When it was announced at the Grammys that Harry Styles had won Album of the Year (AOTY) for Harry’s House, there were collective gasps in the audience and at home: what were the Grammys thinking?
After four nominations and four losses in the category, Beyonce had lost AOTY yet again to a lesser competitor. If the most versatile and innovative artist of our time can’t even win, then do awards even matter?
The answer to this question provides a larger social commentary on diversity and awards shows as a whole. Every major voting body has struggled with diversity in the past year, from NBC refusing to air the Golden Globes due to the HFPA’s lack of black journalists to the Academy Awards snubbing Viola Davis and Danielle Deadwyler in the Best Actress category in favor of Andrea Riseborough, whose film To Leslie wasn’t even a contender until a last-minute push by famous white celebrities.
The Grammys are particularly egregious, consistently limiting artists of color to genre categories such as “Best Dance/Electronic Album” or “Best Rap Album.” Perhaps the Grammys are the biggest offender to Beyonce.
On Sunday, she made history as the most-decorated artist ever with 32 gramophones to her name—yet out of those awards, only one was in a big four category–Song of the Year for “Single Ladies” way back in 2010 (the big four categories being Song of the Year, Record of the Year, Album of the Year and Best New Artist).
At this point, her lack of an Album of the Year award is outright dreadful. Beyonce’s been nominated four times in this category: in 2010 for I am…Sasha Fierce, in 2015 for her self-titled album, in 2017 for Lemonade and again this year for Renaissance. Each snub feels even more outrageous than the last.
In 2010, Beyonce lost to Taylor Swift for Fearless, an album that’s among Swift’s best work but isn’t as popular as 1989 or even as acclaimed as folklore. In 2015, Beyonce lost for her self-titled album to Beck’s Morning Phase (people of my generation are probably wondering who Beck even is). In 2017, in the most shocking loss yet, Beyonce’s Lemonade lost to Adele’s 25, and the latter was so embarrassed for winning the award she proclaimed it was in fact Beyonce’s award even though she was the one on stage.
Most recently, Harry Styles, a former member of the boy band One Direction, won over Beyonce’s Renaissance. Styles proclaimed on stage that “this doesn’t happen to people like me very often” yet history has shown us that’s exactly who wins. All the artists that have won AOTY over Beyonce have been white, and it’s yet another example of white privilege during awards season.
The fact that all these albums have won over Beyonce and haven’t even been as groundbreaking makes the losses hurt even more. I Am…Sasha Fierce spawned the hit single “Single Ladies,” but if the Grammys really liked it, they should’ve put a ring on it. Beyonce’s self-titled album quite literally invented the surprise drop: without it, celebrity promotion cycles wouldn’t be what they are today (Taylor Swift would drop a surprise album with folklore seven years later and that did win Album of the Year). Lemonade, meanwhile, is hailed as Beyonce’s magnum opus: a celebration of Black femininity and African American culture. Lemonade became a cultural icon the minute Beyonce name-dropped “Becky with the Good Hair” and smashed a car window wearing a giant yellow dress in the accompanying film. It was an absolute shock Lemonade didn’t win Album of the Year.
When Beyonce followed up with Renaissance six years later, everyone thought the Recording Academy would finally correct their mistake. But of course, we were mistaken, because the Academy decided to award an album with a single called “Music for a Sushi Restaurant.”
Beyonce’s Renaissance, as per usual, is pioneering and an instant classic: a love letter to dance, Renaissance is a celebration of the queer Black people who invented the genre. Beyonce even acknowledged this in her speech, and the influence is felt front and center all throughout the album with samples ranging from “Explode” by Big Freedia to “Think (About it)” by James Brown. Styles, meanwhile, whose album Harry’s House was influenced by rock, failed to thank the people of color who pioneered the genre.
That’s not to say Styles’ album is bad. Compared to his debut album Harry Styles or his sophomore outing Fine Line, the latter of which was ranked on Rolling Stones’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time,” Harry’s House is less daring and more mainstream.
Meanwhile, every album Beyonce makes is a cultural moment, touching on different genres, different themes and always celebrating other groups that may not have as powerful a voice as Queen Bey herself. Renaissance says it all in the title. It’s an album of cultural change and a celebration of art, but according to the Grammys, it’s Harry’s House, and we’re all just living in it.
As Harry Styles said in his acceptance speech, “I don’t think any of us [artists] sit in the studio and make decisions on what’s going to get us one of these.” Given the Grammys are such a wild card when it comes to guessing who will win the award, that is surely true. But the fact that these awards are still handed out makes it seem like the Grammys ultimately help shape our culture: the fact that they hand out trophies to music that is decidedly mainstream, at least for the most part, gives us an idea of what they are looking for.
The fact that Beyonce has never won Album of the Year is ridiculous. If anyone has helped shape our culture for the past decade, it’s her. It’s unfortunate that the Recording Academy keeps picking lesser nominees over her pioneering works, and even more so that they are all white.
Awards shouldn’t matter, but they do.
Beyonce is now the most-awarded artist in history, but the fact that her awards are limited to genre categories proves that the Grammys are out of touch when it comes to music itself. As Beyonce sings on Renaissance, “you can’t break my soul.” We know Beyonce will keep recording music—music that’s as game-changing as ever.
The Grammys won’t ever bring her down; if anything, she’s transcended them. They just need to get on her level.