Music
The artists who have won the Big Four at the Grammy Awards
Winning Best New Artist, Album, Song and Record of the Year is a rare occurrence at the Grammys, with only three artists having accomplished the feat.
The 65th annual Grammy Awards ceremony will take place at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on February 5, and as usual, most eyes will be on who takes home the “Big Four” Categories.
Album of the Year, Best New Artist, Song of the Year and Record of the Year are the “Big Four”, also known as the general field.
That’s because all the races are open to music from all genres, making them amongst the most prestigious honors in the recording industry.
While many musicians have won in a number of these categories, only three have taken home all four. It’s even rarer to win them all in the same night, something that has only happened twice.
Which artists have won the Big Four?
Christopher Cross
Christopher Cross swept the board at the 23rd Annual Grammy Awards in 1981, becoming the first artist to win the four major categories in the same year.
The Texas native won Album of the Year for his self-titled album, which is considered one of the most influential soft rock albums of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
‘Sailing’ took home Record and Song of the Year, with the song proving to be a huge success in the United States, where it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
Adele
Adele has also won all four categories, though unlike Cross, she didn’t win them all on the same night. The English singer was named the Best New Artist in 2009, but failed to win any of the other major categories.
No longer eligible for Best New Artist in 2012, Adele took home Album of the Year for ‘21′, while ‘Rolling in the Deep’ was named the Record and Song of the Year.
The song was Adele’s first number-one song in the United States, reaching the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100.
She repeated the feat in 2017 thanks to ‘25′, which won Album of the Year and the song ‘Hello’, which took home Record and Song of the Year.
Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish joined Cross as just the second artist to sweep the “Big Four” when she won all the major categories at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2020.
‘When We All Fall Asleep, Where do We Go? took home Album of the year, while the smash hit ‘Bad Guy’ won Record and Song of the Year.
Lizzo was also nominated for the four major categories that year, and though she came up short to Eilish, she still won three categories that year as nice consolation prize.