By Luke Williamson
Executive Staff
Refreshingly, the 2018 Grammy Awards were charmingly sanitized.
The Recording Academy knew exactly what they were doing when they neglected to award album of the year to Beyonce in 2015, Kendrick Lamar in 2016, and Beyonce yet again in 2017. Thankfully, they have continued to read millions of American minds in 2018.
In the face of Childish Gambino, Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, and Lorde, it was Bruno Mars who took home the coveted album of the year award with his indie, underground, and refreshingly original sound displayed throughout “24K Magic.”
Neither Khalid nor SZA (artists who produced meaningless, trite albums) won the best new artist of the year award, instead, Alessia Cara, who liberated mankind with her musical pieces, took home the best new artist of the year award.
The Academy’s keen grasp on American musical taste–understanding that millions of Americans prefer bland, upbeat, peppy music–continues to inspire millions around the nation. (Back in November, the ridiculous amount of Hip Hop nominations had Americans deeply concerned, but there was nothing to worry about! The Recording Academy knows us too well.)
Cardi B did not perform her record-setting single “Bodak Yellow,” but instead performed with Bruno Mars in his lyrically nuanced and deeply meaningful song, “Finesse.” The powerful and vulnerable nature of Bruno Mars’s album “24K Magic” far surpassed Lorde’s “Melodrama,” an album nominated for album of the year, making Lorde the youngest woman ever nominated in said category.
Both SZA and Jay-Z went into the Award Ceremony with the most nominations for women and men, respectively. Despite SZA’s five nominations and Jay-Z’s eight, both artists were completely shut out; the disarmingly personal content of both albums, thank goodness, was not given undue attention. What a relief!
Rather than awarding Kesha with best pop solo performance for her song “Praying” (a song fueled by her triumph over sexual assault), Ed Sheeran took home a Grammy for his poignant and revolutionary song titled “Shape of You.”
J’verage Aoe (C’20) shared, “I’m just happy to see that the Grammys are finally valuing artists and musical masterpieces that are as vulnerable as they are politically and socially relevant — like “Shape of You.” The garbage that artists like Kesha crank out is nothing more than monopolization on social fads like the #metoo movement, and frankly, I’m happy to see the shift towards content that actually matters … like “Shape of You!”