This happens to guys like Harry Styles all the time, actually
After taking home Album of the Year, Harry Styles' ill-advised acceptance speech only highlighted the Recording Academy's worst instincts
Aux News harry styles
Whether you watched the Grammys last night or woke up to a Twitter peppered with promises of a “race war,” you probably know by now: Harry Styles’ Harry’s House beat out Beyoncé’s Renaissance for Album Of The Year in what was widely considered a colossal snub. Despite the outrage it fostered, most didn’t categorize Styles’ win as anything close to a surprise—at this point, some sort of egregious fuckery is as essential to the ceremony as a Trevor Noah hosting spot.
Backlash arrived swiftly and severely: a journalist present at the event documented tense silence captivating an emptying room, while a few dissidents shouted “Beyoncé.” Adele herself was far from chuffed. But one tidbit from Styles’ decidedly flustered acceptance speech drew extensive criticism: Styles’ assertion that “this doesn’t happen to people like me very often.”
What Styles ostensibly points to here is his working-class U.K. heritage; despite the industry adoration he’s enjoyed since the early Simon Cowell-coached days, he was no nepotism baby and grew up working at a local bakery. His point has some merit: he sold out fifteen straight nights at Madison Square Garden, tapped into a certain ubiquitous liquid gold with “As It Was,” and has far and away proven himself to be the most enduring and interesting member of One Direction a decade on. But Harry’s House isn’t even Styles’ best album; Renaissance is a generational work. In his ill-chosen words, Styles points to a problem with the Recording Academy that proves more entrenched every day: Black women don’t get the respect they deserve.
The fact is, “this” happens to guys like Harry Styles all the time. The Recording Academy relishes in lauding white, male artists who approach queerness and diversity the same way a Target display does during pride month: as something to be sanitized, perfected, and mass-distributed. Otherwise, why not instead pass over Renaissance for Bad Bunny’s bubbling history-maker Un Verano Sin Ti, which outpaced Harry’s House in both sales and streams.
Styles’ speech fell at the apex of an awards show that couldn’t stop contradicting itself. The unabashed queer joy of Renaissance was dismissed on the same evening Kim Petras became the first transgender woman ever to win a Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, and Beyoncé made history as the most-awarded artist of all time, directly thanking the queer community in her speech. Seminal Three 6 Mafia MC Gangsta Boo, who died on New Year’s Day, was excluded from an In Memoriam segment the same year hip-hop luminaries gathered to honor the 50th anniversary of the genre in a near-universally acclaimed segment. And in the same year Lizzo—who cut her teeth as a rapper, and a skillful one at that—received Big Four recognition for TikTok favorite “About Damn Time,” not a single woman was nominated in the Best Rap Album category. When the awards bracket for a genre the 2023 Grammys specifically highlights still only barely reflects its artistic makeup nearly a decade after the horror that was 2014, the issue is indelible, not incidental. (At the very least, the Academy didn’t dare make a similar, Jack Harlow-shaped mistake this year, and held space for a genuinely beautiful Takeoff tribute.)
Whether it’s Blackness, femininity, queerness, or the intersection of the three, the Grammys ruthlessly cut corners in the name of appealing to the masses, all under the guise of uplifting music that “brings us all together.” Styles shouldn’t be faulted for winning an award he was nominated for: furthermore, he can’t be blamed for expressing pride over his work, or his journey to this point in his career. But to award Styles AOTY over an opus like Renaissance, a worldwide smash like Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti, or even a career-shifting statement from a tried and true Grammy favorite like Adele’s 30, only exemplifies the Recording Academy’s hollow sentimentality. Intoxicated on the saccharine fumes of industry progress wrought by others, the Grammys have again failed to actually do the work.
195 Comments
“The unabashed queer joy of Renaissance was dismissed…”…was it though? Really? To not win is to be utterly dismissed?
“Whether it’s Blackness, femininity, queerness, or the intersection of
the three, the Grammys ruthlessly cut corners in the name of appealing
to the masses…”Maybe I’m confused — don’t people vote on this? It’s not like the producers focused-grouped the winner in an attempt to hit all four quadrants.
Ah yes the “queer joy” of the music produced by a woman happy to perform for the elite of a lethally homophobic country to add a handful of small change millions to her coffers.Thanks Bey, Thanks AV Club, what *allies*.
They had *that* outrage cued up in case she won
Also…Harry is queer! Is his music not joyful and queer because he is white? Huh? I actually wanted Beyonce to win album of the year but all this trashing Harry Styles who had a very successful album and tour does not sit right with me. Harry’s House was everywhere this year. And its a good album!
