On Sunday, February 4th, 2024. The 66th annual Grammy music awards took place in the Crypto.com arena in Los Angeles, California.
A lot of awards were presented throughout the night, the first one I want to speak of is “New Artist of the year” which was awarded to Victoria Monet. Monet is a 34 year old singer/song-writer from Atlanta Georgia, who is mostly known for her album “Jaguar II” which has pushed her into the spotlight after having many albums and EPs not come close to the recognition Jaguar has received.
The second award presented that I personally feel was well-deserved was “Song of the year” which was presented to Billie Eilish for “What was I made for” a single which was then placed on the soundtrack for the movie “Barbie”. This is Eilish’s 9th Grammy as she won many awards in 2020, such as “Best pop vocal album”, “Best new artist”, “Record of the year”, “Album of the year”, and “Song of the year”, mostly off of the explosive reception to her album “When we fall asleep, where do we go?”
The third, and first very controversial pick, was “Rap album of the year” which was presented to Killer Mike for his sixth studio album, “Michael” Killer Mike has always been a staple in the older generation of rap artists, as he as been in the rap game for 21+ years as his first album, “Monster” released in March of 2003. This was a very controversial, and even frowned upon decision to choose this album over Travis Scott’s “Utopia”. Michael only peaking at 58 on the US Billboard 200, doesn’t compare to Utopia which reached Number 1 on charts in over 10 countries, which has fans questioning the standard of who wins these awards, especially since album sales were not even in the same realm as, according to Forbes, Killer Mike grossed $1.9 Million dollars in royalties, as Travis Scott grossed $53.5 Million in royalties. With Utopia beating out Michael in every metric that could be recorded, it leaves fans wondering.. what are the award winners based off of?
The final and most talked about topic of the entire award show was the prestigious, “Album of the year” award, while there were many excellent albums to come out this year such as, Kali Uchis; Red moon in Venus, Lana del Rays; Did you know that there’s a tunnel under ocean boulevard, and even “Guts” by Olivia Rodrigo. The album that took home this award was “Midnights” by Taylor Swift, this is Swift’s 14th award, as she has been a staple in the pop community for many years. However, fans would say midnights was almost underwhelming to many listeners. While the Album itself sold over 1 million copies in the first week which is a phenomenal accomplishment. Media outlets such as “X”, “Instagram”, and “Reddit” seemed to have many reviews that believed other artists deserved it, as a common theme in these negative reviews was that the “1989” artist had a sound that has not evolved through all her years of recording. Swift who just finished re-recording her entire catalog and rebranding it “Taylors version” does not seem effected by the criticism much as she is currently on the tail-end of her “Eras” tour.
The Grammys will always be a big deal in the music industry, but there will always be winners, as well as losers. But all in all, until the awards are based on some sort of fan vote, or system where the public chooses the award winners, there will always be complaints.
