Should you actually care about the 2020 Grammy award nominations?

Oh, the Grammys, how you mean so little to us. Between the big three award shows, the Grammys by the Recording Academy, the Emmys by the Television Academy, and the Oscars by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Grammys are the most meaningless award show. 

The Recording Academy has the worst representation among the three award shows and isn’t a high bar to meet. We don’t ever think differently about an artist, song, or album because it wins a Grammy. They always get it wrong and never know what they want to be. Some years, the biggest honor goes to the most commercially successful, other years, they give it to an artist album — can you make up your mind?!

The Recording Academy released its nominations for the 2021 Grammy Awards, and honestly, it’s as bland as you can expect. There were still many snubs & terrible decisions made on behalf of voters who are clearly not in tune with what the world thinks is good. While we hope for better every year with the Grammys, we only keep getting millimeters closer every time, if at all. 

The good 

For the first time since the Grammys created the award in 2012, the Recording Academy didn’t nominate a single male rock group or artist for Best Rock Performance. Grace Potter, Brittany Howard, HAIM, Phoebe Bridger, Big Thief, and Fiona Apple were all nominated for Rock’s top award. 

We don’t know if all of these are rock groups or songs. Mainly because the same songs by Bridger, Apple, and Howard nominated for Best Rock Performance were also on the albums nominated for Best Alternative Music Album. However, the line between rock & alternative has been blurred for so long, it might be time to combine the two categories. It’s not like Alternative has more than the one award. 

But we will always applaud representation at the awards show. Rock has always been a male-dominated genre, and thanks to early pioneers like Kim Deal, Joan Jett, Pat Benatar, and Janis Joplin, women are now getting the recognition they finally deserve. We love these nominations nonetheless — it’s probably the only thing the Recording Academy got right. 

The bad 

Despite grabbing the U.S. for a whole month and having a message against drunk driving, the Recording Academy failed to nominate The Weeknd this year. This was the nominations’ biggest shock as it seemed as if he was a favorite for this year’s Grammys — not just for a nomination, for a few wins. 

After Hours, his newest album, debuted on the Billboard 200 at No. 1 and stayed there for four weeks, but The Grammys still snubbed him. Maybe they wanted to stay away from The Weeknd after he wore the fake bandages for the American Music Awards to display possible injuries from a drunk-driving accident — a cause we would assume the Recording Academy would be behind since it was a warning against drunk driving.

Another artist favored for a Grammy nomination was Harry Styles, but was snubbed from the award show’s highest honors. Styles followed Justin Timberlake’s career path going from boy band leader to solo artists, and this year’s Grammys was supposed to solidify his new status. 

Harry Styles was nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance but was snubbed for Song & Record of the Year. His songs “Watermelon Sugar” & “Adore You” were perfect contenders for the awards and were shocking for him to only get three nominations.     

And the ugly

BTS has had a historic year, especially in the U.S., topping the Billboard 200 multiple times since 2017. The K-pop group is the fastest group to chart four No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200, beating the previous record set by The Beatles. Their prize was a nomination for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance and a snub from the Grammys’s biggest honors. 

It’s sad because this could be the last year the original BTS members could win a Grammy together. We hoped the Grammys learned from the Oscars, who awarded Korean artists like Bong Joon-ho & his film Parasite. All the signs pointed to BTS getting a nomination in at least Song of the Year, but hey, at least they were finally nominated for a Grammy. 

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Do you believe the Grammys were out of their minds by snubbing Harry Styles, The Weeknd, and BTS? Let us know in the comments!