What makes a file of the yr? On the Grammy Awards, it may be a surprising efficiency or an ingenious manufacturing, a glimpse into the longer term or a look on the previous, a worldwide smash or an obscurity by a longtime fave. Forward of Sunday’s 67th Grammys, right here’s a ranked record of all 66 songs which have gained file of the yr for the reason that Recording Academy’s first ceremony in 1959. Organized from worst to finest, the rundown consists of skilled commentary from half a dozen earlier winners: Sheryl Crow, Toto’s Steve Lukather, producer Mark Ronson, Michael McDonald, Stylish’s Nile Rodgers and Charles Kelley of the nation trio Woman A.
Days of Wine and Roses
Henry Mancini, 1964
Over Barbra Streisand’s “Happy Days Are Here Again”?
Theme from ‘A Summer Place’
Percy Religion, 1961
Over Ray Charles’ “Georgia on My Mind”??
Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare)
Domenico Modugno, 1959
Over “The Chipmunk Song”???
Right here We Go Once more
Ray Charles and Norah Jones, 2005
A posthumous win for Charles that you could scorn and sympathize with on the identical time.
This Is America
Infantile Gambino, 2019
A file that already feels inconceivable to elucidate.
Keep With Me
Sam Smith, 2015
Possible drearier than you bear in mind.
Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, 1964.
(LMPC through Getty Photographs)
Sunny Got here Dwelling
Shawn Colvin, 1998
One motive to be glad that this completely strange folk-pop ditty gained file and tune of the yr: the chance it gave Ol’ Soiled Bastard to interrupt Colvin’s tune of the yr speech to proclaim that “Wu-Tang is for the children.”
Bette Davis Eyes
Kim Carnes, 1982
Report of the yr enters the MTV period.
One other Day in Paradise
Phil Collins, 1991
Proper singer, unsuitable tune.
Stroll On
U2, 2002
A dose of well-meaning reassurance within the wake of 9/11.
Don’t Fear, Be Completely satisfied
Bobby McFerrin, 1989
“He’s one of the greatest jazz singers of all time — like Al Jarreau on steroids — and he wins for making some little f—ing novelty song,” Lukather says of McFerrin’s a cappella chart-topper. “Hit records are a blessing and a curse, man.”
Every part I Wished
Billie Eilish, 2021
“This is really embarrassing for me,” Eilish confessed as she picked up her second straight file of the yr award — a prize the 19-year-old spent the remainder of her speech saying ought to have gone to Megan Thee Stallion for “Savage.” (She was most likely proper.) What’s humorous — and just a little tragic — concerning the dreamy “Everything I Wanted” is that it’s kind of about attempting to deflect reward just like the academy’s: “If they knew what they said would go straight to my head,” Eilish sings, “what would they say instead?”
Whitney Houston, 1986
(Elise Amendola / Related Press )
Graceland
Paul Simon, 1988
Twelve months after Simon’s “Graceland” was named album of the yr on the 1987 Grammys, still-besotted voters bestowed the LP’s title monitor with the prize for file of the yr.
Not Able to Make Good
The Dixie Chicks, 2007
Extra of an ethical victory than a inventive one.
Boulevard of Damaged Goals
Inexperienced Day, 2006
A tremendous Inexperienced Day tune, however the band was extra deserving of the file prize a yr earlier than with “American Idiot,” which misplaced to that middling Charles/Jones duet. In 2006, there was no justifying “Boulevard” over Mariah Carey’s “We Belong Together.”
Tears in Heaven
Eric Clapton, 1993
An unimaginable horror results in an inevitable win.
Unforgettable
Natalie Cole with Nat King Cole, 1992
Natalie Cole’s digital duet along with her late father might’ve been stiff, creepy or worse; one way or the other it ended up deeply endearing.
A Style of Honey
Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass, 1966
Among the many information vanquished by Alpert’s finger-snapping instrumental: the Beatles’ “Yesterday.” Says Lukather: “It was all jazz guys voting back then — jazz and classical musicians. The Beatles were rock ‘n’ roll. There was no way they were gonna let those guys win.” Certainly, Bob Dylan’s epochal “Like a Rolling Stone” wasn’t even nominated.
Bobby Darin, 1960
(Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Photographs)
I Actually Love You
Olivia Newton-John, 1975
Gentle, pretty — and positively not higher than Joni Mitchell’s “Help Me,” which it nonetheless defeated.
Lovely Day
U2, 2001
Grammy voters can hardly ever resist an act’s rededication to its fundamentals.
