Video will appear as you scroll through the story
Taylor Swift · S6 E5
AOTY Again
The second Album of the Year — the speech, the politics, and the criticism that follows her off the stage.
February 15, 2016. Taylor Swift stands at the Staples Center podium, Grammy in hand, and the first words she speaks aren't "thank you" but a warning aimed directly at the man who just released a song claiming he made her famous.
Anti-Hero, Taylor Swift (2022). Taylor wrote and directed this as a visual catalog of her worst fears: a doppelgänger who embodies her self-hatred, a dinner party where she's literally too big for the room, a funeral where her own children fight over the will. The most honest she's ever been about what constant public scrutiny does to a person, and it connects directly to this episode: the moment she won the biggest prize in music and half the world told her she didn't deserve it.
Famous
Four days before the Grammys, Kanye West debuted The Life of Pablo at Madison Square Garden. On the track "Famous," he raps about making Taylor famous, calling her a vulgar name in the same breath. Taylor's team said she never approved the lyric. By the time she walks onstage at the Staples Center, every eye in the room knows what's coming.
Sources
"Taylor Swift's Rep Responds to Kanye West's 'Famous'," Billboard, February 2016
“As the first woman to win Album of the Year at the Grammys twice, I want to say to all the young women out there: there are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success, or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame.”
— Taylor Swift, 58th Grammy Awards acceptance speech, February 15, 2016
Anti-Hero, Taylor Swift (2022)
Taylor called this one of her favorite songs she's ever written. Jack Antonoff built the track around a LinnDrum loop and retro synthesizers, giving it a hazy 3 AM feeling that matches the album's sleepless-night concept. Listen for the way her voice shifts between verses: conversational and almost resigned in the first, then sharper when she hits the "sexy baby" line, like she's mocking her own inner critic. It debuted at number one on the Hot 100 and spent eight weeks at the top.
Sources
Taylor Swift, Midnights liner notes, 2022
Billboard Hot 100 chart history
TAP TO REVEAL: What did Taylor's fictional will say in the Anti-Hero music video?
Staples Center (now Crypto.com Arena)
The stage where Taylor opened the show performing "Out of the Woods," won three Grammys in one night, and delivered the speech that reignited the biggest feud in pop music.
Grammy Night, February 15, 2016
All You Had to Do Was Stay (Taylor's Version), Taylor Swift
Taylor wrote this about an ex who couldn't commit, but replay it in the context of the Grammy backlash and it becomes something else entirely: the sound of a woman telling every doubter they had their chance to respect her work and blew it. The album they dismissed as lightweight pop just won Album of the Year. Production detail: Taylor wrote this after a dream where the only sound that came out of her mouth was a high-pitched operatic "stay," so she recorded that sound and built the whole hook around it.
All You Had to Do Was Stay (Taylor's Version), Taylor Swift (2014)
Read the lyrics while you listen. That piercing "stay!" in the chorus came straight from a dream Taylor had, and once you know that, every repetition sounds more surreal. Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone called this a "1989 banger that could have made an excellent single."
How many Grammys did Kendrick Lamar win on the same night Taylor took Album of the Year?
The Debate That Never Ended
The 1989 vs. To Pimp a Butterfly argument is still one of the most heated in Grammy history. Kendrick had crafted one of the most ambitious albums in decades, blending jazz, funk, and hip-hop with lyrics about systemic racism during the rise of Black Lives Matter. The truth most people don't want to hear is that both things can be true: 1989 was a perfectly executed pop album, and To Pimp a Butterfly was a more culturally significant piece of work. The Grammys picked the one that more of their voters had actually listened to.
Sources
Various Grammy coverage, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, 2016
Taylor starts dating Calvin Harris, and for a while it looks like the perfect pairing, until a songwriting credit on "This Is What You Came For" blows the whole thing up on Twitter. Next: Calvin Harris.
0 XP earned this session