On Sunday, the Grammy Awards rolled out the red carpet to welcome some of the biggest stars and award the year’s most popular music. While many fans were excited to see their favorites win, other students were disappointed to see their icons snubbed. 

No awards show can correctly start without stars serving looks before entering the ceremony. As a huge fashion fan, apparel and textile design sophomore Evan Yalowitz made sure to take note on who was successfully capturing the attention of the photographers.

Yalowitz said Taylor Swift looked the best with her two-piece blue ensemble. She also commended Adele for looking “snatched” and Beyonce looking for her fitted metallic dress.

When it was time for the biggest award of the night, Best Album of the Year, Yalowitz was still paying attention to and rooting for Beyonce. 

“I wanted Beyonce to win because ("Renaissance") was my favorite album of the year personally, but I just thought that it was such a cohesive album,” Yalowitz said. “It was very well received and liked. I used to be a very big Harry Styles fan … but I honestly liked his first two albums better than his most recent one. I think that's why I didn't really expect him to win and I was expecting Beyonce to win.”

Others thought Harry Styles’ “Harry’s House” fully deserved the the award. 

“I was most excited to see Harry win,” zoology senior Grace Duerr said. “I can't lie. It was super awesome … It was like watching a friend win just because I've literally been listening to Harry Styles in One Direction since, my God, I was like 11. It was just super rewarding to see somebody that you love so much win such a competitive award.”

While Styles was accepting his award, a lot of the support appeared to fall away. During his acceptance speech, Styles said “this doesn’t happen to people like me very often.” Yalowitz said this comment came off as out of touch because Styles is a white cisgender man, the premiere type of person to win a Grammy.

Yalowitz hypothesized that Styles could have been referring to his fashion sense being viewed as more androgynous and unconventional, however, Yalowitz believes what Styles is doing in the fashion game is not “revolutionary” because other men in the history of music have down the same thing.

Public and professional writing junior Cammie Houle believes Styles may have been commenting on his upbringing instead, but she was still conflicted on the overall message of his speech. 

“As much as I love Harry, this is a cis white man who has a lot of money and is doing well … I don't like when people are trying to speak on it for him because he's a big boy himself, but, I mean, he did have a different living situation growing up,” Houle said. “I think he came from … a one parent household where his mom was bringing in the income and doing everything … (in) a small town … Maybe he meant that, but again, I don't think what he meant matters as much as what he said and how his words have an impact.”

Taylor Swift stood up during Styles' acceptance speech. Houle believes Swift was there to show her support for her friends in the music industry. 

Houle still could not hide her disappointment in "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)" being snubbed for Best Song of The Year. While the original song was released years ago, Houle believes it should still have gotten recognition due to the deeper meaning and lyrics it acquired with it's update.

Other felt disappointment in Bonnie Raitt’s Best Song of the Year win for “Just Like That.” Duerr was shocked by this win because she had never heard the tune before, though it was alongside “As It Was” by Harry Styles and “About Damn Time” by Lizzo.

On the other hand, some thought it was an opportunity for the music that was missed last year to have a time to shine. 

“I think having underground music is super important,” Houle said. “I think it gave some change to award shows because I think we get into this idea of like, we know Harry's gonna be there. We know Taylor's gonna be there, so it was kind of an interesting thing. Now we can all listen and know this new artist, which is really cool.”

Houle thought a win for representation on Grammy night was Kim Petras winning alongside Sam Smith for Best Pop Duo/Collaboration for their song “Unholy.” This was the first win in this category for a transgender woman. Petras giving a speech on how important this was and the transgender pioneers before her that blazed the trail. 

“I love seeing all the representation,” Houle said. “I think there's a lot of hate towards it and I think it's uncalled for because I think people have just this one perception of what they want (awards) to look like, but I think that was amazing … and just such a happy moment because trans people deserve to win awards and it should have happened a long time ago.” 

While it seemed the Grammys made a splash on social media, many are wondering where the relevancy for awards shows are coming from when awards show ratings continue to plummet. Much of this comes from the accessibility outside of the actual show to the information that happens on social media. 

“I feel like it's a waste of my time to watch it when I can just see the same thing on Twitter (and) Instagram on my own time,” Duerr said.  

It will be hard to keep the younger generation engaged in the Grammys in upcoming years because of streaming platforms and other social medias, Houle said. 

Part of this might come from the lack of representation that many see at awards ceremonies across all awards shows like the Oscars or the Golden Globes. Houle said a depiction of this lack of representation came from Bad Bunny’s performance, where the captions for his act displayed as “non-English singing.”

“Haven’t we gotten to a point in society where we can start translating captions to be actually in the language that it's in? If he is an artist who sings mostly in Spanish, you'd think we would be moving (upwards.) He has so many fans from all around the world and that also just brings up an accessibility (issue) too,” Houle said. 

While many recognize these problems, Duerr is hopeful that we can see change in the future, and is encouraged by seeing underrepresented groups winning big-name awards.