Well at least Harry’s catching the strays for all the Beyonce fans who were pissed that Bonnie Raitt won Song of the Year. Yes, Lemonade was snubbed, but let’s not act like her current stuff is on the same level.
I said it at the time but I really think putting Lemonade only on Tidal and no other streaming service cost Beyonce that year.
Since I don’t understand the whole Lemonade snub thing, I decided to look at the track list for Lemonade today. I realized that I have never heard a single song on that album. Is Tidal to blame for that, or is it the fact that the songs just didn’t play?
Renaissance absolutely is. It was a tour de force of an album and explored a genre that frankly Beyonce didnt have to explore, which really on makes the leap both bold and successful. Hell, i thought Kendrick losing the award 4 times and Bad Bunny also losing were the #2 and #3 choices, but we see time and time again how little they think about hip-hop, international and dance/electronic music in a critical or popular sense
no
Are you fucking kidding me? Renaissance is all straight bangers, no filler.
You might want to get your head checked.
no
Renaissance I think is her at the best yet. That album just keeps giving with every listen.
no
She just made a hip-house knockoff record, like Drake. There’s not a goddamn thing new on her album, it’s like a loose remake of Now That’s What I Call Music 1986.
Is he wearing a bippy-top?
This is what happens when awards success and failure is determined by a group who, it would appear, don’t even particularly like music.
Your fave didn’t win, so it must be racism. And you’re complaining that someone else didn’t do the work?
Isn’t this a bit like whining that some MCU movie won the Oscar instead of a Disney live action re-make?
Seminal MC Gangsta Boo was snubbed from an In Memoriam segment the same year hip-hop luminaries gathered to honor the 50th anniversary of the genre.Leaving out Gangsta Boo was crazy. I’d also comment on the number of men who’ve abused women in that performance, but that could be said about any given Grammys broadcast across a number of genres.
At least Harry Styles is an actual 2023 mega-star. Beck’s win was the latest in a long tradition of the Grammys honoring aging rockers 20 years outside their primes for albums no one cared about.
I would say I’m a Beck fan but that was just…a bad choice. That album was not consequential in any way.
He should of won for Sea Change his best album.
Yeah, Morning Phase won because Sea Change didn’t.
What a brave piece to have written. People should win awards for being diverse apparently. Sooooo brave.
Has a reasonable person every used the phrase “for being diverse” to describe a human being?
Who knows.
shut the fuck up
No, you’re a mentally ill old woman.
shut the fuck up
“But to award Styles AOTY over an opus like Renaissance, a worldwide smash like Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti, or even a career-shifting statement from a tried and true Grammy favorite like Adele’s 30″
I mean, sales is specifically not a criteria for album of the year, nor are extrinsic considerations like it being a career shifting statement or essentially meaningless ones like someone calling it it an opus.To me, it’s not surprising that an album that was intended to be a backward-looking tribute to the work of other artists was not all that interesting or cohesive an artistic statement on it’s own merits. You’re still allowed to like it more than Styles’ stuff.
Thank you.Not everyone is going to look at an album with 10-16 tracks built from 400-600 previously-recorded samples as a generation opus.
Harry needed to study Adele’s appropriately contrite /s speech when she beat out Beyonce. But I’m guessing he didn’t expect to win.
“Harry needed to study Adele’s appropriately contrite /s speech when she beat out Beyonce.”
He literally did NOTHING wrong.
Oh come on – should everyone who beats out Beyonce for an award be required to preface their acceptance with a boilerplate apology for taking what everyone knows was rightly hers? And on this night in particular, where she won four others and became the most-awarded artist of all time??
Or we could just bring in Ye to do it.
In Australia, before any event we say an acknowledgment of country, and state that land was never ceded from our indigenous population.Maybe for they can do similar thing, where they apologise for taking an award obviously stolen from Beyonce.Every Emmy, Oscar, BAFTA, or Nobel prize for mathematics, just a quick 2 sentence apology.
I messed up and embedded the /s within my post vs at the end.
I was hoping that was the case. With some of the crazy shit that gets posted around here it can be hard to tell.
These were supposed to be GenXers, though (note the flannel). I doubt there’s a GenXer left on the AVClub staff. Nathan Rabin and his crowd are long gone.
Sad but true. I mean, I don’t know what’s in Adele’s mind, maybe she really is such a Beyonce fan that she felt compelled to say all that when she won, but honestly it came across as forced.
It shouldn’t even have been necessary, yet here we are.
