Grammy Nominations 2021: The Snubbed, The Deserving, and The Ungrateful.

From an outsider’s perspective, it appears as though the Recording Academy set out each year with one key objective: to create as much controversy as possible. As awards season rolls around each year, musicians and fans alike wait with bated breath to see who is in the running for music’s most prestigious honour - only for the internet to explode into a flurry of opinions the following morning. Despite 2020 being a year like no other, the Recording Academy’s favourite pastime of inciting uproar has, alas, remained the same as years gone by.

Grammy nominations have been consistently divisive in recent years; from Adele’s 25 beating Beyoncé’s Lemonade for Album of the Year in 2016 to Ed Sheeran not showing up to collect his awards in 2018. This age old controversy boils down to the fact that it has become increasingly difficult to separate critical success from commercial success. It may seem contradictory, but having a Number 1 song doesn’t necessarily equate to a five-star review from NME.

Take this year’s nominations for example: Fiona Apple’s intricately experimental Fetch The Bolt Cutters received widespread critical acclaim, even snagging Pitchfork’s first 10/10 rating since 2010. Despite being a beloved album by critics everywhere, the singer’s fifth album only charted in the Billboard 200 for a mere nine weeks. It just goes to show that critical success may have more of an edge to Grammy voters than commercial success, as Apple has been nominated for Best Rock Song, Best Rock Performance and Best Alternative Music Album.

2021 is looking to be a good year for female musicians, with the Best Rock Performance Category featuring an all-female line-up for the first time in Grammy history. First-time nominee Phoebe Bridgers has been recognised for her painfully honest guitar anthem Kyoto, taken from delicate and ethereal sophomore release Punisher. Bridgers also received a nod for Best New Artist, alongside rising star Megan Thee Stallion and TikTok sensation Doja Cat.

Despite not releasing a conventional album in 2020, Beyoncé leads the Grammy race with an astounding nine nominations. Four of those nominations are attributed to Black Parade, a protest song released at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, and features explosive percussion alongside shimmering harmonies. Black Parade is taken from Beyoncé’s visual album Black Is King, which is also nominated for Best Music Film.

Close behind with six nominations are music industry royalty Taylor Swift and Dua Lipa. Swift’s lyrically-dazzling lockdown release Folklore is one of the top contenders for Album of the Year, and should she win, would make Swift the first female artist to win the prized accolade three times. Swift was previous awarded the top trophy for ‘80s-infused pop album 1989 and career-kickstarter Fearless. Also in the running for Album of the Year is Dua Lipa’s disco-pop release Future Nostalgia. The pop sensation’s feel-good sophomore release has received universal critical and commercial success - despite being leaked online one week before the album’s release.

Now, onto ‘The Snubs’. 

The award for ‘Biggest Snub of 2021’ undoubtedly goes to The Weeknd, who shockingly received zero nominations for his expansive fourth album After Hours. The sparkling synths and soul-destroying percussion of lead single Blinding Lights seemed a recipe for guaranteed Grammy success, not least because the track spent a staggering 19 weeks at number one. Many were intrigued by the R&B singer’s snub, as it coincides with the words of former Recording Academy CEO Deborah Dugan, who ahead of last year’s ceremony claimed that the Grammy voting process discriminates against women and artists of colour.

Whilst the internet ruminated in the shock of After Hours’ snub, The Weeknd himself took to Twitter to say the following:

Let’s not get it twisted, the ‘Heartless’ singer has a right to be bitter: After Hours was the top-selling album of 2020 in the US, and the aforementioned radio hit Blinding Lights is the singer’s most successful song to date; amassing over one billion streams on Spotify.

The Weeknd was not the only artist unsatisfied with the nomination process. In a lengthy instagram post, Justin Bieber called out the Grammys claiming his album Changes was nominated in the wrong categories. Bieber’s three nominations came as a surprise to many, given his recent release has been panned by critics and fans worldwide. Pitchfork’s Jayson Greene rated the album a crushing 4.5 - the lowest rating of Bieber’s career - stating that “…while [Bieber’s] contentment might be heaven for him and his managers, the resulting album has all the glow and eroticism of an airport terminal”. In the midst of his social media ramblings, the pop singer stated that “Changes was and is an R&B album”, which quite frankly, is not the case. Bieber’s car-crash fifth album lacks rhythm, but is guaranteed to give you the blues.

You have to wonder whether Grammy voters even bothered to listen to the nominations for Best Pop Vocal Performance: Bieber’s bubblegum-pop single Yummy lacks depth, personality, and any trace of the potential once showcased on 2015 release Purpose. You would be forgiven for thinking the lazy lyrics “Yeah you got that yummy-yum, that yummy-yum, that yummy-yummy” were written by a toddler, but disappointingly it took a team of five songwriters. It feels insulting to nominate Yummy in the same category as Taylor Swift’s Cardigan, which features powerful and evocative lyricism: “I knew you’d linger like a tattoo kiss/I knew you’d haunt all of my what-ifs”.

If there is one thing we have learnt from the 2021 Grammy nominations, it is that the Recording Academy have made it abundantly clear they care more about making headlines than they do about celebrating music.