Grammy telecast performance videos are rolling out on YouTube and other sites following a 10-day window in which most were available for viewing only on select sites.
All cleared Grammy performances were previously approved for posting on Grammy.com and CBS.com as well as on The Recording Academy, CBS and artists’ and labels’ Instagram and Facebook accounts for 10 days, according to the Academy. After this 10-day run, they are approved to also post on other platforms including YouTube. This is the third year the Academy has had a “first-dibs” deal with Meta, which owns and operates Facebook and Instagram.
The Recording Academy posted the vast majority of Grammy-night performances on Grammy.com on Feb. 6, two days after the ceremony at Crypto.com Arena in L.A. The videos are featured in a post headlined “Watch All the Performances From The 2024 GRAMMYs: Tracy Chapman & Luke Combs, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo & More.”
That post included all but three performances from the three-and-a-half-hour Grammy telecast. Missing are Travis Scott’s “My Eyes,” “I Know?” and “So Fe!n” (the latter song featuring Playboi Carti); Billy Joel’s “You May Be Right” (featuring Laufey); and Stevie Wonder and Tony Bennett’s “For Once in My Life” and “The Best Is Yet to Come” from the extended In Memoriam segment.
“We get permission from artists and their teams prior to posting any post-show performances,” says an Academy spokesperson. “We do not obligate these [permissions as a condition for] performing on the telecast. Approvals are all secured following the live telecast for individual performances.”
Another Joel performance (his new single “Turn the Lights Back On”) is in the bundle of videos that went up on Grammy.com. Additionally, three other tributes from the extended In Memoriam segment are included: Annie Lennox’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” (featuring Wendy & Lisa), Fantasia Barrino’s “Proud Mary” and Jon Batiste’s “Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Lean on Me” and “Optimistic.” Missing completely is Scott, who was nominated for best rap album for Utopia, but lost, in an upset, to Killer Mike’s Michael. Scott’s track record at the Grammys currently stands at 0-10.
Two songs that were performed at this year’s Premiere Ceremony, the event preceding the Grammy telecast where the vast majority of awards are presented, are also in the bundle of clips available on Grammy.com. They are “Luna de Xelajú” by Gaby Moreno & El David Aguilar and a cover of Prince & the Revolution’s “Let’s Go Crazy” by Pentatonix, J. Ivy, Larkin Poe, Jordin Sparks and Sheila E.
In addition to the videos already mentioned, the bundle also includes Tracy Chapman & Luke Combs’ “Fast Car” (which Chapman previously performed at the close of the 1989 Grammy telecast), Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides, Now” (which, remarkably, was her first performance ever on the Grammys), U2’s “Atomic Bomb” (live from the Sphere in Las Vegas) and Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” (which she is expected to perform again at the Oscars on Mar. 10).
Also in the bundle are Dua Lipa’s “Training Season” and “Houdini”; Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers”; SZA’s “Snooze” and “Kill Bill”; Olivia Rodrigo’s “vampire”; and a three-song set from Burna Boy, 21 Savage and Brandy: “On Form,” “City Boys” and “Sittin’ on Top of the World.”
Grammy telecast performances weren’t widely available after Music’s Biggest Night until 1994, when the Recording Academy released 47 of them on a four-CD set entitled Grammy’s Greatest Moments through Atlantic Records. There were corresponding videotapes released (through A*Vision Entertainment) for the first two CDs in the set. I wrote the liner notes for those four CDs, which included such prized performances as Aretha Franklin’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (from the first live Grammy telecast in 1971), Barbra Streisand & Neil Diamond’s “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” (1980) and Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do With It” (1985).
In 1996, a live performance from that year’s Grammy telecast was released as a single that became a top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know,” recorded live on Feb. 28 at the 38th annual Grammy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, was released as a double-A-sided single with “You Learn.” The single debuted and peaked at No. 6 that July 27.