Editor's Note: This article was originally published on May 15, 2017, and was updated on Feb. 4, 2025 to reflect history-making moments through the 2025 GRAMMYs, and on March 4, 2025 with a new graphic.
The 2025 GRAMMYs marked another big night for female artists, from Doechii's dynamic performance and Chappell Roan's powerful speech to Beyoncé's career-defining wins. But it was far from the first time that women have made waves on the GRAMMY stage.
In the GRAMMY Awards' 67-year history, women have set a wide array of GRAMMY records, along with achieving many remarkable firsts. This year alone, Beyoncé did both, setting the record for the most GRAMMY nominations ever at 99, and becoming the first Black woman to win the GRAMMY for Best Country Album for COWBOY CARTER (which also won the superstar her first Album Of The Year honor).
Beyoncé is in good company when it comes to female GRAMMY record holders, which includes the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, and Lauryn Hill. From the first women to ever win a GRAMMY to the top GRAMMY-winning woman, as well as the first female GRAMMY performers and the first female GRAMMY host, here are 13 examples of how women blazed trails in music — and left their indelible marks in GRAMMY history.
Ella Fitzgerald: The First Woman To Win Multiple GRAMMYs
The 1st Annual GRAMMY Awards took place in 1958, and several women were among the first crop of recipients. The first female multiple GRAMMY winner was jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, who took home two gramophones: Best Vocal Performance, Female and Best Jazz Performance, Individual. The roster of first-time female GRAMMY winners also included Keely Smith, Salli Terri, Barbara Cook, Pert Kelton, Helen Raymond, and Renata Tebaldi.
The First Women To Win GRAMMYs In The General Field
Wins by women in the General Field Categories — Record, Song and Album Of The Year and Best New Artist — date all the way back to the 4th Annual GRAMMY Awards in 1962. The first female winner for Album Of The Year was Judy Garland, for her 1961 album, Judy At Carnegie Hall.
Three years later, Astrud Gilberto became the first woman to win Record Of The Year, winning alongside Stan Getz for "The Girl From Ipanema" in 1964. Then in 1968, country singer/songwriter Bobbie Gentry became the first female Best New Artist winner. And in 1971, Carole King was the first woman to claim the Song Of The Year honor for "You've Got A Friend" in 1971.
Taylor Swift: The Artist With The Most Album Of The Year Wins
Taylor Swift is the artist with the most Album Of The Year wins in GRAMMY history, with four awards under her belt. The singer/songwriter scored her first win in the Category at the 2010 GRAMMYs for 2008's Fearless, which also won Best Country Album; Swift later won in 2016 for 2014's 1989 (also winning Best Pop Vocal Album) and in 2021 for 2020's critically acclaimed Folklore, the latter of which made her the first woman to win Album Of The Year three times.
In 2024, she broke the Category's record for all artists, winning for her tenth album Midnights (which also scored Best Pop Vocal Album that year). Overall, Swift has been nominated for Album Of The Year a total of seven times, with the other nods for 2012's Red, 2020's Evermore, and 2024's The Tortured Poets Department.
Carole King: The First Woman To Win Multiple General Field GRAMMYs
The first woman to win multiple GRAMMYs in the General Field in the same night was Carole King, when she swept Record ("It's Too Late"), Album (Tapestry) and Song Of The Year ("You've Got A Friend") in 1971. The first women to win multiple GRAMMYs in the same General Field Categories include Roberta Flack, who took Record Of The Year in 1973 and 1974, for "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "Killing Me Softly With His Song," respectively.
While Taylor Swift holds the record for most Album Of The Year wins, there are many female artists with multiple victories in the Category. Lauryn Hill, Norah Jones, and Alison Krauss have each won Album Of The Year twice (but only once in each case for their own recordings). At the 2017 GRAMMYs, Adele became the first artist in GRAMMY history to win Record, Song and Album Of The Year in the same night twice, five years after doing so in 2012.
Billie Eilish: The First Woman To Sweep The General Field
At the 2020 GRAMMYs, Billie Eilish made history as the first woman to win in all four General Field Categories — Album Of The Year, Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year, and Best New Artist — in the same night, thanks to her 2019 debut album, WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? and its breakout hit "bad guy." (She also took home a golden gramophone for Best Pop Vocal Album.) The record-setting moment made a then-18-year-old Eilish the youngest General Field sweeper, and only the second to do so, nearly 40 years after Christopher Cross did so in 1981.
At the 2025 GRAMMYs, both Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan were nominated in all four General Field Categories, giving them a chance to make history alongside Eilish. While neither of them completed the sweep, both singers earned their first GRAMMYs; Carpenter won Best Pop Vocal Album for 2024's Short n' Sweet album and Best Pop Solo Performance for her viral smash "Espresso," while Roan took home Best New Artist.
Beyoncé: The Artist With The Most GRAMMY Wins & Nominations
Before the 2025 GRAMMYs, Beyoncé already held the record for the most GRAMMY wins of any artist in history. She achieved the feat at the 2023 GRAMMYs, when she took home the GRAMMY for Best Dance/Electronic Music Album for her 2022 album, RENAISSANCE to bring her total GRAMMY count to 32. Not only did she add to her lead at the 2025 GRAMMYs, but she made history twice over, thanks to both her nominations and her wins.
Scoring 11 nods at the 2025 GRAMMYs thanks to her eighth studio album, 2024's COWBOY CARTER, Beyoncé's nomination total went up to 99, making her the artist with the most GRAMMY nominations of all time.
