The 18-year-old won five Grammys, including record of the year and best new artist, at a ceremony in which Kobe Bryant, who died on Sunday, was mourned.
A big night for an 18-year-old auteur.
LOS ANGELES — The 62nd annual Grammy Awards anointed a new star in Billie Eilish, even as the mood Sunday night was darkened by the death earlier that day of the basketball great Kobe Bryant, who spent much of his N.B.A. career playing at the Staples Center, the arena where the show was held.
Eilish, an 18-year-old auteur with a moody and idiosyncratic aesthetic, won five awards, including the four most prestigious and competitive prizes — album, record and song of the year, and best new artist. She was the first artist to sweep the top awards since Christopher Cross in 1981, besting competition from Lizzo, Lil Nas X, Ariana Grande and others.
“Bad Guy,” a No. 1 hit, took record and song of the year — the latter prize recognizes songwriting — while “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” won album of the year as well as best pop vocal album. She is the youngest artist to win album of the year.
When accepting the award for best new artist, Eilish recognized the fans — even other artists’ fans, who, she said, would surely be dogging her for years.
“I love all fandoms,” she said. “You guys make this worth it.”
Finneas O’Connell, her brother, accepting with her for song of the year, noted that they record together in a bedroom in their family home. “This is to all the kids that are making music in their bedroom today,” he said, holding the trophy. “You’re going to get one of these.”
Finneas, as he is known, also won producer of the year and an engineering award.
Lizzo declares, ‘Tonight is for Kobe.’
Lizzo and Alicia Keys set a mournful and celebratory tone right from the start of the show, with both addressing Bryant’s death in a helicopter crash.
“Tonight is for Kobe,” Lizzo announced as the show began, and went straight into a bold, full-throated medley of her songs “Cuz I Love You” and “Truth Hurts,” backed up by a mini orchestra and surrounded by ballerinas with otherworldly lights in their tutus.
Keys, the host for the night, then walked solemnly to the stage and said softy, “Here we are together, on music’s biggest night, celebrating the artists that do it best, but to be honest with you we’re all feeling crazy sadness right now.”
“We’re literally standing here heartbroken in the house that Kobe Bryant built,” Keys went on to say. Keys then invited members of the group Boyz II Men to the stage and sang part of their elegiac song “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday” with them.
Lizzo, a charismatic and outspoken performer who had worked in obscurity for almost a decade before her breakout last year, won three awards, but all in lesser categories. “Truth Hurts,” her breakthrough track, won best pop solo performance, while “Jerome” won traditional R&B performance and the deluxe version of her album “Cuz I Love You” took urban contemporary album.
Lil Nas X, a gleeful master of internet memes, won two for his “country-trap” hybrid “Old Town Road”: best pop duo/group performance and best music video.
Well before Bryant’s death, a degree of anxiety had hung over the Grammys, following the removal just days ago of the head of the Recording Academy, the organization behind the awards — a clash that brought out accusations of vote-rigging and sexual harassment, and criticisms that the academy had been moving too slowly to reach its stated goals of becoming more diverse and inclusive.
Keys seemed to obliquely allude to those issues — and more — in a speech and piano medley near the start of the show. “It’s been a hell of a week, damn,” she said, as she twinkled chords at the keyboard. “This is a serious one. Real talk — there’s a lot going on.”
The EU is an economic and political union involving 28 European countries. It allows free trade, which means goods can move between member countries without any checks or extra charges. The EU also allows free movement of people, to live and work in whichever country they choose.
The UK joined in 1973 (when it was known as the European Economic Community) and it will be the first member state to withdraw.
What happens after Brexit day?
After the UK formally leaves the EU on 31 January 2020, there is still a lot to talk about and months of negotiation will follow.
While the UK has agreed the terms of its EU departure, both sides still need to decide what their future relationship will look like.
This is needed because the UK will leave the single market and customs union at the end of the transition. A free trade agreement allow goods to move around the EU without checks or extra charges.
If a new one cannot be agreed in time, then the UK faces the prospect of having to trade with no deal in place. That would mean tariffs (taxes) on UK goods travelling to the EU and other trade barriers.
Aside from trade, many other aspects of the future UK-EU relationship will also need to be decided. For example:
Law enforcement, data sharing and security
Aviation standards and safety
Access to fishing waters
Supplies of electricity and gas
Licensing and regulation of medicines
Prime Minister Boris Johnson insists the transition period will not be extended, but the European Commission has warned that the timetable will be extremely challenging.
The transition period and other aspects of the UK’s departure were agreed in a separate deal called the withdrawal agreement.
Most of that was negotiated by Theresa May’s government. But after Mr Johnson replaced her in July 2019, he removed the most controversial part – the backstop.
The backstop was designed to ensure there would be no border posts or barriers between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after Brexit. If needed, it would have kept the UK in a close trading relationship with the EU.
Under Mr Johnson’s deal, a customs border will effectively be created between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Some goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain will be subject to checks and will have to pay EU import taxes (known as tariffs).
These would be refunded if goods remain in Northern Ireland (ie are not moved to the Republic of Ireland).
Supporters of the new customs arrangement say it will allow the UK to negotiate its own trade deals with other countries – something that would not have been possible under the backstop.
The rest of the withdrawal agreement is largely unchanged from the one negotiated by Mrs May. This includes:
The rights of EU citizens in the UK and British citizens in the EU (which will remain the same during the transition)
How much money the UK is to pay the EU (estimated to be down to about £30bn)
Why did Brexit take so long?
Brexit was originally meant to happen on 29 March 2019, but the deadline was delayed twice after MPs rejected the deal negotiated by Mrs May, the prime minister at the time.
Many Conservative MPs and the DUP (the government’s then ally in Parliament) were unhappy with the backstop – arguing that the UK could remain trapped in the arrangement for years with no way out.
After MPs voted down the deal for a third time, Mrs May resigned.
Mr Johnson needed a Brexit extension of his own after MPs failed to get the revised deal passed into law.
This led to the new deadline of 31 January 2020.
With Parliament still in deadlock, Mr Johnson called an early general election, to which MPs agreed.
不服来辩春节特辑来啦！