Billie Eilish Makes Grammys History, Sweeps All 4 Major Categories

Billie Eilish continued her winning streak with a history-making triumph at the 2020 Grammy Awards. 

The Los Angeles-born singer-songwriter, who turned 18 in December, became the youngest artist to make a clean sweep of the “Big Four” categories: Best New Artist, Song of the Year and Record of the Year for “Bad Guy” and Album of the Year for “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?”  

“Can I just say I think Ariana Grande deserves this?” Eilish told the crowd after winning Album of the Year, adding that she didn’t want to “waste time.”

Upon winning Song of the Year, she said, “I feel like I joke around a lot, and I never take anything seriously at these kinds of things, but I genuinely want to say I’m so grateful … Thank you to my team, my mom, my dad, my best friends … for keeping me alive to this day.”

Eilish’s brother, co-writer and producer Finneas, who accompanied his sister on stage, noted that they didn’t prepare a speech.

“We stand up here confused and grateful,” he said.

Earlier in the night, “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” won Best Pop Vocal Album, bringing Eilish’s Grammys tally to five. Finneas won Producer of the Year, Non-Classical from the album, along with Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. 

Eilish is only the second artist to achieve the four-category sweep in a single year. Christopher Cross won all four in 1981.

Adele has also won in all four major categories, but across multiple years: 2009, 2012 and 2017. 

Eilish also notably dethroned Taylor Swift as the as the youngest artist to receive the Album of the Year award. Swift was 20 when she won Album of the Year for “Fearless” in 2010.

Since its March 2019 release, “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” has received near–unanimous praise from critics. Prior to the Grammy Awards, the album landed Eilish in the 2020 Guinness Book of World Records twice. She is both the youngest artist to hit number one on the U.K. albums chart and the female artist with the most simultaneous entries on Billboard’s Hot 100, which ranks the 100 most popular songs in the U.S.

Earlier this month, it was announced that Eilish would record the theme song for “No Time to Die,” the James Bond film due out this spring. Not only will that honor place her among the ranks of stars like Paul McCartney, Nancy Sinatra, Madonna and, most famously, Shirley Bassey ― who all recorded a Bond theme ― she’ll also be the youngest artist ever to do so.