At the 2025 ceremony, the "TEXAS HOLD 'EM" singer won her career-first Album Of The Year award for COWBOY CARTER, making her the first Black woman to win the award since 1999, when Lauryn Hill won for 1998's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. In the same night, Beyoncé also became the first Black artist to win Best Country Album for COWBOY CARTER. With three wins in total (she also won Best Country Duo/Group Performance for "II MOST WANTED" with Miley Cyrus), Beyoncé brought her record-holding number of GRAMMY wins to 35.
The First Women To Perform On The GRAMMYs
The first televised GRAMMY event, a taped "NBC Sunday Showcase," in honor of the 2nd GRAMMY Awards, aired Nov. 29, 1959. It was Fitzgerald's performance on this broadcast that earned her the distinction of being the first woman to take the GRAMMY stage.
When the GRAMMYs transitioned to a live television broadcast format for the 13th GRAMMY Awards in 1971, several female artists performed as part of the milestone event, including Karen Carpenter of the Carpenters, Aretha Franklin, Wanda Jackson, Anne Murray, and Dionne Warwick.
Bonnie Raitt: The Most GRAMMY Performances
Beloved singer/songwriter Bonnie Raitt is the woman who has performed the most at the GRAMMYs. From her first solo performance of "Thing Called Love" at the 32nd GRAMMY Awards in 1990 through her latest performance in honor of B.B. King with Chris Stapleton and Gary Clark, Jr. at the 58th GRAMMY Awards in 2016, Raitt has graced the stage nine times. In a tie for a close second are Aretha Franklin and Whitney Houston, who each notched eight career GRAMMY performances in their lifetimes.
Whoopi Goldberg: The First Female GRAMMY Host
Whoopi Goldberg served as the GRAMMYs' first female host at the 34th GRAMMY Awards in 1992. An EGOT (Emmy, GRAMMY, Oscar, and Tony) winner, the comedian already had an impressive array of credentials when she helmed the GRAMMY stage. Not one to shy away from pushing the envelope, she delivered arguably one of the raunchiest jokes in GRAMMY history when referencing the show's accounting firm: "I must tell you, Deloitte & Touche are two things I do nightly."
The First Female Special Merit Awards Recipients
The inaugural Recording Academy Special Merit Award was given in 1963 to Bing Crosby, but it wasn't long until women made their mark. Ella Fitzgerald was the first woman to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1967. Liza Minnelli became the first female artist to receive a GRAMMY Legend Award in 1990.
In 1992, Christine M. Farnon became the first woman to receive a Trustees Award. She served as The Recording Academy's National Executive Director for more than 20 years.
The First Recordings By Women To Be Inducted Into The GRAMMY Hall Of Fame
The GRAMMY Hall Of Fame — established in 1973 by the Recording Academy's Board of Trustees to honor outstanding recordings that were made before the inception of the GRAMMY Awards — inducted its first female recipients in 1976. Billie Holiday's "God Bless The Child," which was originally done in 1941, marked the first solo female recording. Gershwin's Porgy & Bess (Opera Version), featuring Camilla Williams, and the original Broadway cast version of "Oklahoma!," featuring Joan Roberts, were inducted into the Hall that same year.
Lauryn Hill, Cardi B, MC Lyte: The Women Who Changed Rap At The GRAMMYs
While rap music is a largely male-dominated genre, women have continued to evolve the sound since the beginnings of hip-hop. It's no surprise, then, that female rappers have also made GRAMMY history throughout the decades.
With the release of her debut album, Lyte As A Rock, in 1988, MC Lyte became the first female rapper to release a solo album. She then followed the feat by becoming the first woman rapper to receive a GRAMMY nomination when her 1993 chart-topping song "Ruffneck" received a nomination for Best Rap Solo Performance at the 36th GRAMMY Awards in 1994.
Just a few years later, Lauryn Hill continued the history-making streak at the 1997 GRAMMYs; she became the first female rap artist to win Best Rap Album thanks to The Score, her second album with The Fugees. Hill also made GRAMMY history on her own at the 1999 GRAMMYs, when she won Album Of The Year for her monumental 1998 album, The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill, becoming the first rap artist to win that major Category.
Cardi B ushered in another GRAMMY first two decades later: At the 2019 GRAMMYs, she became the first solo female rapper to win the GRAMMY for Best Rap Album for her 2018 debut album, Invasion of Privacy. The 2025 GRAMMYs found history repeating itself, as Cardi B presented Doechii the Best Rap Album award for 2024's Alligator Bites Never Heal. The win made Doechii the third female rapper in history to win the Category.
Amy Allen: The First Woman To Win Songwriter Of The Year, Non-Classical
Making history with one of the most recent additions to the GRAMMY canon, Songwriter Of The Year, Non-Classical — which was first awarded in 2023 — Amy Allen became the first woman to be awarded with the honor at the 2025 GRAMMYs. Her win was thanks to her work on Sabrina Carpenter's GRAMMY-winning album, Short N' Sweet, and songs by Tate McRae, Olivia Rodrigo, Justin Timberlake, and Koe Wetzel.
With several new historic feats at the 2025 GRAMMYs, female artists are continuing to dominate on the GRAMMY stage and beyond — and show no signs of slowing down.
This article features contributions from Bianca Gracie and Taylor Weatherby.