Ahead of the highly anticipated 63rd GRAMMY Awards, the Recording Academy has lined up a week of virtual events to celebrate the 2021 nominees and the music that has soundtracked this past unprecedented year. GRAMMY Week will begin this Monday, March 8, and continue through the GRAMMY Awards ceremony on Sunday, March 14. Below is everything you need to know about how to watch the Grammy’s.

MARCH 8 

The week will kick off with GRAMMY In The Schools Fest, a four day-long festival celebrating music in education, featuring performances from students and professionals as well as panels with educators, musicians, and industry professionals. This event, which continues until Thursday, March 11, is free to all who register here before Monday. 

Monday, which is International Women’s Day, will also feature Women in the Mix, an event highlighting the contributions of women in the music industry and featuring female artists, producers, engineers, and business executives. The purposes of this celebration are to honor women who are working to create change in their music communities and to promote mentorship between female industry professionals and aspiring young women. This event, which will be live streamed on GRAMMY.com at 5pm PST, will feature panels, performances, and discussions with many influential women, including Cyndi Lauper, Sheila E., Ingrid Andress, and more. 

MARCH 10 

GRAMMY Week continues on Wednesday with The Inaugural Black Music Collective GRAMMY Week Celebration, honoring Black music creators and professionals and highlighting their contributions to the music industry. This event will feature performances from H.E.R, Yolanda Adams, and PJ Morton, as well as discussions with Quincy Jones, John Legend, Janelle Monáe, Issa Rae, Jimmy Jam, and Tamika Mallory about social justice, the Black experience in the music industry, and the power of Black music. Tune in at 5pm PST on Wednesday to stream the first inaugural BMC event at GRAMMY.com. 

MARCH 11 

Thursday will feature a GRAMMY U Masterclass with GRAMMY nominated singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur Taylor Parx, in collaboration with the RCA’s Black Music Collective. Parx, who has worked with artists like Janelle Monáe, Ariana Grande, and Anderson.Paak in addition to her successful solo career, will be discussing “the craft of songwriting and being a multi-faceted artist.” You can stream this event on the RCA’s Facebook page at 3pm PST. 

In addition, the private Producers and Engineers Wing 20th Anniversary Celebration will take place on Thursday. 

MARCH 12 

On Friday, in place of the MusiCares Person of the Year Gala, fans can enjoy the MusiCares Music on a Mission virtual fundraiser, created in honor of the industry’s strength in the face of COVID-19. This event will highlight important moments in MusiCare’s history, including iconic past performances from artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Usher, and Stevie Nicks, new performances from HAIM, John Legend, Jhené Aiko, and H.E.R., and appearances from the Jonas Brothers, Lionel Richie, Paul McCartney, Macklemore, Carole King, Shakira, and more. Tickets can be purchased at MusiCares.org for $25. 

Friday will also feature the private 23rd Annual Entertainment Law Initiative event, where the Black Entertainment and Sports Lawyers Association will be presented with the 2021 Entertainment Law Initiative Service Award. 

MARCH 14 

To close out GRAMMY Week, the GRAMMY Premiere Ceremony will be streaming on GRAMMY.com at 12 PST this Sunday. Hosted by Jhené Aiko, this event will celebrate 70+ GRAMMY winners and feature a tribute performance to celebrate the 50 year anniversary of “Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology)” by Marvin Gaye, as well as performances from current nominees, including Terri Lyne Carrington + Social Science, Poppy, and Rufus Wainwright.

The 63rd GRAMMY Awards will air on CBS at 5pm PST on Sunday. Like the rest of GRAMMY Week, the awards ceremony will be hosted virtually in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Starting Sunday morning, fans can check out GRAMMY Live, an exclusive streaming program that will take viewers backstage before, during, and after the show through a livestream presented on GRAMMY.com and Facebook Live. 

For more information on GRAMMY Week and how to watch the Grammy’s, click here. 

Is Daft Punk Really Over?

On Monday, electronic duo Daft Punk announced that they are breaking up after a 28 year-long collaboration. Responsible for some of the most popular dance songs of all time, the Parisian pair declared their split with an 8 minute-long dialogue-free YouTube video, a cryptic ending to their mysterious, fantastical, and world-changing career. 

Daft Punk was formed in Paris in 1993 by Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, who met as students in secondary school in 1987. They released their first album, Homework, in 1997, introducing their unique sound to the music scene with hits like “Around the World” and “Da Funk.” Four years later, they followed up with their sophomore album Discovery, which became an international hit. Around the same time, Daft Punk began wearing their trademark robot costumes, which Bangalter has explained with a story about a studio explosion: “We did not choose to become robots. We were working on our sampler, and at exactly 9:09 a.m. on September 9, 1999, it exploded. When we regained consciousness, we discovered that we had become robots.” After Discovery’s release, the duo consistently appeared in public in full body robot suits and light-up helmets, creating a sense of anonymity that heightened fans’ excitement and curiosity.

