The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held on January 26, 2020, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. It recognized the best recordings, compositions, and artists of the eligibility year, running from October 1, 2018, to August 31, 2019. Alicia Keys hosted the ceremony, having hosted the previous year's ceremony as well.
Lizzo received the most nominations of any artist with eight, followed by Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X with six each. Finneas received the most awards with six. Eilish became the first artist to win the four major categories of Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist in the same year since Christopher Cross in 1981.
Ten days prior to the ceremony, Recording Academy president Deborah Dugan was relieved of her duties as president and CEO and placed on administrative leave from the organization. She sparked controversy by claiming that the organization engaged in corruption and favoritism; Champagne Billecart-Salmon responded by pulling their ads from the broadcast, and Megyn Kelly, Gabrielle Union, and others tweeted their support of Dugan. The ceremony was held on the same day as the death of basketball player Kobe Bryant, to whose memory Keys and Boyz II Men dedicated their performance of "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday".
Background and controversy
After many years of being traditionally held in February (except during the years of the Winter Olympics), the 62nd Grammy Awards ceremony was moved to the last Sunday in January, following the Academy Awards' decision to move their 2020 ceremony to the second Sunday in February. Nominations were announced in all 84 categories by Gayle King, Alicia Keys, and Bebe Rexha on the set of CBS This Morning on November 20, 2019.
This was set to be the first edition of the Grammy Awards that the new Recording Academy president Deborah Dugan would have presided over; however, she was relieved of her duties as president and CEO and placed on administrative leave from the organization ten days before the ceremony. The Academy launched an investigation into allegations that Dugan bullied an assistant. After her dismissal, Dugan sparked controversy by claiming that the Recording Academy engaged in favoritism and corruption during the Grammy nomination process. Taylor Swift reportedly cancelled a planned surprise performance of her song "The Man" at the ceremony in solidarity with Dugan, although both Swift and Grammys producer Ken Ehrlich denied this. Recording Academy Chairman Harvey Mason Jr. took over as interim president and chief executive officer and presided over the ceremony instead of Dugan.
The ceremony was held at the Staples Center on the same day as the death of basketball player Kobe Bryant, who played for the Los Angeles Lakers — the arena is the team's home venue. Several tributes to Bryant were included in the ceremony, including a performance of "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" by host Alicia Keys and Boyz II Men, while Lil Nas X, Lizzo and DJ Khaled all incorporated tributes to Bryant into their performances.
Category changes
For the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, multiple categories were changed.