While it was hardly a perfect night for Black Panther, the music of the Marvel Cinematic Universe film still won a pair of major awards at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards.
Out of eight nominations, music from Black Panther won two awards, both of which mark the first Grammy Awards won by a Marvel-related property.
Ludwig Göransson's Black Panther score won the Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media. Göransson's score has already won numerous other awards, including a Golden Globe and a Critics Choice Award. It's also nominated for Best Original Score at the Academy Awards.
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Going into the night, Black Panther: The Album, a compilation produced and curated for the film by the Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar, was nominated for seven awards, and it walked away with one trophy.
"Kings Dead," by Jay Rock, Kendrick Lamar, Future and James Blake, won the award for Best Rap Performance. It tied in the category, and shares its victory Anderson .Paak's "Bubblin.'" However, "King's Dead" lost the Grammy for Best Rap Song to Drake's "God's Plan."
Black Panther: The Album also came up short in several of the night's signature categories, including Album of the Year, which it lost to Kacey Musgraves' Golden Hour.
The album's lead single, "All the Stars," by Kendrick Lemar and SZA, lost all of the awards that it was nominated for. The hit song lost the awards for Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Rap/Sung Performance to Childish Gambino's "This Is America." This gave Göransson and Spider-Man: Homecoming and Solo: A Star Wars Story star Donald Glover a trio of wins.
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The song also lost the award for Best Song Written for Visual Media to Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper's duet "Shallow" from the musical drama A Star Is Born, which gave the voice of Rocket Raccoon one of music's highest honors.
Another Marvel-adjacent release, jazz musician Randy Waldman's cover of the famous theme song from 1967's Spider-Man cartoon, also won the Grammy for Best Arrangement (Instrumental or Vocal.) That Grammy was awarded to Waldman, Mark Kibble and Justin Wilson.
Despite the night's losses, "All the Stars" is still nominated for the Academy Award for Original Song, where it once again faces stiff competition from "Shallow." Black Panther is also up for Best Picture, the Oscars' biggest award.
Earlier in the day, Black Panther also picked up a pair of trophies at the BAFTAs, which were handed out by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Black Panther won the BAFTA for Special Visual Effects, and Black Panther's Letitia Wright won the award for Rising Star.
While Black Panther is the first Marvel property to earn Grammy wins, Danny Elfman's score for Spider-Man was the first Marvel-related production to be nominated for a Grammy in 2002.
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With this win, Marvel, as a whole, is one step close to earning the coveted combination of winning an EGOT, or an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and a Tony. While the Marvel Productions-produced Muppet Babies won several Daytime Emmys in the 1980s, Jessica Jones won Marvel's first Primetime Emmy in 2016, when it won Outstanding Main Theme Music.
While Marvel still doesn't have a Tony Award, the much-maligned Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark was nominated for Best Costumes and Best Scenic Design, for its sets, in 2012.
Marvel-related productions have already won a few Academy Awards, including Spider-Man 2's win for Best Visual Effects in 2005 and Big Hero 6's win for Best Animated Feature in 2017. While Black Panther nominated in numerous categories and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse nominated and the front-runner for Best Animated Feature at this year's Oscars, Marvel productions have got another chance at gold very soon.
The winners of the 91st annual Academy Awards will be presented Sunday, February 24, in a ceremony broadcast live on ABC.
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