Will the Grammy Awards Survive? On Grammy Controversies, Lack of Star-Power and Favorite Performances

by Julian Spivey

Photo: CBS

The Grammy Awards are billed as “music’s biggest night” but the 65th annual ceremony on Sunday, February 5 felt a bit small.
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I was growing weary as the telecast crawled toward the finish because I knew it was running long and it hadn’t felt as fun as in recent years – believe it or not the pandemic year two years ago is one of my favorites Grammy telecasts.

And when the night’s biggest honor – Album of the Year – was presented by host Trevor Noah to Harry Styles and his producers for Harry’s House my first thought wasn’t of shock or bewilderment or anger, but “will the Grammy’s still be a thing tomorrow?” Will the Grammys even exist next year?

And, the answer is, of course, they will still exist. But are they ever going to matter again? That’s to be seen, but it feels like the Recording Academy had to right a perceived wrong tonight by giving Album of the Year to Beyonce for Renaissance, especially after the shocking loss to Beck’s Morning Phase in 2015 and losing again to Adele’s 25 in 2017. I don’t mean to be submissive to Styles, Adele and Beck. It isn’t my opinion the Grammy Awards have mistreated Beyonce – after all this very night she became the winningest artist in the history of the awards. The Grammys love Beyonce, but she tends to win genre honors with smaller voting bodies than general field categories with much bigger voting bodies.

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Photo: CBS

But there is the perception of a large crowd of Grammy viewers and music fans that the Recording Academy has disrespected Beyonce. There’s also the perception – and this one probably holds more water – that the voting body doesn’t honor enough people of color in Album of the Year. I know full well Jon Batiste won the award last year and Bruno Mars won in 2018, but when artists like Beyonce and virtually any and every hip-hop artist are being passed over for the night’s top honor it will at least have the appearance that something may be off about the voting body. It’s been almost two decades since a hip hop group won Album of the Year (OutKast in 2004 for Speakerboxxx/The Love Below) and there hasn’t been an African-American female take the top honor since before the new millennium (Lauryn Hill in 1999 for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill). The Lauryn Hill and OutKast albums are the only two hip-hop albums to ever win Album of the Year.

Beyonce’s fan-base, which is one of the biggest and most protective of their favorite artist, of any in popular music would’ve been pissed no matter who won the honor instead of Beyonce, but I believe much of the anger and disappointment in the Album of the Year winner would’ve tampered down had Lizzo won for Special or, especially, had Kendrick Lamar (another artist often seen as snubbed for this award) had won for Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. Even if Bad Bunny had won for Un Verano Sin Ti it may have come off to many like, “well, at least it’s not another white person.”

I don’t want quotas for music awards or any other artistic awards. I don’t believe those angered that Beyonce or another person of color failed to win Album of the Year want them either. We just want there to seemingly be more proof of fairness and diversity within the voting body of the Recording Academy. ​

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Biggest Shock

Photo: CBS

The biggest shock of the Grammy’s telecast on Sunday night was clearly Bonnie Raitt winning Song of the Year for “Just Like That.” I remarked on social media as soon as she won that the fan bases of Beyonce, Adele, Taylor Swift, Lizzo and Harry Styles were going to completely burn down Twitter. It seems things indeed got heated, but I’ve tried to ignore most of that.
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Raitt was as shocked as anyone else when her name was read by First Lady Jill Biden as the winner. I was shocked too. Just earlier in the day on this website’s Facebook page, I told a fan of the song who was hoping it would win the honor that: “this is one of those cases where the nomination is the win.” But I knew deep down that the Grammy’s voting body does love its aging legendary performers – it’s why I predicted Willie Nelson to win multiple country genre awards over much younger competition and he did. We’ve seen it before for decades with artists like Steely Dan and Ray Charles and Robert Plant and Herbie Hancock winning Album of the Year decades after their main relevance in popular culture. We’ve seen it less in Song of the Year, but for anyone who pays a lot of attention to trends within these awards and this voting body, it shouldn’t be too much of a shock. But it comes off as a shock to fans, especially younger fans, because they don’t know Raitt. She’s not played on modern-day radio. She’s not going to be on popular curated Spotify playlists. You’re unlikely to hear her music become a trend on TikTok. And, thus to many people, she doesn’t exist. So, when she wins a major honor that beloved artists like Swift, Beyonce and Adele were perceived to be favorites for it instantly becomes a controversy. It instantly has people crying foul or rigged or paid off.

