Grammys 2023: Harry Styles wins as Bad Bunny and Brandi Carlile open show – live

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Harry Styles is here in what appears to be a glittery version of his Love On Tour overalls.

Beyoncé has yet to arrive, but she’s already on her way to the all-time Grammys record, with two awards announced before the ceremony. Her wins for traditional R&B performance (for the sensual Renaissance track Plastic Off the Sofa) and dance/electronic recording (for Break My Soul) brings her to 30 total Grammys and breaks her tie with Quincy Jones for the second most Grammy awards of all time. She needs only two more to beat Hungarian-British orchestral composer Georg Solti, who has 31.

Photograph: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Sam Smith is operating in a unit tonight, with an all-red squad including Kim Petras, Violet Chachki and Gottmik

Photograph: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

This is Trevor Noah’s third consecutive year hosting the Grammys (and also the third year for producer Ben Winston, creator of James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke, who took over from longtime showrunner Ken Ehrlich in 2021). Noah, fresh off his retirement from The Daily Show in December, has promised a bigger and better show this time around.

“Obviously, the first time was a show designed specifically for a pandemic, and then, the second year was everyone recovering from a pandemic,” he told Essence this week. “So it feels like this year’s going to be a huge celebration.”

In the same interview, Winston said the show would differ from years past by including introductions by “people who really matter to the performer” and by “focusing heavily on the Album of the Year.” The competition for the night’s biggest award is stiff: Beyoncé, Adele, Bad Bunny, Abba, Brandi Carlile, Kendrick Lamar, Harry Styles, Coldplay, Lizzo and Mary J Blige.

Photograph: Scott Garfitt/AP

As mentioned, Beyoncé leads the 2023 Grammys with nine nominations, including the night’s top award, album of the year, for her dancehall celebration Renaissance. She’s followed by Kendrick Lamar, who scored eight nominations, including in the album, record and song of the year categories.

Adele, who beat Beyoncé for album of the year in 2017 (25, over Lemonade), garnered seven nominations, as did Brandi Carlile.

Harry Styles, DJ Khaled, Future, The-Dream, Randy Merrill and Mary J Blige received six nominations each. It’s the first time in 16 years that Blige has received nominations for record and album.

See the full list of nominees below:

Photograph: Jon Kopaloff/WireImage

Taylor Swift has arrived in a very Midnights themed outfit – not lavender or maroon but navy blue with twinkling sequins.

Swift’s record-smashing album Midnights was released three weeks too late for Grammy consideration, but she’s still up for four awards: song of the year for All Too Well (10 Minute Version), best country song for I Bet You Think About Me (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault), best song written for visual media for her song from Where the Crawdads Sing, and best music video for her All Too Well short film.

Photograph: CBS Photo Archive/CBS/Getty Images

Lizzo is here for the “hard launch” of her boyfriend Myke Wright in a full-coverage floral cape that looks … sweltering.

It does appear to unzip, though:

Photograph: Caroline Brehman/EPA

Updated at 19.46 EST

Photograph: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Shania Twain is here! Wearing … this. Somehow she’s more recognizable in a red wig and giant polka dots than when she went platinum blonde earlier this week.

Updated at 19.47 EST

Beyoncé has never won album of the year. Photograph: Mason Poole/PA

The largest question hanging over the 2023 Grammys is a familiar one: will Beyoncé show up? She leads the pack with nine nominations for her genre- and era-spanning album Renaissance, tying her for most all-time nominations with her husband, Jay Z, at 88 apiece.

Points for a performance: she announced the Renaissance tour this week, which will surely break LiveNation; she is fresh to performing after her first concert in four years, a controversial return to the stage in Dubai; she has yet to perform any material from Renaissance publicly. Points against: she has never won album of the year, an injustice that could make her disinclined to participate.

Beyoncé did attend in 2021, when she became the most decorated singer (male or female) and most decorated female artist of all time, with 28 career Grammy wins. She is currently tied for second place, all time, with producer Quincy Jones, and could potentially top conductor Georg Solti’s record of 31 wins.

The Grammys never technically took a break for Covid – if you remember, the 2020 show was held on the night of Kobe Bryant’s death that January, and the delayed 2021 and 2022 ceremonies took place with Covid precautions – but this is the first year the Grammys are back. As in: a week of parties, a return to the single room in LA’s Crypto.com arena, and no looming shadow from either the pandemic or the war in Ukraine, which headlined last year’s show via video message from Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The Grammys have been slow to reveal their hand this year, with only a few of the performers confirmed in the week preceding the show. So far, we know that at least Harry Styles, Bad Bunny, Brandi Carlile, Mary J Blige, Luke Combs, Steve Lacy, and Lizzo and Sam Smith (with Kim Petras) will take the stage. Will Beyoncé show up, let alone perform? Will Adele and Taylor Swift attend? Will there be, as in years past, prominent Grammys detractors (a la Drake) in notable absentia? All questions that remain TBD.