(Credits: Far Out / Recording Academy)
Fri 7 November 2025 0:30, UK
You might not care about the Grammys every single year.
Maybe it’s the way with all award seasons now, that the self-congratulating backslapping we’re forced to witness becomes more unbearable by the year. Or maybe it’s the domination of certain artists, whose names seem to be in the running without interruption, whether their album is worthy or not.
Because in writing this article, and diving into the archives of the Grammy Awards, I’ve quickly noticed just how homogenised the landscape of its nominees has become. Since 2010, Taylor Swift has been nominated for ‘Album of the Year’ seven times and won it on four occasions. On nominations alone, she’s one year shy of receiving a nomination every other year in the category, and despite the underwhelming reception her latest record has received, she’s likely to get another one this year.
In that time frame, Beyoncé has had five nominations, Kendrick Lamar four and a host of other big-name artists coming in with two or three to their name. Of course, on many occasions, particularly in the case of Beyoncé and Lamar, those nominations are completely warranted.
But what the Grammys seek to serve in doing this is a centralised place where major label artists can be pitted against each other in an almost sporting way. The likes of which music doesn’t usually allow for its subjectivity. Grab your popcorn, take a seat and tune in to the Grammys and see Taylor Swift and Beyoncé battle it out for ‘Album of the Year’. That’s very much the mission statement of the awards.
So when an album that represents the alternative and brings a much-needed sense of balance to the nominations ends up winning, the reactive world of online fandom fails to care. A point proven best in 2015, when Beck pipped Beyoncé, Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran and Pharrell to the post, by winning for his record Morning Phase.
Modern-day pearls were clutched, and overnight popstars were caught asking, “Who?!” as the iconic and longstanding songwriter tentatively walked on stage to grab his award. Admittedly, fans of his more surrealist work were equally as confused, for they never thought he would worm his way into the consciousness of modern award panels, but his more conventional approach to Morning Phase helped defy that.
But ultimately, it was a much-needed pledge of faith in the art of songwriting. The idea that the music comes first, and acts as the primary source of judgment, as opposed to the power of the said artists’ marketing campaign.
To say it’s a record no one cares about fills me with as much frustration as those incensed by Beck’s actual win. Because the carelessness isn’t born from the album, it represents a disillusionment towards commercialism within the music industry. Instead, its carelessness is born from the opposite.
The obsession with watching global icons have their famed status cemented by an award season win renders records made for genuinely expressive purposes useless within the mainstream discourse. So, if you choose not to care about the Grammys this year, well then, I don’t blame you.
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