Should you actually care about the 2020 Grammy award nominations?
The 2021 Grammy nominations landed with familiar complaints about the Recording Academy missing the cultural moment, and the snubs of The Weeknd, Harry Styles, and BTS became the clearest examples of how out of step the voters appeared.
The good
The Best Rock Performance category delivered a first since the award began in 2012: no male rock acts made the final list. Grace Potter, Brittany Howard, HAIM, Phoebe Bridgers, Big Thief, and Fiona Apple received nods, and the field ended up entirely female. Fiona Apple took the win for “Shameika.” The same three songs by Bridgers, Apple, and Howard that appeared in Best Rock Performance also sat on albums up for Best Alternative Music Album, which only underscored how the line between the two genres had already collapsed. The Recording Academy still kept the categories separate, but the 2021 slate made the overlap impossible to ignore.
The bad
The Weeknd’s After Hours dominated 2020, yet the project received zero nominations across the board. He later announced he would stop submitting music to the Grammys entirely and called the process corrupt. Harry Styles earned a Best Pop Solo Performance nod for “Watermelon Sugar” and went on to win that category in 2021. Two years later his album Harry’s House collected Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album, showing the Academy eventually caught up to the work it overlooked in the initial 2021 round.
And the ugly
BTS entered the 2021 cycle with a historic U.S. run that included multiple Billboard 200 number-one albums. They received a Best Pop Duo/Group Performance nomination for “Dynamite” but nothing in the major categories. The group returned with further nods for “Butter” in 2022 and “My Universe” with Coldplay in 2023, plus additional 2023 recognition for Album of the Year and Best Music Video. After that cycle the original seven-member lineup received no further group nominations.
Artist Outcomes After the Snubs
The Weeknd’s boycott stood as the most direct response to the 2021 shutout. Harry Styles used the same period to collect multiple Grammys, including the top prize. BTS extended its presence with three straight years of category recognition before the group nominations stopped. Each trajectory showed how the initial snub did not halt momentum outside the Recording Academy’s process.
Recording Academy Reforms and Diversity Progress
After years of criticism about voter makeup, the Academy reported adding more than 3,000 women to its voting body since 2019 and increased POC representation by 63 percent. Five new categories were approved for the 2027 ceremony, including Asian Pop. The changes addressed some of the representation gaps that had defined earlier cycles, though questions about transparency in the final voting rounds remained.
K-Pop at the Grammys: From BTS to 2026
BTS became the first K-pop act nominated in a major category in 2021. The 2026 field widened that lane further with Rosé of BLACKPINK earning Record and Song of the Year nods for her collaboration with Bruno Mars, and KATSEYE landing a Best New Artist nomination. The shift from a single group entry to multiple women-led projects showed how the genre’s footprint at the awards continued to expand.
Rock and Alternative Category Evolution
The 2021 all-female Best Rock Performance slate and Fiona Apple’s win marked a clear break from the category’s prior history. The Academy kept the two genres in separate categories despite the overlap, and later rule tweaks focused more on eligibility windows than on merging the fields. The 2021 outcome still stands as the clearest signal that the line between rock and alternative had already blurred beyond the old definitions.
The 2021 nominations cycle left a mixed record. Some snubs produced lasting distance between artists and the awards, while others eventually produced wins in later years. Category adjustments and membership changes followed, yet the core skepticism about whether the Grammys reflect the music that actually moves people has not disappeared.