Use Any individual
Kings of Leon, 2010
Uptown Funk
Mark Ronson that includes Bruno Mars, 2016
Ronson credit the “Today” present’s Hoda Kotb, of all individuals, for serving to to interrupt this future wedding-reception staple: “She talked about it for like 20 minutes one morning — ‘I love this Bruno Mars song’ — and next thing I know, it shot into the top five on the iTunes Store. Then it didn’t leave for six months.”
About Rattling Time
Lizzo, 2023
A bass line for the ages.
Wind Beneath My Wings
Bette Midler, 1990
“Hey, Bonnie Raitt — I got one too.” That’s how Midler, then 16 years previous her first Grammy, accepted the ultimate award of 1990’s ceremony, not lengthy after Raitt sealed a midlife comeback of her personal with an album of the yr win for “Nick of Time.” As a bit of songwriting, Larry Henley and Jeff Silbar’s “Wind Beneath My Wings” is fairly drippy (which might be why it additionally gained tune of the yr). However Midler’s vocal makes it soar.
The Eagles, 1977
(Gijsbert Hanekroot / Redferns)
Love Will Hold Us Collectively
Captain & Tennille, 1976
Hooks on hooks on hooks.
Clocks
Coldplay, 2004
Wanna really feel previous? Coldplay frontman Chris Martin used his acceptance speech to dedicate the British band’s win to John Kerry, “who hopefully will be your president one day.”
Hi there
Adele, 2017
As pop songs titled “Hello” go, Adele’s is available in an in depth second after Lionel Richie’s.
Please Learn the Letter
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, 2009
A slow-and-spooky goth-folk rendering of a tune Plant had written and recorded a decade earlier with Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Web page, “Please Read the Letter” turned a surprise-hit single from Plant and Krauss’ surprise-hit “Raising Sand,” which offered greater than one million copies and introduced the duo half a dozen Grammys general. Woman A’s Kelley, whose oldest brother had turned him on to Led Zep as a child — “He made me watch ‘The Song Remains the Same,’” he says, “and I was like, ‘What the hell is this guy doing walking through the mountains with a sword?’” — introduced “Raising Sand” into the studio as he and the remainder of Woman A have been at work on their second LP. “I remember playing it for them and going, ‘Dude, listen to this s—.’ It’s got such a darkness. It was like the coolest freaking record I’d ever heard.”
Depart the Door Open
Silk Sonic, 2022
“Drinks is on Silk Sonic tonight,” Anderson.Paak assured his rivals as he and Bruno Mars accomplished what he precisely termed a “clean sweep” on the Grammys with this four-times-awarded throwback-soul joint.
Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In
The fifth Dimension, 1970
Crisply harmonized but legitimately trippy.
Michael Jackson, 1984
(Reed Saxon / Related Press )
Get Fortunate
Daft Punk that includes Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers, 2014
“The main thing they said to me is they wanted to make a record as if the internet never existed,” Rodgers remembers of the temporary he obtained from the helmeted robots of France’s Daft Punk. “Most people wouldn’t know how to interpret that. But musicians speak in an interesting language — what I call band-speak, B-A-N-D.” The outcome was a pristinely organized Studio 54 homage with actual blood in its veins.
I Left My Coronary heart in San Francisco
Tony Bennett, 1963
Swoon.
Crusing
Christopher Cross, 1981
Arguably the ne plus extremely of seafaring yacht rock, “Sailing” “just feels good — like a warm little blanket,” says Kelley, who leads a side-project cowl band known as Dick Unbelievable & the Fabulous 4Skins that performs Cross’ tune about letting the canvas do its miracles. Even so, Cross’ unprecedented Grammy mop-up — along with file of the yr, he gained album and tune of the yr in addition to finest new artist — set him up for a tough experience as he tried to construct a long-term profession. “Nobody knew what the kid looked like,” says his buddy Lukather. “He had a really tasty album with no pictures, and he won all these awards, then people expected John Travolta in his prime or something.”
Simply the Method You Are
Billy Joel, 1979
A yr after this placid soft-rock ballad introduced Joel his first two Grammys — it additionally gained tune of the yr — Sinatra launched a ring-a-ding rendition of the tune with a totally totally different emotional method. “I didn’t care how he did it as long as he did it,” Joel instructed The Occasions in 2017. “Twist it into a pretzel if you want.”
Greater Love
Steve Winwood, 1987
“I don’t know if he’s the most soulful white guy, but he’s certainly on the Mt. Rushmore,” Ronson says of the English singer who did time within the Spencer Davis Group, Site visitors and Blind Religion earlier than placing out on his personal. “When music got very slick and expensive-sounding in the late ’80s, he always walked the right side of the line: You could hear the $200,000 Synclavier, but the grooves and arrangements were so clever and intricate. And the message of ‘Higher Love’ — it’s got something really honest and earnest in it.”
