I am still not over the grammys...

[PartySick 144,939]

1 minute ago, lg said:

 

I had to  I apologize to the Katy stans

[SlayGagaloo 16,152]

1 hour ago, Cocaine Heart said:

Using  "critically acclaimed"  as a defense and response to everything is quite tiring. 
She won, accept and move on. 

With your logic, Teenage dream (for example) definitely deserved to win AOTY several years ago cos it ****ing slayed

[Whispering 18,865]

18 minutes ago, SlayGagaloo said:

* first of all I just don't take the "he/her bought an award " seriously, but there is still something about this year's Grammy awards that I don't understand. The ceremony was going well until the last award (and the most important one). 

The winning album 1989 was up against four albums that are equally or most of the times more "critically acclaimed" than it, although -commercially- they were nowhere near 1989's success. So my question is why (in your opinion) did they give it to tay -who already has one-  again, but this time for an album that is simply not the best?

P.S I usually don't rely on meatacritic tbh, but have you seen how 'to pimp a butterfly ' or even 'traveller' were received there? 

Traveller was a late addition and he is a new artist. (Solo album) Rap albums traditionally have a tough time winning AOTY, as do Country albums. Only two Rap albums have ever won AOTY and they had crossover hits that we're number ones. 

Different music industry professionals (of which there are close to 6,000) considered 1989 to be the best album overall of the year. All of these professionals bring their individual tastes, preferences and criteria along when they vote on this award. Sometimes it ends up with a surprise, like last year, and sometimes it goes to the album that was everywhere and that everyone knew about. There really isn't anyway to know which way the voting will go from year to year. 

[LoveandMagic 1,731]

I don't believe in conspiracy theories when it comes to the Grammy's. Whether it was the "right" decision of the committee to make, I couldn't tell you. I would personally like to know their process when it comes to selecting an winner, like what factors are more crucial to their decision then others, I think it's more complicated than simple sales or Metascores. Something in 1989 they thought was more worthy of the reward than others, and it may turn out to have been a really close race between it and others. I know it's frustrating to some that feel others were more deserving, but it is what it is.  

[Gov Hooka 8,008]

It is an abomination that the album won. Kendrick should've and Alabama Shakes had an AMAZING album as well. disgusted...

[En_Sabah_Nur 9,356]

I honestly don't no why anyone is even surprised about this!!  Ray Charles could have seen Taylor winning this, and he's blind & dead!  SMH   She wins almost EVERY award she is ever up for & has been doing so for years now!!!  The minute I saw that she was up for album of the year, I already knew what the outcome was.  I could have bet a TON of money on it actually!!  *shrugs*

[OMonster 14,579]

For the sole sake of critical acclaim, I feel that pop as a genre is terribly undermined. It is incredibly difficult to produce an album that is immersed in pop culture. To receive mainstream acclaim is far worthier than critical acclaim. Entertaining millions of listeners is a bigger feat than entertaining a small, pretentious minority: a minority that is easy to reach through said pretentiousness. 

The fact is, 1989 is something of a rarity: it's an album filled with hits for the masses. OK, it's not revolutionary, it's not particularly cultural or political - but it serves as a prime example of music as a uniting, light-hearted force. 

I do however agree that a pop cultural hit shouldn't equate to such a coveted award. Some of Katy's albums for example, in my opinion, would be (though commercially successful) unworthy of the Grammy. What's different about 1989 is it's authenticity, lyrical content and technological production. Taylor is a very traditional songwriter; there are no executive meetings to write a song - she'll write them at home, on a train, in the bath. It's an organic process (similar to more credible artists) that just so happens to spawn mainstream hits. It would be wrong to use her commercial success as undermining quality that denies her the Grammy - her work deserves it. 

[PopBitch 1,218]

1 hour ago, LG said:

Because the Grammys love commercial success

Beck's Morning Phase begs to differ.

[Whispering 18,865]

1 hour ago, En_Sabah_Nur said:

I honestly don't no why anyone is even surprised about this!!  Ray Charles could have seen Taylor winning this, and he's blind & dead!  SMH   She wins almost EVERY award she is ever up for & has been doing so for years now!!!  The minute I saw that she was up for album of the year, I already knew what the outcome was.  I could have bet a TON of money on it actually!!  *shrugs*

You would have lost that bet the year Red was nominated. Obviously, she doesn't win every award. 

[En_Sabah_Nur 9,356]

12 minutes ago, Whispering said:

You would have lost that bet the year Red was nominated. Obviously, she doesn't win every award. 

I said MOST, not ALL...   But I bet you I would win those bets, more than I would lose!  *shrugs*

[Raikov 183]

If commercial success equates to a Grammy, I don't see why Teenage Dream wouldn't have won any awards. 1989 is an even more polished version of Teenage Dream - an immaculately crafted pop record that pushes absolutely nobody out of their comfort zones. Any arguments defending 1989's musical integrity also apply to Teenage Dream.

