What does one do when they have the passion to yell at their television but they hate sports? My personal solution is entertainment award shows. Sports bore and confuse me but when the music or acting awards come around, I sit down for the night to rant about and root for my favorite artists. With the Super Bowl fast approaching, the 67th annual Grammy Awards took place on February 3rd this year, and the nominations were bursting at the seams with both talent and fame.
It seems fitting to start by discussing Beyonce. Beyonce was nominated eleven times this year for her album Cowboy Carter which spanned the genres of pop, country, and rap. This year’s controversial win for best country album makes her the first black woman ever to have won the award.
Beyonce also won best album this year, the first by a black woman since Lauryn Hill in 1999. This award was long overdue but she should have won for one of her better albums such as Lemonade or I am… Sasha Fierce. Nevertheless, it is good that Beyonce is finally being recognized for her talent.
Kendrick Lamar was another artist who experienced major award successes this year. His rap single “Not Like Us” was nominated in five categories and swept them all. This includes two of the big four categories, best record and song of the year. Though I’m a staunch supporter of “Good Luck, Babe!,”“Not Like Us” was undoubtedly my second choice. I skeptically watched the music video and listened to the song for the first time just days before the awards, and I was absolutely blown away. The beat is enjoyable, the lyrics are clever, and the subject matter is serious and interesting. The song being about Drake makes it a real and specific story, but the lyrics speak to larger issues as well.
The opposite of Kendrick Lamar’s sweep, Taylor Swift’s latest album The Tortured Poets Department went home completely empty handed, undoubtedly devastating some Swifties. Taylor Swift has been all anyone talked about for what feels like years now. I am not one of the chronically online people who spend valuable time hating Taylor, but The Tortured Poets Department is far from her best work; it was right that it lost. Even the Swifties I know agree it could have been better. It was very long and to me many of the songs sounded too similar. It lacked flavor. Taylor has record-breaking Grammy numbers, and if she wins any more, it should be for something better than The Tortured Poets Department.
Another Grammy Awards darling who went home empty handed was Billie Eilish. It came as a shock to me, not because I am a diehard fan, but because almost every prediction I saw online had her Hit Me Hard and Soft winning best album. To me, Hit Me Hard and Soft was sometimes too minimalistic but at others very hard-hitting. Although I much prefer “Wildflower” to Billie’s nominated song “Birds of a Feather,” I expected that she would win something with her history of Grammy success. It is somewhat discouraging that her first album so overtly LGBTQ+ did less well.
Along with veterans, it was a great year of stiff competition for new artists. Though I listen mainly to musical theater and classic rock, the pop musician who most earned my heart this year was Chappell Roan. Her music was refreshing, and the LGBTQ+ influences helped her to stand out, at least to me. Though at first I laughed at the back-up dancer clowns, her performance of “Pink Pony Club” was gorgeous, and I was fully involved by the end. Chappell has a compelling ability to switch between camp-like songs such as “Hot To Go” and more serious songs like “Good Luck, Babe!”
Chappell won Best New Artist, which was predicted by most, but she disappointingly won nothing else. “Good Luck, Babe!” was nominated in a great deal of categories, and to see it beaten for pop solo performance by something so much less emotional like Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” didn’t sit right with me. Chappell’s style is pop for sure, but with her costumes and subject matter, she is more unique and colorful than Carpenter.
Along with Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter has been one of this year’s new pop sensations. Sabrina Carpenter’s win for pop vocal album was surprising to me. After such a successful year, it was appropriate for her to win something, but she is vocally outmatched by other artists such as Ariana Grande, Chappell Roan, and Billie Eilish. Ariana Grande just recently delivered an impressive, technically skilled performance in Wicked. Chappell and Billie also certainly hold their own. The award for vocal album never seems to be chosen based on objective vocal skill but on general liking for the song.
I digress – Sabrina writes fun music, but there is more serious work out there. Even the elusive, serious songs on Short N’ Sweet don’t quite hit like serious songs by other artists. Her vaudeville-esque performance was gold. The comedy, camp, and spectacle are the real reasons she deserves her fame. In fact, Sabrina and Chappell have proven that people really want good camp to their pop music.
The other musical phenomenon of the summer was Brat. Charli XCX’s album Brat started an entire aesthetic of “brat summer.” Charli won three Grammys. To be perfectly honest, I despise Brat with a burning passion. How it was the obsession of the summer baffles me and angers me. The lyrics are strange, and the music is unpleasantly electronic. It does not seem to make any intelligent or emotional point. Though Charli XCX didn’t win in any of the big four categories, just her nomination annoys me.
Moving on, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars took home the award for duo performance for “Die With A Smile.” It was immensely popular and nominated for best song, so it wasn’t a surprise. “Guess” by Charli XCX and Billie Eilish was also very popular, but frankly it doesn’t have much depth, even compared to a pop love song like the winner. At least “Die With A Smile” had some underlying emotion.
Finally, as a Broadway enthusiast, I need to keep track of the Grammy for best musical theater album. I was disappointed to see it go to Hell’s Kitchen. For those who don’t know, this Broadway show is a jukebox musical made up almost entirely of Alicia Keys’ already released music. It seems that the Academy gave it the award for featuring familiar pop music and not for being the best of the musical theater genre. I would have preferred any of the other nominees simply because they had original scores instead of repurposed pop music.
Like the Grammy awards of every year in the past, there were some things I loved and others I hated. Whether you agree with the winners or not, it’s still worth it to celebrate the hard work in the entertainment industry and root for the artists who have been the soundtrack to our year.