Flowers
Miley Cyrus, 2024
She got here in like a disco ball.
The Doobie Brothers, 1980
(Lennox McLendon / Related Press)
Strangers within the Evening
Frank Sinatra, 1967
Ol’ Blue Eyes at maybe his most elegantly pugnacious.
Kiss From a Rose
Seal, 1996
Stated Seal in an interview with The Occasions in 2023: “I’m not by any means the world’s greatest singer, but I have a thing that I do, and ‘Kiss From a Rose’ is a showcase of that.”
Change the World
Eric Clapton, 1997
It makes zero sense that the good Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds needed to wait to win file of the yr till he produced this acoustic roots-soul jam that Clapton minimize for the soundtrack to 1996’s “Phenomenon” (wherein Travolta performs a small-town mechanic who … turns right into a genius after being struck by lightning?). That stated, “Change the World” cooks, not least due to the rub between Babyface’s luscious groove and Clapton’s well-creased vocal. Says Crow, who reportedly dated Clapton within the late ’90s: “It’s like Bonnie and ‘Nick of Time’ — these people who’ve lived a full life and then sing a song that cauterizes itself in a moment.”
Any individual That I Used to Know
Gotye that includes Kimbra, 2013
A unusual alt-pop success story with a title that proved all too apt.
Don’t Know Why
Norah Jones, 2003
“One take with a live band” is how Jones described her breakout single to The Occasions final yr — each a flex concerning her pure vocal finesse and an understatement of her and producer Arif Mardin’s record-making acumen.
24K Magic
Bruno Mars, 2018
Guess who’s again once more?
Tina Turner, 1984
(Richard Drew / Related Press)
Clean
Santana that includes Rob Thomas, 2000
You understand it from that opening drum hit.
Want You Now
Woman Antebellum, 2011
Fourteen years later, Kelley nonetheless can’t consider his Nashville trio’s energy ballad beat Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind,” which he thinks may have misplaced solely on account of vote-splitting between it and Eminem’s “Love the Way You Lie.” But Kelley and his bandmate Hillary Scott captured an ache in “Need You Now” that transcends style. “It’s almost an R&B song,” Crow says. “The yearning in her voice — it’s too good.”
Rolling within the Deep
Adele, 2012
The tough edges of her singing towards the tough edges of the drums.
This Masquerade
George Benson, 1977
Benson was already one in every of Rodgers’ two favourite guitarists (together with Wes Montgomery) when the previous minimize a swank model of Leon Russell’s “This Masquerade,” wherein he additionally took lead vocal. “I thought I would drop dead,” Rodgers says, evaluating his response to the primary time he heard John Coltrane sing on “A Love Supreme.” “Benson’s voice is magical, man — next-level beautiful.”
Mrs. Robinson
Simon and Garfunkel, 1969
Hey, hey, hey.
Killing Me Softly With His Track
Roberta Flack, 1974
Flack turned the primary artist to win file of the yr twice in a row when this vivid account of a pop-star encounter took the prize after her earlier victory with “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.”
Roberta Flack, 1974
(Harold Filan / Related Press)
Moon River
Henry Mancini, 1962
Wistfulness embodied.
All I Wanna Do
Sheryl Crow, 1995
Crow triangulates the sound amongst Marvin Gaye, Bob Dylan and Stealers Wheel; she says the lyric illustrates “the burnout of somebody sitting in a bar across from a car wash.” She didn’t plan to place it on her debut album, “Tuesday Night Music Club,” till she despatched her brother a pre-release cassette. “I told him I thought it was a B-side, and he was like, ‘Are you kidding me? That’s your big song.’ He was right, of course: Now I hear it on the radio, and it still sounds so good.”
My Coronary heart Will Go On
Celine Dion, 1999
Too huge to fail.
Mack the Knife
Bobby Darin, 1959
The primary recipient of the Grammys’ coveted finest new artist award (which wasn’t introduced till the ceremony’s second version), 23-year-old Darin doubled up with a file of the yr win for his chart-topping tackle the homicide ballad from Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s “Threepenny Opera.” “The way he swung it and sang it with a smile on his face was just genius,” says McDonald, who calls himself a “huge, huge fan of Bobby Darin, and for the same reason that I’m a fan of Ray Charles and Nat Cole and Frank Sinatra: the confidence that they could take a song from one musical approach and completely re-create it in another.” Grammy voters cherished “Mack the Knife” a lot that they nominated Ella Fitzgerald’s interpretation for file of the yr in 1961.
