Album of the year misses once again

This year’s Grammy Awards has brought about disappointment for many artists and listeners alike, as “Harry’s House” by Harry Styles won the highly coveted Album of the Year award in a controversial decision that has sparked criticism toward the Recording Academy. This year, I decided to listen to all of the nominated albums to properly evaluate the Grammys, and I, like many others, struggle to understand their choice.

I am a strong believer in music’s quality being measured entirely subjectively, so my goal was not to assess which albums were best, but the albums that were most deserving of the award for being exceptionally innovative or groundbreaking. Among the 10 nominees this year, four stood out as frontrunners to win the award.

Kendrick Lamar’s “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers” acts as both a confessional of Lamar’s personal wrongdoings and a story of the different points throughout his life that shaped him. He seeks to tell audiences that he is merely human and that the idolization of influential people is harmful both to those figures and to the individuals that idolize them.

Beyoncé’s “RENAISSANCE” and Lizzo’s “Special” are both expertly produced projects that emphasize the importance of comfort in one’s own skin and bend the conventions of their typical genres to develop new sounds for themselves and create outstanding works. Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti” is arguably a masterpiece that displays the artist’s lyrical, vocal and productional prowess across 23 songs that include elements of over a dozen genres. The album was also streamed more than any other in 2022 and was the first album performed entirely in Spanish to be nominated for the Album of the Year award.

“Un Verano Sin Ti” is a collection of songs that cover an extensive range of topics, from love to the gentrification of Bad Bunny’s home country, Puerto Rico. Each told a story that has not been told before in remarkably inventive ways that were highly influential to the music industry.

“Harry’s House” was undoubtedly an enjoyable listen. I recall listening to it the week it was released and relistening only a few hours before writing this article and enjoying the album both times. Unlike many of the other nominees, however, it was lyrically and sonically very similar to his past solo projects, such as 2019’s “Fine Line” and 2017’s self-titled “Harry Styles.” Quite frankly, it’s a story that’s been told before, not just by other artists, but by Styles himself.

There is nothing wrong with making music that is solely for audience’s enjoyment, but it seems counteractive to the purpose of the award to choose this album as the best of the year. Beyoncé and Lamar have both been nominated for this same award four times prior to this year’s Grammy Awards and have both lost each time, several of which were in similar fashion to their losses this year. At the 58th Grammy Awards, Lamar’s “To Pimp A Butterfly”—widely considered to be one of the best hip-hop albums of all time—lost to Taylor Swift’s “1989.” At the 59th Grammys in 2017, Beyoncé’s “Lemonade,” one of the most influential albums of the 21st century and arguably her best work, lost to Adele’s “25.” Both awards sparked similar controversy towards the Grammys for accusations of exploiting the nominations of artists of color for viewership without the payoff of giving them their most prestigious award.

While Beyoncé and Lamar did each collect three awards—making Beyoncé the winningest artist in Grammy history—these awards were all within their individual categories of Dance/Electronic and R&B for Beyoncé and Rap for Lamar. At the Grammys celebration of 50 years of hip-hop, no nominee from the genre won anything outside of its category. With repeated instances like these, it’s difficult to maintain faith in the Grammys and their ability to fairly assess the music that is most appropriate for this award.

I’ll once again emphasize that the measure of music’s quality is entirely subjective, but for what is lauded as the most prestigious awards show, one might think that they would be more thoughtful in their decision making process.