The 92nd Oscars Academy Awards and the 62nd Grammy Awards: considerably two of the most important award shows of the year kicked off with many surprising, powerful and controversial moments. 

Here are the highlights and the lowlights of the 2020 Oscars and Grammys.

The Oscars highlights: One of the most meaningful moments of the Oscars occurred on Feb. 9, held at the Dolby theatres in Los Angeles took place when the Korean movie “Parasite” directed by Korean Bong Joon-Ho won the best picture of the year, along with international feature award, and three other awards. This was a massive win for the cast of “Parasite” as it was the first non-English movie to win picture of the year.

Young pop singer Billie Eilish was joined by her brother Finneas O’Connell to sing “Yesterday” by the Beatles during the Memoriam segment of the show. Pictures of some of the most memorable people and artists in the film world flashed above her while her soft voice accompanied claps of respect from the audience. Kobe Bryant was the first to be honored at the beginning of the song. 

The Oscars lowlights: As many people know the movie “Cats” directed by Tom Hooper did not gain a lot of positive feedback with 20% rotten tomatoes. Rebel Wilson and James Corden dressed up as cats while presenting the award for best visual effects. They referenced and ridiculed the special effects in the so called ‘flop’ “Cats” movie. This caused a huge backlash from the Visual Effects Society (VES). 

They released a statement on Feb. 10th 2020, the night after the show. “The best visual effects in the world will not compensate for a story told badly,” the statement read. “On a night that is all about honoring the work of talented artists, it is immensely disappointing that the Academy made visual effects the butt of a joke”.

For many years comments about the diversity of the Oscars criticized how only predominantly white folks were the ones to get nominated and actually win. The hashtag #Oscarsowhite was trending on twitter and used by those who were angered by the lack of diversity for nominations and wins this year.

Grammy’s highlights: The 2020 Grammys was hosted by artist Alicia Keys who came back to host for her second time. She honored Kobe Bryant by inviting Boyz II Men to the show last minute for an acapella tribute singing their song “It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye to Yesterday”. Their touching performance reminded everyone that Bryant’s legacy will live on.

Billie Eilish, the most talked about teen artist on the internet showed up to the Grammys with six nominations and walked out winning five of them. This was incredibly impressive, as she was the youngest artist at the Grammys, at age 18. She won two for her album, “When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go?” and three for her song “Bad Guy”. 

Demi Lovato made an outstanding comeback after her overdose in 2018. She performed her single “Anyone” she wrote days before the incident. Emotions were so high she had to restart the song, but the impeccable performance filled with poise and fire made up for it resulting in a standing ovation at the end.

Tyler the Creator walked away with his very first Grammy. Issa Rae was visibly shocked by his win and walked away with Best Rap Album of the Year, up against 21 Savage, Meek Mill and J.Cole.

Grammy’s lowlights: Alicia Keys sat behind a piano and threw shade in the most acceptable and relaxing way, noticing artists like BTS, Lil Nas X and Lizzo. The lowlight part of this performance was the length of it all. It was more like a ten minute monologue that felt like it would last forever, which made it ironic to hear her sing “keep the speeches short” directed at winners of nominations.

Aerosmith performed “Livin’ On the Edge” and “Walk This Way” and it was nothing but chaotic and could not live up to their old glory as much as they had tried.

Overall, these very important award shows definitely had some ‘history in the books’ moments, but still needs improvement. Nonetheless these ceremonies consisted of great times, sad moments and purely cringe worthy memories.