Up, Up and Away
The fifth Dimension, 1968
It took the Grammys till after the Summer season of Love to completely acknowledge that pop music had moved past the crooners and present tunes of the present’s early days. Voters in ’68 didn’t simply go for this frivolously psychedelic flight of fancy — additionally they gave the Beatles their first (and solely) album of the yr award for “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Says Rodgers of “Up, Up and Away,” for which Jimmy Webb additionally took tune of the yr: “I love the fact that the 5th Dimension were Black and that they represented a different style from what we considered at that time the typical R&B type of vocalizing.”
Rosanna
Toto, 1983
Among the many musicians who didn’t vote to appoint Toto’s “Rosanna,” in response to Lukather: the members of Toto, none of whom had but joined the academy when the L.A. band earned a nod for file of the yr with this exceedingly artful studio-geek traditional. “Once we found out, they wouldn’t let us join until after the Grammys because obviously we would’ve voted for ourselves,” Lukather says. “People can lie and say they don’t do that. They do.”
U2, 2002
(Tony Gutierrez / Related Press)
We Are the World
USA for Africa, 1986
No much less a logistical feat than a creative achievement, the charity single to finish all charity singles performs right this moment like a home made supercut of ’80s-era extravagance.
What a Idiot Believes
The Doobie Brothers, 1980
“We wanted it to sound like one of the great old records from the ’60s,” McDonald says, which led the Doobies to “go out and get a piece of plywood because we’d heard that Bob Gaudio had done that on some Four Seasons stuff. We came back and mic’d up the plywood and just stomped four on the floor behind the track.”
Resort California
The Eagles, 1978
A excessive level for polished but hirsute L.A. rock: The Eagles’ Hollywood phantasmagoria is called file of the yr the identical night time Fleetwood Mac wins the album prize with the darkly glittering “Rumours.”
It’s Too Late
Carole King, 1972
So totally did King dominate the ’72 Grammys (the place she gained 4 main awards) that her competitors for file of the yr included herself: Up towards this smart and jazzy breakup tune was her pal James Taylor’s soothing rendition of King’s “You’ve Got a Friend.”
What’s Love Received to Do With It
Tina Turner, 1985
McDonald hears Turner’s comeback smash — the one which launched her as a famous person solo act after she left an abusive marriage to her longtime musical associate Ike — as a testomony to her perseverance. “I don’t know who else could deliver that message the way Tina did,” he says. “From anyone else, the song might’ve just sounded cynical. With her, it took on a kind of profound meaning.”
Beat It
Michael Jackson, 1984
“It’s still the high-water mark for a heavy electric guitar over a dance-pop beat,” Ronson says of Jackson and producer Quincy Jones’ crack at making a rock tune for the world-conquering “Thriller” LP. (That’s Lukather on rhythm guitar and Eddie Van Halen on the solo.) Reckons Crow, who bought her begin within the music biz as a backup singer for Jackson on tour behind “Bad”: “There’s no one that doesn’t know that song.”
Billie Eilish, 2020
(Related Press)
The First Time Ever I Noticed Your Face
Roberta Flack, 1973
Not a single word is misplaced.
The Lady From Ipanema
Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, 1965
Gilberto’s first recorded vocal efficiency — minimize, as she instructed it, on the suggestion of her husband, Brazilian singer and guitarist João Gilberto — crystallized an concept of pop sophistication that made her an on the spot star and helped ship the sound of bossa nova around the globe.
Dangerous Man
Billie Eilish, 2020
The “duh” nonetheless kills.
Rehab
Amy Winehouse, 2008
Ten kilos of perspective in a five-pound bag, Winehouse’s signature tune is difficult for Ronson to listen to lately, given the darkish flip the singer’s life took not lengthy after it got here out. But the tune was born as the 2 joked round whereas strolling by means of New York Metropolis. “She was like, ‘There was this time my dad came over trying to make me go to rehab, and I said, “No, no, no,”’” Ronson remembers. “The way she said it, it had its own hook and rhythm to it. The song was done in about a week. We were just going on instinct.”
Bridge Over Troubled Water
Simon and Garfunkel, 1971
A kind of songs you may’t fairly consider didn’t exist at one level.
I Will All the time Love You
Whitney Houston, 1994
“There’s no other record where somebody put on a better performance than ‘I Will Always Love You,’” Babyface instructed The Occasions in 2022, and it’s laborious to disagree as Houston’s vocal rolls over you in all its splendor and precision. However the most interesting recording by pop’s best ballad singer can also be a narrative about Houston’s lifelong drive to convey herself into being. It’s excessive on chance and haunted by loss.
