Hot Grammy Performances Abound: Bruno & Rosé, Bieber, Clipse, Reba, Katseye, Gaga, Tyler, Posty, Sabrina, Lola, Sombr (But No Bad Bunny)

Unusually, the biggest winner of the night at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena Feb. 1 didn’t perform.

Not for lack of trying.

While Bad Bunny won Album of the Year and Best Música Urbana Album for DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, he never performed, as a pesky exclusivity clause for his Super Bowl Halftime Show appearance barred him from doing so. Host Trevor Noah did gamely try to trick and goad Benito into singing from his table to some success, coaxing out a few bars.

Despite that missing piece — and we’ll all get plenty of Bunny Sunday from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara — the Grammys were, as usual, chockablock with memorable performances. The show launched with the often-overstated Bruno Mars ceding much of the attention to his duet partner, Blackpink’s Rosé, as they offered a raucous, rambunctious version of their crowd-pleasing floor filler “APT.” with Rosé shedding the trappings of Kpop to deliver turn-of-the-millennium chaotic pop-punk energy — her white tank top and loosened neck tie ensemble could have easily been yanked from the closet of peak Avril Levigne or Gwen Stefani — instead of clockwork choreography. Mars, for what it’s worth, did get his superstar moment, later in the evening, performing “I Just Might,” to the crowd’s delight.

The nods to the era of “Total Request Live” continued in the Best New Artist feature. The relatively new tradition of running the nominees for the award back-to-back can be jarring. As one of the all-genre awards, the New Artists often cut across a wide swath of musical varieties, giving the show’s producers an unenviable task of sequencing. This year, The Marías kicked it off with a soulful, sweet and understated “No One Noticed” which was followed by Addison Rae’s in-the-garage pre-taped rendition of “Fame Is A Gun,” with pop’s latest chanteuse honoring not just Charli XCX with the setting, but her “TRL” predecessors with a writhing and revealing performance. Don’t be fooled into thinking she’s shallow eye-candy, though, as the song is clever piece of commentary on celebrity.

Katseye followed with a bouncy performance of “Gnarly” that similarly wouldn’t have felt out of place on MTV a quarter century ago and though no one would have faulted the group for performing “Gabriella” instead (the midtempo banger is Gen Z’s “Jolene”) “Gnarly” kept the energy ramped up following Rae’s appearance, which left Leon Thomas the task of gearing things back for the subtler acts remaining. Funky cool as ever, Thomas delivered his “Mutt” with cool confident captivation, no easy feat following what came before.

The back half of the medley followed Thomas’ soulful direction. Alex Warren was beset with what looked like a technical issue, struggling with his earpiece before tossing it away, which left him out-of-sync with the music, though once he linked back up, his ubiquitous “Ordinary” was extraordinary (enough that it inspired a public near make-out between Jelly Roll and his wife Bunnie XO). Lola Young took a risk — she slowed down her hit “Messy” to ballad speed and performed behind the piano. The song — a plaintive cry against the complications of young womanhood and fighting for a tough relationship — felt even more alive with the change and more poignant given her own personal difficulties as her star began to rise (Young, in what was the biggest surprise of the night, won Pop Solo Performance for “Messy” later in the evening, clearly shocking her as she bested established heavyweights). Eventual winner Olivia Dean’s fun and giggly jaunt through “Man I Need” was a perfect counterpoint at the right time and led to an equally 70s-evoking Sombr who glittered like a disco ball singing the catchy “12 to 12” (and seizing the opportunity to twirl with both Doechii and Queen Latifah. Good for you.

It says much about Lady Gaga’s artistic capaciousness that each of the New Artist nominees draw some sort of inspiration from her. Gaga, of course, as she always does, rose to the occasion in a wonderfully Gaga-esque maximalist outfit to sing her “Abracadabra,” a song that’s dark, almost brooding, almost sinister and flecked with the electro-dance that her best and most loved songs have always included. Gaga’s never one to miss a chance to scale up a performance and one wonders how long it’ll be before she’s at Sphere.

Tyler, the Creator was similarly over-the-top, his heavily art-directed medley of “I Thought I Was Dead” and “Sugar On My Tongue” was more full-on stage show (Regina King made a charming cameo) than mere musical performance and included a scene with a car-versus-pedestrian accident leaving Tyler prone on the ground in front of a shocked Laufey.

Now, of course, Sabrina Carpenter was going to go big with a tarmac/airport setting for “Manchild,” which may have included an actual plane (hard to say). Carpenter’s blend of camp, sass and stage presence rarely misses.

Perhaps, though, the most talked about performance will be the one that was most minimalist. Justin Bieber sang his vulnerable “Yukon” alone. Him, a guitar, a loop board and just a pair of boxer shorts. The transition from sickeningly-sweet bubble-gum pop child star to serious adult is not an easy one — and Bieber has certainly had his struggles — but his bare and stark performance showed that he has more to give us.

The in memoriam performance always offer opportunities for poignancy. Reba McEntire — astonishingly making her first-ever Grammys performance — performed the on-the-nose “Trailblazer” backed by the remarkable talents of Brandy Clark and Lukas Nelson and lending the correct amount of gravitas. As she faded out, the spotlight shifted, pyro exploded and the unmistakable opening lick of “War Pigs” burst forth as an all-star band of Guns ‘n Roses’ Slash and Duff McKagan, collaborator-to-the-stars Andrew Watt (in a eyecatching faux fur and rock star sunglasses) and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers played tribute to Ozzy Osbourne. Vocal duties went to Post Malone, the pan-genreist who has shown he can shift into whatever kind of music you want to hear. He growled and shrieked like a great rock frontman (which maybe is his next chapter?). It’s tough to make a metal song about war profiteering feel appropriate for a memorial service but the men on stage played with verve and energy and excitement that showed that it wasn’t so long ago that these giants were in a garage trying to sound like Sabbath. It was a tribute that Ozzy deserved and it was clear from cutaway shots just how moved Sharon, Jack and Kelly were by the tribute. A “War Pigs” cover isn’t prone to move anyone to tears but when it’s a gift that shows just how much your loved one gave the world, their emotion was warranted and contagious.

Capping the memorial section was Ms. Lauryn Hill, returning to the Grammy stage for the first time in decades. It was almost inevitable she’d be tasked with helming the ship for tributes to her collaborator D’Angelo and to Roberta Flack, as The Fugees became stars off a cover of her “Killing Me Softly.” Hill was the central figure in a cavalcade of vocalists, as she invited apparently everyone she’s ever met — Chaka Khan, John Legend, Leons Thomas and Bridges, to name just a few — to sing some soulful bars. Highlights included BILAL taking the challenge of singing D’Angelo’s “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” which he nailed with reverence and talent. No easy task. And of course, the finale saw Hill call up Wyclef Jean to sing a fully Fugee-ized “Killing Me Softly.” The crowd, of course, joined in, but Hill was center of gravity, as ever.

The night’s final performance was an interesting call by the show’s producers: Clipse, joined by Pharrell Williams. The re-emergence of Pusha T and Malice earned the duo a nomination for Album of the Year, not a usual nod for a pair of rappers on either side of 50. Perhaps thinking it may be their only shot, the brothers went with a soulful rendition of “So Far Ahead,” a song about dealing cocaine.