Much to her own surprise, Japanese Breakfast snagged two 2022 Grammy nominations, one for Best New Artist and another for Best Alternative Album. When BTS announced the nominees for the Best Alternative Album category, way back in November, Michelle Zauner “screamed her head off,” she tells Pitchfork.
Fast forward four months, and dressed in a Jubilee yellow Valentino mini-dress, with mini persimmons hanging from her nails (which, according to Zauner, have left her with “really sore nail beds” but were “totally worth it”), she was ready for her first-ever Grammys.
And while Zauner may not have won an award, she did achieve what she really wanted to accomplish: getting a photo with BTS. In her own words, here’s what she saw and what she experienced Sunday night in Las Vegas. Follow along with all of Pitchfork’s Grammys coverage.
Housing a Hot Dog in Valentino
I only ate oatmeal all day. There was really no time because there was the red carpet and press, the first ceremony that is untelevised, and then you rush over to the second one. There’s no food or snacks or anything, so I was starving! I’m a hot dog fan, and we passed Nathan’s on the way to the ceremony, and all I could think about for the last hour was how badly I was going to destroy a hot dog afterwards. We left a little bit before they announced Record of the Year. Me and Craig Hendrix, my producer and drummer, had two hot dogs and cheese fries. And I was just in this puffy Valentino mini-dress housing a hot dog.
Photo courtesy of Michelle Zauner
The Coveted Photo With BTS
I was like, This is the only thing I really care about accomplishing while I’m here. I’d already lost my two Grammys, so the best thing I could get of it was a photo with BTS. They came out after their performance and Megan Thee Stallion took a selfie with them. So I went up and I said, “Excuse me, can I get a photo with you?” in Korean. And I think they were like, “Woah, this girl speaks Korean!” They were really nice about it, and I got my photo.
Immediately after I posted the photo on Twitter, it just blew the fuck up. I watched the numbers climb and I was like, Woah, it’s been a minute and it has 10,000 likes, and now I think it has 500,000 likes. It was shared, like, 100,000 times. It’s wild. I’ve never experienced that before.