Some things that it may really mean:

A. It’s a great song. And it is. Just because it’s not flying up the Billboard Hot 100 or leading to TikTok dances doesn’t mean it’s not as qualified to win the honor as “As It Was,” or “About Damn Time” or “All Too Well” or “Easy On Me” or “Break My Soul.” 

B. You know what all of those songs I just mentioned have in common? They’re all by major pop stars that came out during the same eligibility period and likely all have fans in the voting body unable to choose between those five songs. So, essentially this may have been a case of vote splitting. All five of those young pop star songs are terrific, but how do you pick which one is actually the best? I would’ve voted for Swift’s “All Too Well,” personally, but I can see why others would want “Easy On Me” or “Break My Soul.” This leads to the possibility of a non-pop song garnering a large number of votes from the remaining segment of the voting body. And you know who fans of rock, country, Americana, folk, blues are all likely to vote for – Bonnie Raitt. Why? Because she’s a rock, country, Americana, folk, blues legend. 

C. This is where some minor criticism of the Recording Academy voting body might come in. Maybe the voting body is too old? I’ve seen articles stating that the Recording Academy has been working to up its percentage of voters under the age of 40 since 2018 but haven’t found exact numbers on the average age of voters. The Recording Academy has also been trying to up its number of female and diverse voters since 2018 when only 21 percent of its voters were female and only 28 percent of its voters were people of color. Even with the Recording Academy focusing on these numbers it’s unlikely they’ve caught up considerably in five years. Older, white male voters are going to like Raitt more than any of those other nominees – it’s to borrow Raitt’s winning title - just like that. 

Star Power
In my lede, I remarked about how music’s biggest night felt a bit small. The faces in the crowd certainly weren’t – the camera panned to Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Adele often. Music stars don’t get any bigger than those three. Kendrick Lamar was also out there somewhere – though the camera doesn’t seem to want to find him as much as those others. Beyonce, Adele and Lamar were all among the most nominated artists of the year and Swift was nominated for one of the night’s biggest honors Song of the Year.
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None of those artists performed on the telecast. It led to an unfortunate lack of star power for a show that ran too long despite feeling like it had fewer performances than usual.

Who’s to blame though? I know for a fact the Recording Academy and producers involved in the CBS telecast asked both Adele and Swift to perform and both declined. I would have to assume the same offers were given to Beyonce and Lamar.

I’m not sure what more can be done than asking.

So, I have to put this on those artists. If you’re among the most nominated performances of the year you should feel obligated to perform for your fans and to keep us from looking like Ben Affleck ran out of his Dunkin’ coffee too soon and has to sit through one of his wife’s work events. Side note: That’s freakin’ Stevie Wonder rocking his ass off on that stage. How about not looking like you’re being tortured, Mr. Affleck? 

Telecast
How did this telecast that seems to be on the button every year go almost 30 minutes over its supposed runtime? It’s especially confusing when it seems like there were fewer performances than in a typical year. Maybe it’s that lack of star power that made the show drag? There were decisions the producers made this year that I didn’t realize were so wrong for the show at the beginning – like the roundtable of fans debating why their favorite artist should win Album of the Year – but when it’s 10:20 p.m. (central time) and I’m seeing a woman explain why Coldplay should win Album of the Year it’s occurred to me that it was a bad idea. Honestly, if I’d been having more fun with the performances (or if they had done more and fewer awards) I probably wouldn’t have worried about the runtime of the telecast so much.
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One issue I continue to have with the Grammys is their disrespect toward the rock and country genres. Not counting the in memoriam tributes performances to Loretta Lynn and Christine McVie there was one rock performance and one country performance during the entire show. The rock performance was Brandi Carlile (whom some would debate as a rock artist, but screw that) performing her Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance winning (both awarded before the broadcast) “Broken Horses” toward the very beginning of the show (second performance) and the one country performance was Luke Combs, who was nominated for multiple honors but failed to win any, performing “Going, Going, Gone” very late in the show. Were winners Willie Nelson and Ozzy Osbourne even invited? Or do we just give awards to the oldies and not actual performance slots? Also, not having a single rock genre award in the primetime telecast is so wrong. Carlile, Osbourne and Wet Leg all won multiple honors – but the producers didn’t feel they were television worthy – which seems ridiculous seeing as how Carlile has now performed on three of the last five telecasts and blown viewers away each and every time.

