“As selected by the 13,000 voting members of the Recording Academy…”
Did you discover that little bit of verbiage on the 67th Grammy Awards on Sunday night time? Each time somebody offered one of many present’s main prizes — album of the yr, file of the yr, tune of the yr, greatest new artist — she or he rattled off the road earlier than revealing the winner.
It was a small however telling element that demonstrated how the academy desires to be perceived after years of being portrayed as a shadowy record-industry cabal. Dogged by criticism that it routinely undervalues the work of ladies and folks of shade, the group currently has sought to convey the message that selections concerning the Grammys aren’t made in a smoky again room however by the hundreds of music professionals who belong to the group.
Not solely that, however the academy has repeatedly emphasised — together with on Sunday’s present, the place Chief Government Harvey Mason Jr. hammered the purpose in a speech — that its citizens has developed by welcoming youthful and extra numerous members (and, by extension, by booting older and whiter ones).
Perhaps it’s working.
On Sunday, Beyoncé lastly gained album of the yr, the Grammys’ most prestigious award, with “Cowboy Carter,” her scholarly but intrepid exploration of the Black roots of nation music. It was the pop celebrity’s fifth attempt in a decade and a half for a prize that Taylor Swift gained an unprecedented 4 occasions in that very same stretch — and the primary time a Black lady has taken the award since Lauryn Hill in 1999.
“It’s been many, many years,” Beyoncé mentioned with a realizing little chuckle as she accepted the trophy, which she devoted to Linda Martell, the pioneering Black feminine nation singer who makes a visitor look on “Cowboy Carter.” “I hope we just keep pushing forward, opening doors,” she added, taking her place as solely the fourth Black lady to win album of the yr (after Hill, Whitney Houston and Natalie Cole) within the Grammys’ 67-year-history.
Different indicators of systemic change Sunday night time: Kendrick Lamar’s wins for file and tune of the yr with “Not Like Us,” the climactic volley from the Compton rapper’s epic beef with Drake. The festive diss monitor, which led Drake to file a federal lawsuit final month accusing each males’s file firm of defamation, is simply the second hip-hop monitor to hold every of these classes (after Infantile Gambino’s “This Is America” gained file and tune in 2019).
After which there was the academy’s extremely theatrical reconciliation with the Weeknd, who’d vowed in 2021 to boycott the Grammys after his smash single “Blinding Lights” was denied even a single nomination. The Canadian pop-soul star, who’d mentioned he was protesting a corrupt voting course of, carried out with out advance discover Sunday proper after Mason’s spiel, during which the CEO described the Weeknd as “someone who has seen the work the academy has put in.” (He’s additionally somebody with a brand-new album to advertise).
But the story with the night time’s massive winner is extra difficult than a feel-good story of institutional overhaul. As a lot because the Recording Academy has tailored to Beyoncé, the singer in some ways tailored to the academy in making “Cowboy Carter.”
Filled with hand-played acoustic devices and gestures towards varied historic traditions, it’s a Grammy album that has much more in frequent than Beyoncé’s earlier work with earlier album of the yr winners by the likes of Norah Jones, Herbie Hancock, the Dixie Chicks, Beck — even, dare I say it, Mumford & Sons.
Granted, Beyoncé is utilizing these sounds in service of a definite narrative; “Cowboy Carter” is about household and lineage and who’s entitled to a way of American belonging. (If I bear in mind accurately, Mumford & Sons sang largely about haberdashery.) However by taking on an explicitly roots-oriented method, she was trying to make a degree concerning the Grammys’ worth system — daring voters, basically, to not give her the prize so we may see the hierarchies in place.
That’s to not say she didn’t need to take dwelling album of the yr. “A-O-T-Y, I ain’t win,” she sings on “Cowboy Carter,” referring to her loss on the Grammys with 2022’s clubby “Renaissance,” “Take that s— on the chin / Come back and f— up the pen.” And no person plans a live performance as detailed because the one Beyoncé gave throughout halftime of a Christmas Day NFL recreation — simply as academy members have been filling out their ballots — with out hoping for some form of return on her funding. (Early Monday, the singer introduced that she’ll take “Cowboy Carter” on the street, beginning with 4 exhibits at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium in late April.)
So who exactly secured Beyoncé’s path to victory? Was it the brand new voters that Mason says he’s introduced into the fold or was it old-timers for whom Beyoncé’s music lastly made sense? I’m inclined to suppose it was somewhat of each. Along with album of the yr, “Cowboy Carter” gained the nation album prize Sunday — Beyoncé’s priceless surprise-face turned an instantaneous meme — which meant she had loads of Nashville assist. In response to academy guidelines, a member can vote in solely three genres, so this possible wasn’t a case of pop outsiders flooding the zone to elevate Beyoncé above established nation stars like Chris Stapleton and Lainey Wilson.
However I additionally suspect that amongst these 13,000 have been many musicians who’ve grown up in Beyoncé’s shadow and easily felt that it was her time — that she’d been denied the flagship Grammy on too many events and that the historic file wanted to be set straight.
Which certainly it did. “Cowboy Carter” is just not Beyoncé’s best album; it’s not my favourite of her albums, both, though it does get splendidly bizarre close to the tip in songs like “II Hands II Heaven” and “Sweet Honey Buckiin’” that think about nation music as a form of celestial trance expertise. However it’s an album, as Beyoncé recommended in her acceptance speech, that opens doorways. I’d wager Martell, who’s 83, took some pleasure within the shout-out.
