It’s an awards show that, like so many others, never quite gets it right. And can never possibly please everyone. Nonetheless, the “objective” viewpoint regarding the 2023 Grammy Awards was that one, Beyoncé Knowles, ought to win Album of the Year for Renaissance. A record that plundered and pillaged from the formerly underground, Black gay male-dominated 90s-era house scene with as much delight as Madonna’s “Vogue” (and yes, Beyoncé made that connection by offering a “Vogue”-infused “Queens Remix” of “Break My Soul”). The difference between Madonna doing it and Beyoncé doing it is that, obviously, the latter is Black, so she has a “right” to plunder said loot. And it seems the world can forgive her of anything, including her own forgiveness of Jay-Z cheating on her. Because, after all, it brought rapt listeners Lemonade. Yet another album that the Grammys snubbed at the 2017 awards when they opted to give the Album of the Year vote to Adele for 25.
Unlike fellow Briton Harry Styles, however, Adele couldn’t seem to take the award in good conscience, arriving onstage to make her guilt over winning known as she declared, “I can’t possibly accept this award [yet of course she then did], and I’m very humbled and very grateful and gracious, but my life is Beyoncé, and the album to me, the Lemonade album, Beyoncé, was so monumental, and so well thought-out. And so beautiful and soul-baring and we all got to see another side of you that you don’t always let us see, and we appreciate that. And all us artists adore you. You are our light. And the way that you make me and my friends feel, the way you make my Black friends feel, is empowering, and you make them stand up for themselves. And I love you. I always have. And I always will. I appreciate it.” The Recording Academy, on the other hand, doesn’t appreciate it quite as much, notorious for choosing to laud white boy records or albums that are otherwise totally unknown to the public at large (e.g., Jon Batiste winning Album of the Year at the 2022 edition of the awards show).
They opted for the white boy route this year. And when Styles took the stage, it was clear many wanted him to pull some kind of Cady Heron at the prom moment where he might break the Grammy into pieces to give to all the other nominees—or maybe just in half to bequeath the other part to Beyoncé. But no, Styles, for all the grand displays of self-effacement, was not of the belief, like Adele, that Beyoncé deserved it more than he did—or should even be mentioned at all in the speech. Instead, he felt obliged to say, “This doesn’t happen to people like me very often.” Um, what does that even mean? Success doesn’t come rather easily very often (read: all the time) to cisgender (regardless of queerbaiting tendencies) white males? ‘Cause that’s a goddamn lie, and really not something to conclude in front of an audience full of venomous Beyoncé lovers. Particularly as Beyoncé helped to carve out a genre (for girl group is to boy band as breakout solo career is to being the most standout vocalist in one of those entities) that Styles’ generation would later capitalize on through post-empire music competition “reality” shows like The X Factor, where One Direction was summarily farted out of Simon Cowell’s ass. But, as it is now said, begat of an asshole one day, Grammy Award winner the next.
Plus, “at least” the Recording Academy saw fit to throw Beyoncé a bone by “allowing” her to secure the title of most Grammy wins ever by any artist as a result of awarding her in the categories of Best Dance/Electronic Music Album, Best Dance/Electronic Recording, Best Traditional R&B Performance and Best R&B Song. As for the “controversy” of “Mrs. Carter” not finagling Album of the Year, the thing is, Harry’s House says just as little about the current collective experience as Renaissance (which prefers to rely on musical tropes of the past because of pop culture’s permanent state of hauntology), on which “Queen” Bey also deigns to talk about how everyone should quit their job as she proceeds to siphon unreasonable amounts of cash from them so that they might better demonstrate the extent of their “devotion.” Perhaps being a “Church Girl,” she can only look at dynamics in this way: as either being the worshipper or the worshipped. Revealing herself to be the former for only one “man,” Beyoncé stated in her acceptance speech, “I wanna thank God for protecting me. Thank you, God.”
First of all, vomit. And second of all, how fucking narcissistic to believe that even if there was a god, he gives more of a shit about protecting celebrities than “normals” (granted, that is what evidence appears to prove). But such is the ego of someone at that level in the entertainment industry. What’s more, Beyoncé as a more calculated person than anyone has ever accused Taylor Swift of being is manifest in acceptance speeches past during which she’s stuck to the same script about thanking god and her “beautiful” husband (is she looking at the same man?).
So the real upset, if we’re truly talking “objectivity” as opposed to overwrought deification, was that the Recording Academy still couldn’t bring itself to select an album that’s actually reflective of the present climate, which, in this year’s case, would have been either Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers or Bad Bunny’s Un verano sin ti. But because something about Beyoncé elicits a more crack-licking response, compounded by a white male, um, beating her, we have this level of outrage on the same day a massive earthquake has wiped out thousands in the Turkey-Syria vicinity. But no, here in the United States, Beyoncé’s “loss” is far more upsetting that the loss of life of literally thousands of people. But they’re just ordinaries and ISIS members, so who cares, right?
Back in 2017, when this happened with Lemonade, Adele was, as mentioned before, the most vocal advocate for her idol. Not just in her speech, but even afterward when she tried to vaguely give the benefit of the doubt re: the Recording Academy’s out-of-touch decision-making with the placation, “I just said to [Beyoncé], like, the way that the Grammys works, and the people who control it at the very, very top—they don’t know what a visual album is. They don’t want to support the way that she’s moving things forward with her releases and the things that she’s talking about.” This year, there was no “visual album” (not yet, anyway) to “confuse” the stodgy members of the institution. And Beyoncé was talking about less “controversial” subjects than on Lemonade. But those “capitulations” were apparently still not compelling enough to make them choose her.
The truth is, though, it was “enough” on the Recording Academy’s part to give her the required number of award wins that would bestow her with the record for having the most Grammys. By not ceding Album of the Year, there is at least some acknowledgment of the fact that Beyoncé is, if one wants to be candid, overblown in many ways. And no one seems to want to address that the “empire” she has become was (and remains) built on the backs of many. It takes a literal village to make “Beyoncé” happen, including her songs (see: what Linda Perry said). Most seem to discount that in failing to remember that even the “gods” are capable of frailty—instead holding her up as some beacon of perfection that no human can actually embody—it creates an environment of contempt and hostility among “the fans” (a.k.a. blind worshippers) and those they deem responsible for their god’s “failing” when everything doesn’t automatically go Bey’s way.
To further quote Adele in 2017, “My view is, like, ‘What the fuck does she have to do to win Album of the Year?’ The Grammys are very traditional, but I just thought this year would be the year that they would kind of go with the tide.” In going against it yet again, however, the Recording Academy might unwittingly be onto something…if only they hadn’t counteracted the curveball with Harry’s House as their pick. Hopefully, for Taylor’s sake at the 2024 Grammys—as she’ll surely be nominated many times next year for Midnights—Bey won’t release any new qualifying material that results in yet another Kanye-at-the-2009-VMAs moment. An immortal instant that many were drawing comparisons to when certain audience members at the Crypto.com Arena (which will always be the Staples Center) booed Styles as he accepted the award for Album of the Year. So if nothing else, it can be confirmed that Bey has definitely won the award for triggering white guilt every time they “take” one away from her.