Following the introduction of these unique robotic identities, Daft Punk launched their influential light show, an inimitable and revolutionary “audio-visual revelation.” The pair performed in their robot costumes inside a light-up pyramid on a complex stage set-up, becoming the first electronic act to create such a massive and intricate production. These performances served to create a striking and unforgettable visual identity for Daft Punk, which allowed them to build their own world of fantasy and mystery that enhanced their audiences’ musical experience. The light shows also influenced a new generation of complex and exciting electronic acts, including Skrillex, David Guetta, and Disclosure. 

They continued their career with hits like “One More Time,” “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” and the grammy-winning “Get Lucky,” all of which secured their place in dance and pop music history. Their most recent and final album, 2013’s Random Access Memories, earned the pair a home at the top of the charts and three Grammys, including Album of the Year. Daft Punk have also collaborated on and produced many best selling tracks, such as “I Feel It Coming” and “Starboy.” 

Now, the duo has decided to retire their robot suits after almost three decades, four albums, and two tours. They revealed this decision on Monday, February 22nd through the “Epilogue,” a clip taken from their 2006 dialgoue-free sci-fi movie, Electroma. In the YouTube video, the duo are wearing their classic costumes, walking through a windy desert where they flip a switch that sets off a countdown for self destruction. The eight-minute long display ends with a shot of one gold and one silver hand making a triangle shape, with “1993-2021” displayed underneath as their song “Touch” plays. Beyond this video, the duo has been characteristically silent, and no reason has been cited for their breakup. 

Streams and sales have skyrocketed for Daft Punk as fans remember their favorite songs and albums, with on-demand streams increasing 242% on Monday and sales jumping 2,650% since the announcement. Musicians have shared their support on social media, with artists such as Alesso, Disclosure, Zedd, Mark Ronson, Pharrel Williams, and the Weeknd recognizing the group’s impact on the electronic and dance music industries.

Daft Punk’s unique sound, groundbreaking visual performances, and mysterious identity have left a lasting impact on musicians across genres and millions of listeners around the world, elevating the dance music scene and cementing the group’s role as “the most influential electronic act of its time.” Even though their career is complete, their influence on dance and electronic music will undoubtedly last for years to come.

Why is Taylor Swift re-recording her music?

Two weeks ago, Taylor Swift announced that she had finished re-recording her most successful album, Fearless, as Fearless (Taylor’s Version), and that the release of her re-recorded hit single “Love Story (Taylor’s Version)” would be available that evening. 

This is the most recent development in Taylor Swift’s master recording ownership battle that began in 2018, when her contract with Big Machine Records expired. Taylor Swift had been working with Big Machine Records since she was 15, under an agreement that placed the ownership of her masters with the label. When her contract with Big Machine Records expired, Swift sought to purchase the rights to her master recordings, but the label’s founder and CEO Scott Borchetta refused to sell unless she signed a 10-year contract and created six more albums with Big Machine. In order to prioritize her future endeavors, Swift turned down this offer, with the understanding that Borchetta was intending to sell the label and thus her masters would end up in someone else’s hands. 

One year later, as Swift predicted, Borchetta sold Big Machine Records for $300 million. However, she was not expecting her extensive catalog to fall into the hands of artist manager Scooter Braun’s company, Ithaca Holdings. She described Borchetta and Braun’s deal as her “worst nightmare,” claiming that Braun and his clients, including Kanye West and Justin Bieber, had bullied, harassed, and manipulated her for years. Swift felt as if she was being stripped of her life’s work, explaining that her “musical legacy [was] about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.”

Just a few months later, Swift’s catalogue changed hands for the second time that year when Ithaca Holdings sold the rights to her first six albums to Shamrock Capital. Following this deal, Swift refused to collaborate with Shamrock, alluding to Braun’s continued financial involvement and saying this was “a sacrifice [she had] to make to keep Scooter Braun out of [her] life.” 

Since Scooter Braun became involved with her master recordings, Swift has been eager to regain control of her music and prevent Ithaca Holdings from profiting off of her work. Her plan is to re-release every album she made with Big Machine Records in order to reclaim her career and demonstrate her support for artist ownership rights. 

Swift began this process this month with “Love Story (Taylor’s Version),” which is almost identical to the original recording of “Love Story.” Since its release two weeks ago, this track has found extreme success: during its first day, Swift sold over 10,000 US downloads, received 5.8 million streams on US services and reached 777,000 audience impressions through radioplay. 

Following this single, fans are looking forward to the release of Fearless (Taylor’s Version) on April 9th, a recreation of the original deluxe album with six never before heard tracks. She shared insights on her re-recording in a recent social media post saying, “This process has been more fulfilling and emotional than I could’ve imagined and has made me even more determined to re-record all my music,” making fans optimistic about what’s to come with future releases. 

The Music of Black History Month