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The 67th Grammy Awards — sorry, I meant the all-caps GRAMMY Awards — were handed out in Los Angeles last night, February 2, 2025, and we applaud the wide range of actual, great-sounding winning recordings, as evidenced by what we’ve heard of their vinyl incarnations. Over the past year(ish), we’ve indeed reviewed some of those key, Grammy-winning LPs and songs here on AP, so if you’re keen on finding out if they make the grade on vinyl and are worthy of your hard-earned dollars and/or valuable listening time, then read on. (The link graphic to purchase any of these Grammy-winning LPs and/or 45s from Music Direct follow each category summary. If any of them are sold out — perhaps due to #grammysfever — you can put in an order to reserve your copy once they’re restocked.)

BEST ROCK PERFORMANCE:
THE BEATLES: “NOW AND THEN”
No surprise, really. As I first reported here back on October 26, 2023, the double A-sided single on Apple/Capitol/UMG for “Now and Then” paired the “last” Beatles song with the first — i.e., The Fab Four’s 1962 debut UK single, “Love Me Do,” a truly fitting full-circle counterpart. (Remember, the Grammy calendar year essentially starts each November, hence the reason for this track’s eligibility, having been released on November 2, 2023.)

In addition to its various color-vinyl options as a standalone 45 (one of which is shown above; the black vinyl 45 purchase link is at the end of this review/recap section [SRP: $16.99; and yep, I have multiple versions]), “Now and Then” also appears as Track 1 on LP3, Side Five of what’s also dubbed The Bonus ‘Blue’ LP in the 50th anniversary 180g half-speed-mastered edition of The Beatles’ 1967-1970 (a.k.a. The Blue Album), which was released the following week on November 10, 2023. Mark Smotroff reviewed both 1962-1966 (a.k.a. The Red Album) sets here on December 1, 2023, if you’re interested to learn more. (And you can buy either/both of those LP sets here, for $69.99 apiece, or $79.99 per for the color vinyl options.)

The stats behind how “Now and Then” came to be are these, to refresh (and/or update!) your memory — and are worth revisiting in detail to understand its sonic merits, although opinions do vary on that subject.

In the late 1970s, John Lennon recorded a demo for “Now and Then” with vocals and piano at his home in New York’s Dakota Building. In 1994, his wife, Yoko Ono Lennon, gave the recording to Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr along with John’s demos for “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” the latter two of which were completed as new Beatles songs and respectively released as singles in 1995 and 1996, as part of the multi-volume The Beatles Anthology project. At the same time, Paul, George, and Ringo also recorded new parts and completed a rough mix for “Now and Then” with producer Jeff Lynne. At that time, “technological limitations” (to use official Beatles press release parlance) “prevented” John’s vocals and piano from being separated to “achieve the clear, unclouded mix” needed to finish the song.

Cut to 2021, and the release of The Beatles: Get Back docuseries that was directed by Peter Jackson. Using WingNut Films’ MAL audio technology, Jackson’s team had de-mixed the film’s mono soundtrack, managing to isolate instruments and vocals, and all the individual voices within The Beatles’ conversations, leading all involved to a most obvious question: Could something similar be done with Lennon’s “Now and Then” demo? Jackson and his sound team, led by Emile de la Rey, applied the same technique to Lennon’s original home recording to (in their words again) “preserve the clarity and integrity of his original vocal performance by separating it from the piano.”

In Los Angeles, McCartney oversaw a Capitol Studios recording session for the song’s wistful, quintessentially Beatle-esque string arrangement, written by Giles Martin, Sir Paul, and Ben Foster. Paul and Giles also added backing vocals from the original recordings of a trio of Beatles classics — “Here, There and Everywhere,” “Eleanor Rigby,” and “Because” — and wove them into the new song using the techniques perfected during the making of the LOVE show and album. The finished track for “Now and Then” was produced by McCartney and Martin, and it was mixed by Spike Stent.

As to the rest of the track’s DNA — besides Lennon’s vocal and electric and acoustic guitar recorded in 1995 by Harrison, Starr’s newly recorded drum part, plus new bass, guitar, and piano from McCartney that matches John’s original playing, completed the song.

