These three years in which the awards have been widely distributed have been extremely important in recent decades. In general, we see more or less at least in the Big Four categories than before. If you feel like there’s a stat coming up, you’ve been right: in the 31 years between the second year of the 1959 Grammys (when the best new artist category was introduced, with the completion of the Big Four Awards ) and 1989, no artist, songwriter or producer has won more than one Big Four award a total of 15 times – almost half the time.
But in the 31 years between 1990 and 2020, the Big Four awards went just six times in four different ways. Such an outcome becomes rare.
This is the six times since 1990 that no artist has won more than one of the Big Four awards:
1990 (presented on February 20, 1991): Album: Quincy Jones’ Back to the block; record: Phil Collins’ “Another Day in Paradise”; song: “From a Distance,” Julie Gold, songwriter; new artist: Mariah Carey.
1996 (presented on 26 February 1997): Album: Celine Dion’s Fall into you; record: Eric Clapton’s “Change the World”; song: “Change the World” (Gordon Kennedy, Wayne Kirkpatrick and Tommy Sims, songwriters); new artist: LeAnn Rimes.
2003 (presented on February 8, 2004): Album: OutKast’s Speakerboxxx / The Love Below; record: Coldplay’s “Clocks”; song: “Dance With My Father” (Richard Marx and Luther Vandross, songwriters); new artist: Evanescence.
2009 (presented on 31 January 2010): Album: Swift’s Fearless; record: Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody”; song: “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” (Kuk Harrell, Beyoncé, Terius “Dream” Nash and Chris “Tricky” Stewart, songwriters); new artist: Zac Brown Band.
2015 (presented on 15 February 2016): Album: Swift’s 1989; record: Mark Ronson / Bruno Mars’s “Uptown Funk!”; song: “Thinking Out Loud” (Ed Sheeran and Amy Wadge, songwriters); new artist: Meghan Trainor.
2020 (presented on 14 March 2021): Album: Swift’s Folklore; record: Eilish’s “Everything I Wanted”; song: “I Can’t Breathe” (Dernst Emile II, HER and Tiara Thomas, songwriters); new artist: Megan Thee Stallions.
Placement: As you probably know, the only artist to win the Big Four Awards before Eilish was Christopher Cross at the 1980 Grammys. In the following year (just as it happened this year, in the wake of the cattle of Eilish), no artist has won more than one of the Big Four awards. John Lennon and Yoko Ono have the album of the year for Double fantasy. Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes” won the record of the year. The Battle, written by Jackie DeShannon and Donna Weiss, won the song of the year. Sheena Easton won Best New Artist.