It somehow feels strange to think about The Beatles winning an award. As a band and a cultural phenomenon, they feel bigger than any voting body or trophy. It feels almost belittling to imagine the Fab Four getting up on a stage with a speech full of hyperbolic “thank you” messages and a token to take home as a measly memento of acknowledgement for albums and songs that forever changed the course of music. But they did, in fact, win some.
Not even just some, during their career and even in the years after the group split, they took home trophies from almost all of the major awards bodies. They were a menace to the NME awards as they bagged both British and Global Vocal Group near enough every year of their existence. They also took home Brits, Oscars, Ivor Novello awards and plenty of Hall Of Fame honours.
However, the biggest and most significant establishment in music is the Grammys. Awarded by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in the United States, the awards still mark a significant moment in the musical calendar and a major accolade for anyone nominated.
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Naturally, The Beatles were recognised time and time again for their efforts.
How many Grammys have The Beatles won?
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Throughout their existence, The Beatles took home 13 Grammy awards. If the total also includes special honours, awards and Grammy Hall Of Fame awards, that number shoots up to 29. Over their time, and excluding those special honours, the band have been nominated 23 times.
Six of the awards were won while Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were still active as a group, and five were within the major categories. The rest of the 13 main awards were won in technical or historical categories such as ‘Best Historic Album’ or ‘Best Music Video’.
Perhaps their funniest win came in 1965 as The Beatles took home the Grammy for ‘Best New Artist’. Even by 1965, the band were well on their way to becoming the biggest name in music, so the idea of honouring them as newcomers feels hilarious in hindsight. That same year, they won ‘Best Performance by a Vocal Group’ for ‘A Hard Day’s Night’.
Their most recent win came this year, in 2024, as a newly released video for ‘I’m Only Sleeping’ won ‘Best Music Video’.
When did The Beatles win ‘Song of the Year’?
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Despite providing the world with no end of timeless hits, The Beatles only won ‘Song of the Year’ once. They bagged the award in 1967 for the track ‘Michelle’, their sweet, half-French ditty off Revolver. The record was also up for ‘Album of the Year’ but lost out to Frank Sinatra’s A Man and His Music.
However, they did take home two trophies that night as Paul McCartney won the now-extinct ‘Best Contemporary Solo Vocal Performance’ for ‘Eleanor Rigby’. That was at only the ninth annual Grammys, while their latest win was at the 66th, proving their incredible endurance as a cultural force.
Have they ever won ‘Record of the Year’?
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Despite being highly regarded as one of the finest creators in pop music history, The Beatles were never awarded ‘Record of the Year’, the Grammy’s biggest accolade. They were nominated twice but never managed to snag the trophy.
Their first nomination came in 1969 for ‘Hey Jude’ at the 11th annual awards. That year, the band lost to Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Mrs Robinson‘ as it became hugely popular after the release of The Graduate.
Their second nomination was in 1971 for ‘Let It Be’, the timeless anthem off their final record. Despite being undoubtedly one of the biggest and most widely known songs ever released, it once again missed out on the accolade. To add insult to injury, they again lost to Simon and Garfunkel, this time for ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’.
Confusingly, though, the band did win ‘Song of the Year’ in 1967 for ‘Michelle’. However, while ‘Song of the Year’ celebrates simply the songwriting, ‘Record of the Year’ looks at the performance, production and the entire track as a whole, so maybe blame here could be passed onto George Martin rather than the Beatles boys themselves.
Which Beatles songs have won the Grammy Award for ‘Best Music Video’?
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While The Beatles are infinitely more known for their song and songwriting skills than their visuals, their music videos have bagged plenty of awards. Even to this day, the band is still winning as their back catalogue routinely gets a new lick of paint and some new videos to accompany the old classics.
They won the prize for long and short-form music videos in 1997 as The Beatles Anthology was released. The multimedia retrospective on the band involved double albums, a book, and a documentary that featured more than one extended music video, winning the ‘Long Form’ prize. At the time, they also released ‘Free As A Bird’, a track taken from one of Lennon’s demos and recorded by the remaining three members as a homage to their passed friend. The video for the track took home the short form music video award that same year.
Their most recent win in 2024 was also for a video. A new video for ‘I’m Only Sleeping’, directed by Em Cooper, won ‘Best Music Video’.