Did they succeed? Depends on how you feel about the Beatles/“Threetles”/“Twotles” thing. Lennon’s now MAL-ified demo vocals certainly sound better here than they did on those two aforementioned Anthology tracks (and will official remixes of that song pair be forthcoming on vinyl, one wonders). I do like the clear distinction of who’s who in the Lennon/Macca vocal blend on the words “I love you,” the title phrase, and the choruses, plus the updated piano lines and Ringo’s always on-point, understated drumming. I’ll give the Music an 8.5, and the Sound an 8.

Given the other rock performances The Fabs were up against in this category — more contemporary-sounding and harder-edged tracks from The Black Keys, Green Day, IDLES, Pearl Jam, and St. Vincent — “Now and Then” getting the win here seems like a fitting, final anointment — until the next “last” Beatles track emerges, anyway. (“Carnival of Light,” anyone?) And if I make it through / It’s all because of you. . .

BEST ROCK ALBUM:
THE ROLLING STONES: HACKNEY DIAMONDS
Well . . . it’s not exactly our favorite Stones album, truth be told, but I guess it does fit the category’s qualification as being awarded to “albums containing greater than 75% playing time of new rock, hard rock, or metal recordings.”

I had Mark Smotroff review the Hackney Diamonds 180g 1LP set on Rolling Stones Records/Geffen/Polydor here on December 1, 2023. Much like I did after spinning the LP myself — the black vinyl edition (SRP: $32.99), though there are scores of color variants available! — Smotroff found the music to be mostly in the classic Stones vein, with Mick Jagger’s voice sounding (quoting his review now) “generally remarkable, despite the unnecessary trendy processing effects.”

The crux for us both: “The sound here is far from ideal. [. . .] The bass is at least pretty fat, and there is overall a fair clarity of the instrumentation — but there is not a lot of mids and highs, for the most part. [. . .] I think you get the idea that this album isn’t a sonic masterpiece — certainly not on vinyl.” The Music gets a 7, and the Sound a 5.

Stones lovers/completists should have/get a copy of the Hackney Diamonds LP, as it will grow on you, though it certainly won’t serve as anyone’s demo disc anytime soon. (Addendum: A recently released 180g 2LP “1 Year Anniversary” Hackney edition, with an SRP of $45.99, adds a second clear-blue splatter disc with seven tracks The Stones cut live at Racket NYC at the album’s launch event on October 19, 2023.)

BEST FOLK ALBUM:
GILLIAN WELCH & DAVID RAWLINGS: WOODLAND
What an absolute thrill it was to see Woodland win here. As I wrote in my portion of our Top LPs of 2024 roundup that posted here on December 20, 2024, Woodland is an album that was, quote, “mastered directly from the original analog tapes through custom Ortofon amplifiers to a Neumann VMS-80 cutting system.”

That’s about as authentic as it gets, folks — and this Acony LP (SRP: $37.99) gets a 9.5 for the Music and a 9.5 for the Sound from me. Whether it’s the acoustic clarity of “Lawman” (Side A, Track 3) or the naked harmonies of “Here Stands a Woman” (Side B, Track 4), Woodland is as intimately rustic a set as you’ll ever spin.

BEST ENGINEERED ALBUM, NON-CLASSICAL:
PETER GABRIEL: i/o
Ok, this is another one that the Grammys voting cognoscenti got right. All kudos to i/o engineers Tchad Blake, Oli Jacobs, Katie May, Dom Shaw & Mark “Spike” Stent, and mastering engineer Matt Colton, for sonically shepherding yet another Peter Gabriel masterpiece.

As I noted in my half of i/o our Top Albums of 2023 list that posted here on December 30, 2023, Gabriel initially doled out each of the tracks on this 180g 2LP set that ultimately appeared on his own Real World label digitally month-to-month — in addition to performing most of them live during his outstanding two-set 2023 tour, which I saw back on September 22, 2023 — before committing them to wax that December. (Remember the Grammys calendar “rule” that I cited earlier as to why this release qualified.)

