sword-wielding female dancers who swiftly dispatched hordes of men in suits – a reference to her song’s comical tale of killing her ex.

The first award of the night went Miley Cyrus, who picked up best pop vocal performance for her song Flowers. It was the star’s first Grammy, a fact she noted in her acceptance speech, telling the story of a boy whose futile attempts to catch a butterfly ended when he stopped swinging around a net and stayed still.

“And right when he did is when the butterfly came and landed right on the tip of his nose. And this song, Flowers, is my butterfly,” she said.

Billed as “music’s biggest night”, the Grammys are the industry’s most prestigious awards.

The line-up for Sunday’s show includes legends like Joni Mitchell, Billy Joel and U2, alongside the biggest chart names.

Olivia Rodrigo, Eilish, Burna Boy and Travis Scott are also among the performers, with stars like Swift, Beyoncé and Doja Cat in the audience.

Even Meryl Streep turned up – supporting her son-in-law Mark Ronson, who was nominated for producing the Barbie soundtrack.

Only a handful of the 94 prizes are handed out in the live show, with the rest announced during a four-hour “premiere ceremony” in the afternoon.

That pre-ceremony saw multiple wins for indie-rock trio Boygenius, whose debut album The Record combines 1970s California rock harmonies with lyrics about love and friendship.

Rapper Killer Mike won three awards but was later filmed apparently being taken away in handcuffs backstage.

Kylie Minogue won her second ever Grammy, best pop dance recording, for the viral smash Padam Padam; while Joni Mitchell picked up best folk album for a live album that captured her return to the stage in 2022 after a brain aneurysm.

And South African singer Tyla made history by picking up the first ever award for best African performance.

The 22-year-old, who came fourth in the BBC’s Sound of 2024 won for her viral smash Water, which inspired a TikTok dance craze last summer.

“I still have to remind myself that it’s my song,” she said. “Everywhere I go, it’s playing and people know it. I don’t even know how to describe the feeling.”

(BBC)