It’s been the hot topic of the week: Beck versus Beyonce at the 2015 Grammy Awards, with special guest referee Kanye West. Everyone with a Twitter account and an album collection has been arguing over who truly deserved the Album Of The Year award, the definition of ‘artistry’, and what is the exact number of producers/instruments played needed to win the prize.
The problem with all this (apart from the media oversaturation) is that the Grammys have a historically bad track record of picking winners. As long as there have been Grammys, there have been ridiculous winners and terrible snubs. Artists such as Public Enemy, Bjork and Guns N’ Roses have never even won Grammys. We’ve picked a few of the most shocking decicions from Grammy history to prove to Kanye that hey, maybe there have been bigger scandals than Beyone’s latest disappointment.
Jethro Tull wins the first Heavy Metal Grammy
In 1989, the Grammys added a new category to the awards: Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental. Finally the metal genre was being recognised at the Grammys, after years of being shunned away. Metalheads were keen to see who would win the first ever Metal Grammy, with nominees including AC/DC, Iggy Pop, Jane’s Addiction and frontrunners Metallica for their …And Justice For All album.
Unfortunately, none of them won. Jethro Tull took the prize for their album Crest Of A Knave. How the Grammy committee picked an album featuring the flute over Metallica’s seminal record is still a mystery. Representatives of Jethro Tull’s label were even told by the record label not to bother attending because they wouldn’t win. Of course, that didn’t stop the label from taking out this gloating ad in Billboard the next week:
‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ wasn’t the Best Rock Song of 1993
Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is one of the most iconic songs of all time. From those opening chords, to that drum fill, to Kurt Cobain screaming the last line as the song fades out, it’s a track that not only cemented grunge as a mainstream genre, but also changed the landscape of rock music. Even back in 1993 people knew that the song was special, so of course there was no other option for Best Rock Song that year, right?
Wrong.
Eric Clapton’s old classic ‘Layla’, performed again at an MTV Unplugged session, won the Grammy. Clapton’s reputation as an amazing musician, as well as a man who helped lay down the foundations of rock, is well known. But how could you not give the award to Nirvana? And not only that, the Grammys gave it to a song that was a live acoustic reworking of an already classic song. Swing and a miss.
Celine Dion beats Beck and The Smashing Pumpkins
Maybe Beck being awarded Album of the Year last week was the Grammys’ way of apologising for their 1997 Album Of The Year blunder, when Beck’s seminal album Odelay lost out to Canadian pop sensation Celine Dion’s Falling Into You (which didn’t even have ‘My Heart Will Go On’ on it!).
Not only that, but it beat The Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, one of the greatest albums of the ’90s. What a waste.
Almost every Best New Artist award
The future is hard to predict, and hindsight is always 20/20. But the Grammys Committee is supposed to be made up of not only past winners, but the who’s who of the music industry. Surely all these minds would collectively be able to tell who is the Best New Artist?
Not a chance.
Historically, the Grammys are pretty crap at predicting future stars. To be fair, the award has been given out to acts such as Adele, Mariah Carey and The Beatles (if we ignore the fact The Beatles won this award when they were already five albums in).
In 1979, A Taste Of Honey were named the best new artist, over a guy called Elvis Costello. In 1995 the Grammys throught Sheryl Crow had more to offer than Counting Crows and Green Day, and in 2011 Esperanza Spalding was given the award instead of Drake, Florence + The Machine, Mumford & Sons and Justin Bieber. Well, you can’t blame them for that last one.
