Acoustic Avenues: the Grammys or the Scammys?

In this weekly column, senior Emily Thomas provides her take on a new albums, concerts, and artists.

Ana Toro, Assistant Interactive Media Editor
April 8, 2022

The Grammys are the highest awards that can be given to an artist in the music industry. They are the Oscars of music. Over the years there has been controversy, however, over these awards due to the way they have treated the artists who really deserved an award and didn’t get one. Many have coined the term as a snub and called the Grammys the “Scammys.” The reason I mention this is because once nomination season comes around for the Grammys is usually when fans start to complain about who gets them.

The biggest categories for these awards are always Song of the Year, Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and Best New Artist. The winner for song and record of the year was “Leave The Door Open” by Silk Sonic. The winner for best album was We Are by Jon Batiste, and the best new artist was Olivia Rodrigo.

“Leave The Door Open” was deserving of its win as well as Olivia Rodrigo was of her win. Though I am not a huge fan of hers, I believe she did make a huge impact on the industry and the world, automatically making her a shoe-in for this award. Silk Sonic deserved theirs as well for their incredible song. Their reactions to getting their awards were very funny as well.

The category I had an issue with was Album of the Year. I respect Jon Batiste as an artist, and his album We Are was good, but it was not good enough to have won this award. The album itself is ok at best. There were so many other albums nominated that were more deserving of this award like Taylor Swift’s Evermore, Doja Cat’s Planet Her, Lil Nas X’s Montero, and Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever.

The only problem with this category wasn’t just the winner, but it was the nominees. Justin Bieber and Kanye West namely. Both are huge artists whose names carry a lot of weight in the industry, and I believe that is the only reason why their albums got nominated at all because neither album was good enough to have gotten these nominations. Those nominations could have been given to any other artist who was more deserving of it and who have never been nominated. They could have had a chance to have some appreciation behind their names and albums.

Despite some of the issues with the categories, the performances were fun to see. I especially enjoyed Lil Nas X’s performance with Jack Harlow. BTS and Silk Sonic also had pretty cool performances. The one performance that felt like it really lacked any spark or emotion was J Balvin and Maria Becerra’s performance. She is a relatively new artist from Argentina and it was obvious that she is not very familiar with performing on such an important stage. And, though I appreciated J Balvin coming to represent Colombia, I felt that his performance was tacky at best. The one thing I always look for in these performances is to see how these artists sound live, but Balvin and Becerra are clearly better off in the studio with their autotune.

One thing I really appreciated about this year’s nominees for Best Urbana Album was that all of them were either Puerto Rican or Colombian. It felt good to see these countries getting the recognition they deserve for the musical talent they provide. Bad Bunny’s album El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo won this award deservedly.

I want to lastly talk about the performance done by Leslie Odom Jr., Rachel Zegler, Cynthia Erivo, and Ben Platt. They performed during the memorial part of the awards ceremony to honor those in the industry who have passed away. This part of the show is already emotional as it is but when you add the voices of these four incredible singers, it brings you to tears. I didn’t realize how beautiful Zegler’s voice was or how good she sounded singing with Odom Jr. The same goes for Erivo and Platt. Their voices just meshed perfectly, creating a beautiful ode to the legacy of those who lost their lives.

The most memorable moment of this whole debacle wasn’t the music, though. It was the message that President Zelensky delivered to the artists via a video he made. In it he asks for the music to never stop and the beauty of music to continue. Silence is never the answer, he says. After this, John Legend proceeded to perform with Ukrainian artists Siuzanna Iglidan, Mika Newton, and Lyuba Yakimchuck.

The Grammys will never be a show that isn’t controversial, especially now when it feels like music isn’t what it used to be. Despite this, however, we must look beyond its flaws and appreciate the music for what it is and how it makes us feel.