You guys just aren’t fans of her music and it’s okay. But trying to justify or find a criteria for the Grammys is a flawed exercise. Notice only people who think she is over awarded are siding with your take. Just think about what you said, Beyonce sold more records than Beck in her first day and her album was just as critically acclaimed. That’s a double whammy. But you’re over here saying that if she didn’t win it would go to Ed, which is entirely the damn point. It’s a random award that goes to whoever that panel of white people wants to award and you’re taking the awkward position of being a black person trying to make sense of it.
If it’s about record sales then it should mirror the billboard awards. If it’s about critical acclaim then an album like Ed’s shouldn’t have been in the category. The argument Beyonce had was that on multiple occasions she had the perfect mix of both and lost. And to your album sales argument, why didn’t that ever apply for Eminem? Why did Frank Ocean lose to Mumford and Sons if it’s about popularity in mainstream music that year? You and others are going to extreme lengths to discredit a black person’s genuine criticism of the randomness of this award. We just watched a white woman win the award 4x over more critically acclaimed artists - we even saw her win during the era of Sasha Fierce where Beyonce was a bigger global star. I just don’t understand why you guys are planting your flag on arguing in favor of the decisions of suspect award show. To Jay Z’s point, “by your own criteria” - you’re creating your own instead of acknowledging the nonsensical nature of theirs.
Her argument was simple - she was the most critical acclaimed artist in the category when Beyonce and Lemonade lost - by far. The latter won the damn Peabody award. If this was the Oscars your argument would be laughable on its face. They literally created their secret panel SPECIFICALLY to make sure artists like her won after Prince lost to Lionel Richie.
I acknowledged the self titled album was her best shot, while pointing out another candidate. I don’t think the Grammys are that random, especially for the big awards. It either goes to the best selling albums, the veteran icon who has won in the past (Herbie Hancock, Robert Plant, etc) or they throw a curveball and go with a critically acclaimed smaller artist to reset credibility (Beck, Arcade Fire).
The difference here for me is that I don’t think this is some social justice issue, I don’t think her music is particularly great, and she regularly loses these awards to bigger artists. Her entire image is based around being the biggest artist and yet she isn’t.
Eminem regularly won in years he sold the most records. Mumford & Sons outsold Frank Ocean. And before someone asks how come black artists don’t benefit from the critical acclaim curveball…as stated earlier Jon Batiste won AOTY in 2022.
At least the Oscars created a category specifically for bad films that make a lot of money, to satisfy the masses. The Grammys doesn’t have nearly the respect that the Oscars do, and even that is largely subjective and regularly ignores masterpieces from the greatest directors (Welles, Hitchcock, Scorsese until they gave him a sympathy award, Spike Lee, etc) in favor of more sentimental mainstream films.
