Against a backdrop of such polarising times for humanity, I think a lot of people appreciated the escape that music subcultures provided last year. Let’s be honest: 2024 was outright harrowing at times, and 2025 hasn’t started on a much more positive note. It’s barely February and tragedy has dominated the headlines, from the Los Angeles fires to Donald Trump’s political tactics.

With this in mind, it comes as no surprise that the ‘Powerpuff Girls of pop music’ – Charli xcx, Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan – came out as winners at last night’s Grammy Awards. For so many of us, switching off last summer involved partying to all three of them (Roan herself during her best new artist acceptance speech that attending the Brat tour was her highlight of last year).

So, why did these pop princesses scoop up so many awards? I think the reason is that they each transported us to entirely different worlds. Charli xcx’s Brat universe was arguably the most accessible: rock up with your natural hair, a white tank top and some worn-in eyeliner, and you matched the vibe. It was an aesthetic that felt completely in opposition to influencer culture. Against garish excess, co-ords and matchy beige athleisurewear, Brat felt like a return to teenage rebellion and a snub to keeping up with the crowds. While it won the award for best dance/electronic music album, I think the Brat summer was loved by the pop girls just as much. 

Roan’s summer was the most freeing. With each tour date she set a costume theme, encouraging people to thrift outfits, get crafty and spend the night in fancy dress. I especially loved her gaggle of clowns last night (and we spotted you, Eras tour dancer royalty Kam Saunders). Growing up in a small town in Missouri, Roan told Paper Magazine that boys she knew would mock gay people and call them ‘clowns’. I love that she has entirely reclaimed the title and thrown it back into the faces of her nay-sayers. Seeing her use her acceptance speech to advocate for fellow artists made me swell with pride – we really made the right one famous.

Carpenter was our dream girl. She took us back to old Hollywood with sparkly dresses, sweetheart cuts, bouncy blow-dries and timeless make-up. Even last night she added a tap-dancing segment to her Espresso performance, something that felt like it could have been straight out of a Dick Van Dyke movie. After the Covid pandemic, shopping trends told us that we started to wear less make-up and more comfy clothes. Carpenter took us back to the glamour of the golden days and reminded us how fun it is to get creative again. 

Perhaps the nicest part? These artists worked in harmony, rather than being pitted against one another – and it helped to ensure 2024 was one of the best, most fun years of music we’ve had in a long time.

I think this desire for escapism goes some way towards explaining why other artists left without awards. Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift were two artists who went home empty-handed yesterday, and both are great examples of how none of us can afford to be too hard on ourselves, nor to place too much importance on any one accolade. They may not have taken a Grammy home, but both made enormous cultural impacts last year and nurtured beloved fan bases.

I wonder if their consistency was ultimately the reason they didn’t win. This ceremony seemed to champion those taking off in shiny new directions. Eilish’s Birds Of A Feather was one of the happiest, gentlest and most uplifting songs of the year. On the flipside, Swift’s Fortnight was perhaps one of the most haunting. Were both of these too black and white – happy and sad – to cut through our yearning for the new and unknown? 

The cherry on the cake of this theory is that Beyoncé took home the best album award for Cowboy Carter. This was her first venture into country music and a new genre and direction when compared to anything else from her back catalogue. It’s hard to believe, as the most nominated artist in the history of the Grammys, that Beyoncé had never taken away the award for best album before now – that an incredible album that tells a story of America’s cultural past and explores the experiences of people of colour would be the secret to her taking her crown. Last night’s win brought her to a grand total of 35 awards from 99 nominations. A hugely significant moment: she was the first Black woman to win the award since Lauryn Hill in 1999 for The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill and the first Black woman to win for a country album. Paying tribute to her predecessors, she thanked Linda Martell in her speech (Martell was the first Black woman to play the Grand Ole Opry, known as the biggest stage for country music).

The Grammy winners we saw last night also served as a reminder of how much we love seeing people who are unapologetically themselves. Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club performance felt like a radical act of kindness. For people to hear this hopeful admission of queerness during a week that saw the US government make drastic changes in line with its new policies on sex and gender will have been a powerful comfort.

As for the others, the appeal may have been slightly more light-hearted but nonetheless fixating. Seeing Charli xcx prance around under a sea of knickers falling like confetti makes us want to have fun. Watching Carpenter delicately steal the show with her cheeky dance moves and showgirl-inspired outfits makes us feel empowered in our own sexuality. 

Watching these strong personalities unashamedly being themselves, we are reminded of the power of our own uniqueness. None of these girls fits a cookie-cutter mould, and yet they are our winners. I think this is why the pop princesses with their own subcultures are doing so well right now – in a world where a quarter of us say we often feel lonely – we just want to dress up, be part of something bigger and escape. If 2024 was the year of being distracted by musical fantasy worlds, I hope 2025 inspires us to embrace being our true selves wholeheartedly. 

Images: Getty