Taylor Swift’s Big Night at the Grammys: Dancing in the Audience, Dropping Surprise Announcements and Making History

Taylor Swift’s night at the 2024 Grammys proved to be memorable as the singer not only made history but also dropped a surprise announcement.

For this year’s Grammys, Swift was nominated for six awards, including for best pop vocal album for Midnights, best pop solo performance for “Anti-Hero” and best pop duo/group performance for “Karma” with Ice Spice, who received a best new artist nom.

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Swift, who was shown on camera throughout the night dancing and singing along to the array of performances, took home the Grammy for best pop vocal album for her 2022 album Midnights.

When accepting the award, Swift surprised fans and the audience by announcing that she is releasing a new album in April.

“This is my 13th Grammy,” Swift said when accepting the award, acknowledging her proclaimed lucky number. “I want to say thank you to the members of the Recording Academy for voting this way, but I know that the way that the Recording Academy voted is a direct reflection of the passion of the fans. So I want to say ‘thank you’ to the fans by telling you a secret that I’ve been keeping from you for the last two years — which is that my brand new album comes out April 19.”

The album will be called The Tortured Poet’s Department — Swift also shared the album’s cover on social media shortly after winning. Ahead of the show, fans had speculated online that some kind of announcement was going to be made by Swift, in particular the rerecording of her reputation album given the varied Easter Eggs seemingly hinting at the album, including a tweet from the Empire State Building tweeting a lyric from one of the album’s songs.

However, in true Swift fashion, she had another surprise in store with the album announcement.

“All’s fair in love and poetry… New album THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT. Out April 19,” she wrote alongside the cover that featured the singer laying on a bed.

Swift also shared a photo online of her handwritten notes that further teased the album, “And so I enter into evidence / My tarnished coat of arms / My muses, acquired like bruises / My talismans and charms / The tick, tick, tick of love bombs / My veins of pitch black ink / All’s fair in love and poetry.”

She then ended her message with, “Sincerely, The Chairman of the Tortured Poets Department.” The album has 16 songs on the standard tracklist, as teased on Swift’s website.

Later on in the night, Swift won the coveted the album of the year Grammy, making history as the first performer to win album of the year four times. Swift previously won album of the year three times for her albums Fearless in 2010, 1989 in 2015 and folklore in 2021.

Swift and Adele are the only women to have taken home an award in this category more than once — Adele won for albums 21 and 25. Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon have won the album of the year award three times.

“I would love to tell you that this is the best moment of my life. But I feel this happy when I finish a song or when I crack the code to a bridge that I love or when i’m shotlisting a music video or when i’m rehearsing with my dancers or with my band or getting ready to go to Tokyo to play a show,” she said during her album of the year acceptance speech. “All I want to do is keep being able to do this. I love it so much. It makes me so happy.”

In addition to being a nominee, Swift was also the topic of conversation during host Trevor Noah’s opening monologue. After Swift took her seat, Noah took a moment to defend the singer-songwriter who has received criticism from some NFL fans for being consistently shown on camera during Kansas City Chiefs games (Swift is dating Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.)

“Like she’s controlling the cameras at the games, right? Let her live,” Noah said. “In fact, tonight on Taylor’s behalf, you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna give her a break. Every time they mention Taylor Swift, I’m gonna get revenge. Every time someone says Taylor Swift, I’m gonna cut the cameras to someone who played football,” he joked, before cutting to Terry Crews sitting in the audience. Swift could be seen laughing in response to Noah’s joke.

“You like that, Terry Crews? You better fix your face, Terry,” Noah continued. “Do you work for the CIA, Terry? I can read lips, Terry. You better watch what you say.”

For this year’s Grammys, female acts made up seven of the eight nominees in the top three categories — with SZA leading with nine overall nominations followed by Victoria Monét and Phoebe Bridgers with seven nominations. Meanwhile, Swift, Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo earned six nominations apiece.

The Grammy Awards telecasted live from L.A. on Sunday on the CBS Television Network. It also streamed live and on-demand on Paramount+. Trevor Noah hosted.

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