And if commercial success really were the be-all and end-all of the AOTY award, why did Beck win it last year over Beyonce?

Like all award shows, the Grammys are awful measures of actual talent and artistic value. Pitbull now has a Grammy, for chrissakes. Awards should be treated as nothing more than a feather in one's cap. Alfred Hitchcock's never won an Oscar, yet people don't use that as an argument against him.

It's a shame that some great works of art aren't given awards, but the best award is standing the test of time. No political wrangling among a committee can take that away from you (though you'll probably be dead by the time that happens 

[chiuga 1,952]

Over the last couple of years there's been a pattern of awarding the title to a commercial album followed by an alternative album.

From 2010:

Taylor Swift

Arcade Fire

Adele

Mumford & Sons

Daft Punk

Beck

Taylor Swift

There goes the opportunity for Gaga to win album of the year . Even if they break this rule, she still needs to take on 25 by Adele. 

[LanasNerfGun 4,679]

I heard Kendrick's album received high critical acclaim and while that's important I don't think it was enough to trump Taylor's both praise and success (multiple #1 singles).  Honestly I never heard anyone talking about Kendrick's album until just a few weeks ago.  Maybe if he had just one successful single in the Hot100 he would have snatched AOTY.

[Whispering 18,865]

4 hours ago, En_Sabah_Nur said:

I said MOST, not ALL...   But I bet you I would win those bets, more than I would lose!  *shrugs*

You think? Taylor has been nominated for 29 Grammys and has won 10 of those awards. That means two-thirds of the time you would have lost those bets. 

Like most artists at the Grammys, no one is ever a sure bet. 

[StrawberryBlond 14,102]

On 17/02/2016 at 9:43 PM, Cocaine Heart said:

Using  "critically acclaimed"  as a defense and response to everything is quite tiring. 
She won, accept and move on. 

The problem is that about 98% of the time, the album that wins the award is the most critically acclaimed one out of all the nominees. And Kendrick's stood out head and shoulders above the others in that regard. The only non-critically acclaimed album to have won (that I researched anyway) was Taking The Long Way by Dixie Chicks in 2007. Which was more mixed reception, but there was a lot of negative reviews too. It doesn't really have the critical resume of an AOTY, that's all I'm saying. But that's about it. That's why the winner usually isn't a surprise, technically - just research which album had the most critical praise beforehand and you've pretty much confirmed the winner. The academy generally go for the one that the critics fawned over the most, for obvious reasons (they'll look like they don't know what they're talking about and like they disagree with fellow music professionals if they don't). That's why it's so suspicious. Also, there was considerable unrest when Kanye's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy wasn't nominated for AOTY back in 2012 despite having lots of other nominations, having outstanding critical acclaim and being considered by the critics and public alike to be a landmark release. One critic said it was "by far the best reviewed album in many years: the critical community flipped out over it like nothing since Radiohead’s zenith. And it sold well, over 1.2 million so far. So what happened? How is it Grammys overlooked Kanye’s magnum opus and gave noms to four sonic widgets and Adele's 21?" The Grammys extreme inconsistency at times is wearing thin.

My main issue is that she won barely anything for this album and yet took home AOTY (same thing for Arcade Fire). It makes no sense. If it was so amazing, why didn't it win more awards? You'll notice that all the winners of AOTY bar a very select few, all took home a lot of awards as well as AOTY. As such they should - if it's the best album, it should be winning all the awards! It blows my mind how an album can only win 2 awards for its musical content (the third was for a video) and yet one of those can be AOTY...while other albums win more awards for their musical content yet fail to win AOTY. How can the judges think one way all night and then switch allegiance for the most important award of all?

On 17/02/2016 at 9:50 PM, Mister Gaga said:

Grammys has nothing to do with quality. It's a popularity contest. You want to watch them? fine, but you know what's coming. Lana Del Rey has 1 nomination, while Katy Perry has 13 nominations. 

In very rare occasions, popularity matches real talent (Adele, The Weeknd, Gaga)

That's the best way of putting it. Yeah, the fact Lana has barely any nominations despite having more critical acclaim than the 13-time nominated Katy exposes the truth about what really increases your chances of getting a nomination. When an artist stops being successful, they usually stop getting nominated. You'll notice that the only songs Katy gets nominated for are her biggest hits, even though she's released more mature Grammy bait ballads like Thinking Of You and Unconditionally. But those songs flopped, so that means no nomination. She only gets nominated for singles that went #1 or top 10, hence why only 2 of her singles from Prism got nominated.. That's certainly how it operates for the popstar categories anyway.