With Beyonce‘s four Grammy wins on Sunday, March 14, she officially reached a milestone she had been closing in on for years: she’s now the most awarded woman in history. Check out the complete winners list here.
Beyonce had a leading nine nominations at this year’s awards, and she won Best R&B Performance (“Black Parade”), Best Rap Performance (“Savage”), Best Rap Song (“Savage”) and Best Music Video (“Brown Skin Girl”). Before Sunday’s event Queen Bey had a total of 24 victories from the recording academy. Now she has 28, and she was already the most nominated woman in history with 79.
For years the most awarded woman in history was country/bluegrass legend Alison Krauss who has won 27 times throughout her career. Krauss is now the second most awarded woman and the fourth most awarded artist overall. Beyonce now ranks second on the all-time list of the biggest Grammy champs in history, tied with Quincy Jones and behind classical conductor Georg Solti with 31.
The vast majority of Beyonce’s awards have come in genre categories, especially R&B. She won Song of the Year for one of her signature hits, “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” but she has never won Album of the Year despite nominations for “I Am … Sasha Fierce,” “Beyonce,” and “Lemonade,” the last of which was such a shocking loss that Adele even protested the result as she was onstage accepting that award. So Beyonce’s awards career has been somewhat paradoxical: voters can’t get enough of her, but at the same time they’ve almost always withheld the most prestigious awards from her. Perhaps she’ll finally get there after another dozen Grammys or so.