Gabriel was never one to plow through song arrangements at a breakneck pace, so most i/o tracks unfurl like tightly wound blankets of layered sound, rich in instrumentation and vocal layering — the orchestral age treatise “So Much” (LP2, Side C, Track 2), the piano-and-synth-driven “Playing for Time” (LP1, Side A, Track 2) — that would only get bogged down in a single LP setting. As I concluded in my original assessment, “the aural rewards of i/o unfold even further upon repeat spins, once again bolstering Gabriel’s rightfully taken place in the pantheon of rock-era pioneers.”

The Music is a 9, and the Sound is a 9 as well. If you’re really into Gabriel, you can seek out both the Bright-Side Mixes and Dark-Side Mixes 2LP editions (SRP: $39.99 each; the latter is mainly instrumental-focused, in case you’re wondering), or go all-in and spring for the 4LP box set (SRP: $141.99) released in April 2024 that contains both 2LP sets, 2CDs, and a Blu-ray that houses the rightfully awarded Grammy for Best Immersive Audio Album, a truly mind-expanding Dolby Atmos mix done by immersive mix engineer Hans-Martin Buff and Gabriel himself, in his role as immersive producer, on what’s called the In-Side Mix.

BEST BOXED OR SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION PACKAGE:
JOHN LENNON: MIND GAMES
A truly, truly delightful package that won this Grammy for art directors Simon Hilton and Sean Ono Lennon. The 6CD+2BD presentation of John Lennon’s October 1973 solo effort Mind Games (SRP: $167.99) is a work of art both visually and, of course, sonically — and while we do indeed love that box both inside and out, we also love the companion 180g 2LP edition on Lenono Music/Universal Music Group International (SRP: $41.99) dubbed The Ultimate Mixes & The Out-takes that Mark Smotroff reviewed here on August 1, 2024.

For this release, engineer Paul Hicks and mixers/engineers Sam Gannon and Rob Stevens utilized high-definition 24-bit/192kHz audio transfers of the original first-generation multitrack recordings by Matthew Cocker at Abbey Road Studios to create the best possible recreations of the originals. All of the tracks on this edition of Mind Games were (per the official press release) “completely remixed from scratch from the 15 original two-inch multitrack session tapes using brand new 192-24 digital transfers.”

Smotroff gave the Music 8, and the Sound an 8 as well (and I concur). In his review, he noted that “There are many details on this new version of Mind Games that were not as apparent or emphasized in Lennon’s original mix. [. . .] Lennon’s vocals on ‘Intuition’ (LP1, Side 2, Track 1) sound far more relaxed and open than on the original, perhaps due to the breathy ‘ahhs’ that are now lifted up in the mix as a sweet counterpoint to his main layered vocals. The dead-quiet break after the first verse on the proto-metal-leaning closing track ‘Meat City’ (LP1, Side 2, Track 6) — when Lennon sings the first ‘Just gotta give me some rock ’n’ roll’ — is pretty breathtaking. It was there on the original, but the impact of the full-stop never sounded quite this defined and powerful. That moment just jumps out of your speakers. ‘Meat City’ always rocked hard, and it rocks harder than ever now — so I say turn it up!”

Me too.

BEST NEW ARTIST:
CHAPPELL ROAN
Last, and certainly not least — in Grammy lingo, the Best New Artist category “recognizes an artist whose eligibility-year release(s) achieved a breakthrough into the public consciousness and notably impacted the musical landscape.” Chappell Roan took the prize, and Mark Smotroff reviewed her 2LP debut release on Amusement/Island, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (SRP: $32.99), in a Short Cuts review that posted here on September 27, 2024 (and he also anointed it as one of his Top LPs of 2024 in our year-end roundup here).

Smotroff gave the Music a 9, and the Sound an 8. “Roan’s voice is that strong,” he wrote. “Even though there is quite a bit of synthesized instrumentation on The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, I’m pleased how full and round it all sounds — much of it played by producer and co-songwriter Dan Nigro, with many supplemental players and backing vocalists, along with a small army of engineers and such. The recording is remarkably warm and at times feels a bit old school, in that sense.”

Nigro, we should add, also won another Grammy for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical, for his work with both Roan on Princess, and with Olivia Rodrigo.

And those are our Grammy winners— well, mostly winners, that is. We’ll be back for more Grammys/GRAMMYs-on-vinyl talk after the 68th edition’s winners arrive in 2026!