Favorite Performances: 
I usually rank all of the Grammy Awards performances from best to worst, in my opinion. But I don’t really think that’s fair this year, especially given Bad Bunny opening the show with “El Apagon” and “Despues de la Playa.” I think it’s great that Bad Bunny got the chance to open the show and showcase Spanish-language music on the big stage, but as a non-Spanish-speaking viewer/listener, I don’t think I can properly rank his performance compared to others.
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Also, I don’t think there was a bad performance of the 16 that appeared on the telecast. Harry Styles’ performance of “As It Was” was surprisingly lackluster – he didn’t seem completely there all night (some online debated whether he was sick or high) – but I still like the song and it wasn’t horrible, just not his usual energy.

Here are my favorite performances of the evening: 

1. “Broken Horses” by Brandi Carlile
This might be the third year out of the last five that Brandi Carlile has had my favorite performance of the telecast. I am a fan of hers – finally got to see her for the first time in Dallas last summer – so as long as she gives her usual 110 percent and sounds as terrific as she always does there’s a good chance she’s going to be near the top of my list.

And … that’s the only modern song you’re going to see on this list. Sorry. I’m a sucker for classics and tributes.

2. “Higher Ground” by Stevie Wonder & Chris Stapleton
I knew Chris Stapleton, one of the greatest modern country musicians, would be performing with Stevie Wonder, one of the greatest anything, anywhere, anytime, ever musicians, on the telecast. However, I was somewhat surprised when that song turned out to be “Higher Ground,” from Wonder’s 1973 album Innervisions. It’s both the 50th anniversary of that classic and this was part of a longer tribute to Berry Gordy whose Motown/Tamla labels recorded Wonder. This performance was absolute fire with Wonder on keys and Stapleton on guitar and the two swapping incredible vocals.

3. “Coal Miner’s Daughter” by Loretta Lynn
For my money, Loretta Lynn may be the greatest female performer in the history of country music and her death last year was properly used as the kickoff for the telecast’s in memoriam segment with Kacey Musgraves performing her most famous hit “Coal Miner’s Daughter.” Musgraves performed using Lynn’s famous guitar with her name on the fretboard and was perfect on the number.

4. 50 Years of Hip Hop
I’m not a huge hip-hop fan, but ever since I heard Questlove of The Roots – who has to be one of the smartest guys in music – was curating a 50th anniversary of hip-hop segment for the show I knew it would be hot. The segment included a ton of legends from the genre with The Roots playing behind them including LL Cool J, Run-DMC, Grandmaster Flash, Public Enemy, Ice-T, Queen Latifah, Missy Elliott, Lil Wayne, Salt ‘N’ Peppa, Big Boi, Nelly, an absolute fire spitting Busta Rhymes, and many more performing snippets of their hits for probably 10-15 minutes. The only reason it’s not higher on this list is I’m just not a huge fan of medleys, but to properly do this you’d need an entire evening of a show – which LL Cool J may have alluded to coming in the future – and I couldn’t help but feeling “what if Jay-Z performed (he’s in the building), what if Kendrick Lamar performed (he’s in the building), what if Dr. Dre performed (he’s in the building), what if Eminem performed, what if Drake performed (he’s pretty much boycotting the Grammys for the reasons we led this piece off with), what if Snoop Dogg performed?”

5. “Songbird” by Sheryl Crow, Bonnie Raitt & Mick Fleetwood
​The one time I teared up during the telecast was at the very end of Sheryl Crow, Bonnie Raitt and Mick Fleetwood performing “Songbird” in tribute to late Fleetwood Mac member Christine McVie. I think it was because it was on top of the Loretta Lynn tribute and Quavo paying tribute to his own nephew Takeoff who was murdered last year and was part of their hip-hop group Migos. It was a lovely performance by Crow and Raitt on the vocals of a beautiful song.