Album of the Year at the 67th Grammy Awards went to Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter on February 2, 2025 — her first win in the category after nominated ceremonies in 2010, 2015, 2017, and 2023, and the first time the award had gone to a Black woman since Lauryn Hill at the 1999 ceremony.
The field it beat
The nominees were:
- Cowboy Carter — Beyoncé
- New Blue Sun — André 3000
- Short n' Sweet — Sabrina Carpenter
- Brat — Charli XCX
- Djesse Vol. 4 — Jacob Collier
- HIT ME HARD AND SOFT — Billie Eilish
- The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess — Chappell Roan
- The Tortured Poets Department — Taylor Swift
The envelope itself came with staging: the award was presented by Los Angeles County firefighters, weeks after the January 2025 wildfires, and the show leaned into the city's recovery all night.
Four envelopes that went the other way first
Before this ceremony, Beyoncé had not won Album of the Year.
The category had passed her over four times. In 2010, the Sasha Fierce album lost the envelope to Taylor Swift's Fearless; in 2015, the self-titled Beyoncé lost to Beck's Morning Phase; in 2017, Lemonade lost to Adele's 25 — the year Adele spent her own acceptance speech arguing the award belonged to Beyoncé; and in 2023, Renaissance lost to Harry Styles' Harry's House.
So when the moment finally arrived, her speech opened with the obvious: "It's been many, many years."
What happened next
At the 68th ceremony on February 1, 2026, Album of the Year went to Bad Bunny's DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, the first primarily Spanish-language album to take the award. The 69th Grammys are set for February 7, 2027 — the show's first time on ABC since 1972, after more than five decades on CBS — and the Grammys 2027 hub fills in as nominations land in November. The rest of the season's dates are in our award show schedule.