Grammy nominations warrant mixed reactions
Surprises and snubs of the 2021 Grammy nominations
Fair Use from Grammys
December 16, 2020
At the beginning of every year, the award show season comes around quickly. These bring excitement for many, but, for some, deep disappointment. The 2021 Grammy Nominations brought both.
This year has been good for the music industry. Quarantine has bought a lot of free time for artists to be able to write and produce music. We’ve seen such good music throughout the year that it could be hard to pick what warrants a nomination. Each category’s committee was able to come up with who they think are the best of this year.
There are 84 categories in the Grammy awards, the main four being Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist. Within those four, Beyoncè, Dua Lipa and Post Malone led with 3 out of 4 nominations. Each genre of music is then represented. Beyoncè swept the Grammys with 9 total nominations.
I feel that artists such as The Weeknd, Harry Styles, Luke Combs, Travis Scott and BTS were snubbed, meaning they should’ve received a nomination in the major four categories but did not. The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights,” Travis Scott’s “Highest In The Room” and BTS’s “Dynamite” were overlooked, while Luke Combs ”What You See Is What You Get” was missed for his No. 1 charting album.
I was also shocked by a few nominations, including the Black Pumas’ nominations for both Album of the Year and Record of the Year with the deluxe edition of their debut album. On the charts, the album peaked at No. 200 on the Billboard 200. Jacob Collier is also nominated for Album of the Year with his fourth album “Djesse Vol. 3.” The album hasn’t even made it to the charts. Another shock was that D Smoke was nominated for Best New Artist and Best Rap Album because his peak was No.33 in 2019.
It seems hard and unfair when you’re an artist who constantly can get No. 1 charting songs and albums throughout the year and isn’t recognized at all and even be replaced with someone who hasn’t even hit the charts. For example, Luke Combs was the first-ever country album to sit at No. 1 for weeks, which means that music was good enough to get up on the charts, and the Grammy committee just does the same thing almost every year to a number of artists.
Overall, I don’t think that the Grammys go for the always-on-top artists but try to dig underneath so that smaller artists get recognition. Does it work? Not really because then we have this situation where people are upset with the committee’s choices. Of course, it’s hard to please everyone when there are so many artists and only four major categories. We could argue all day on how this artist deserves a nomination more than that one, but at the end of the day, they’re just awards. Music is just a subjective form of entertainment; there will always be unhappy people with the outcomes of award shows like the Grammys.
