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Music is easily one of the most subjective topics to debate — which places the Grammy Awards’ Academy members in a constant crossfire.
Major award shows are bound to make mistakes. It’s unavoidable. Our challenge, then, is to sort through the uproar and find nominations that future generations will look back on with either rage or confusion.
Here are seven artists whose nominations seem at least somewhat undeserving, in no particular order.
Cardi B had a monumental year, but “Invasion of Privacy” isn’t album of the year material.
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It’s certainly encouraging to see the Grammys hand five nominations to Cardi B, an unapologetic, unconventional firecracker — whose success reflects the significant shift towards rap and hip hop for modern music fans.
But that doesn’t mean her debut studio album, “Invasion of Privacy,” necessarily deserves the high praise.
While the project hits some very high points — “I Like It,” for example, is perfectly at home in the record of the year category — it was inconsistent as a whole. “Invasion of Privacy” shows great promise for the young, chart-topping rapper, and proves she’s here to stay. But popularity and easy listening doesn’t always equate to “album of the year” potential.
“The Middle” is more annoying than award-winning.
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“The Middle” — the earworm collaboration between DJ Zedd and singer Maren Morris, which you’ve probably heard in a Target commercial — secured three nominations for the 2019 Grammys.
While the song’s commercial success somewhat excuses this lapse in judgment, it would have made more sense to stop at the nod for best pop duo/group performance — without letting it slither into two of the most prestigious categories: record of the year” and song of the year.
Post Malone didn’t need an album of the year nomination.
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To be sure, Post Malone has a talent for hit-making. Giving “Rockstar” a “Record of the Year” nomination makes perfect sense; it’s a perfect song.
But Post Malone doesn’t offer the kind of nuanced, relevant, boundary-pushing music that we’ve come to expect from rappers at the top of their game — and he doesn’t want to. He has explicitly warned his fans not to expect “real s—” from him.
“If you’re looking for lyrics, if you’re looking to cry, if you’re looking to think about life, don’t listen to hip-hop,” he said last year, which is something a person would only say if they’re benefiting from a layered, historically significant genre that they fundamentally don’t understand, a person who’s ignorant about black music and culture.
“Beerbongs & Bentleys” reflects this attitude. It’s an album comprised of mediocre songwriting with catchy hooks and some well-placed, high-profile features. It’s certainly not the “Album of the Year.”
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
See Also:
- Here are all the Grammys 2019 nominations
- The 18 most Grammy-nominated artists of all time
- Cardi B just shared the first photo of her daughter, Kulture, one day after announcing her split from Offset