It was sarcasm
Yeah, he should. Beyonce has done more for culture and society than a million Harry Styles, and their violence against black music. White men like Styles have been stealing and robbing black musicians for decades. He should have backed out after he was nominated. But like all mediocre white men, he thinks he deserves everything he’s achieved on the backs of marginalized people.
Yes, god forbid anyone on earth win over Beyonce, the Jesus Christ of pop music. Let us all apologize for her loss, amen.
He said he has been inspired by everyone in the category. He said there is no best when it comes to music.
you probably know by now: Harry Styles’ Harry’s House beat out Beyoncé’s Renaissance for Album Of The Year in what was widely considered a colossal snub.No, I actually don’t know, because based on everything I’ve read Styles absolutely deserved the win and this wasn’t the massive snub AV Club is trying to make it out to be.
He didn’t and it was tho
Jeebus. Who fucking cares. Just tell us who to be outraged at and subsequently cancel so we can get on with our day.
Modern AVC should just have a newsletter with “here’s who you have to hate today to be on the more culturally acceptable right side™, and here’s just enough context for you to get your zinger tweets out. Have a nice day!”
Sounds like you’ve decided who to hate all by your lonesome
You really just put a trademark symbol— next to the phrase “right side.”🙄Have fun convincing yourself you’re better at all this than AVC writers! 😀 😀 😀
I’m supposed to be mad about nepo babies, strangers’ genitals, and nepo babies’ strange genitals. Apparently.
I know right, and I’m supposed to be mad liars got pulled of intelligence committee’s. Fucking sad right?
I’m too busy being disappointed in my own genitals to worry about other peoples.
Did you read that sports car article on Jalopnik?
Apparently reading skills aren’t your big thing… 😀 😀 😀
Strangers With Genitals sounds like a pilot on Comedy Central.
See, I was excited, because a few days ago, we were supposed to be Anti-Beyoncé, because she performed in the Middle East. (As someone who never got into her music, this possibility was exciting for me.) Now we’re supposed to be lamenting her lack of awards for a generational celebration of the minority culture she was supposedly eschewing and abandoning by performing over there in the first place? It’s a lot to keep up with.
It’s not even a lack of awards, since she literally just broke the record for number of Grammies won. It’s just this one award.
If Beyoncé doesn’t win the Best Album award specifically, then there is clearly a hateful conspiracy against her because she’s *checks notes* the curatorial messiah of a misunderstood generation. Is that right? Did I do good?————Also, and to no one in particular, I quit. This site is trash now. Bye!
To you in particular: you will be missed— until you’re back here whining and triggered again tomorrow! 😀 😀 😀
See ya next week!
“See, I was excited, because a few days ago,” you couldn’t let go of a site that supposedly annoys you and offends your sensibilities— just like you can’t today?:D 😀 😀 :D[Sidenote: yes, we all know that Dubai is in the Middle East. But I didn’t realize it was a wholly representative synonym— for the entire Middle East. That is a whole lot of something to keep up with, all right…]
You don’t have to be OK with Beyonce performing in Dubai to recognize the racism against her.
Indeed. Beyoncé has a net worth of over half a billion dollars, and I’m supposed to be outraged because she didn’t win a thirty third grammy? Fuck off.
“Jeebus. Who fucking cares.” You do. (Right down to your use of the verb “cancel”— in 2023.)Next? 😀 😀
What I love is reporters afterwards asking him if Beyonce should have won. Like wtf? Why do these people feel she is entitled to every award she gets nominated for? If she had won, would ANYONE have asked “hey you think harry styles should have won?”. I doubt it.
They should have some sort of index of tolerability.**going to the vaults for that referencecalm down. I’m not actually advocating for that at all.
you’re rolling in shit while complaining about the smell
And you’re a mentally ill old woman who no one cares about.
Thank god women of color have… lily white Hattie Lindert to be offended on their behalf!
Love this comment ahahaha
You can’t just cancel people. You have to know WHY they’re being canceled so random people on the internet don’t ironically post crap like, “Just tell us who to cancel so we can move on with our day.”It’s a complicated process involving multiple words arranged in a coherent order describing events and consequences.
Oh please. Beyonces new album was straight up trash.
Not even the Jezebel article about this can get any regulars to agree that Beyonce deserved the win or that Styles did anything wrong
We’re upset that the Album award went to a (queer?) white male instead of a black woman, when that same woman on that same night broke the record for most grammy awards by an individual in history? Seriously?And another argument is that they should have given it to the Latino because his album sold/streamed more? If you want a popularity contest, The American Music Awards is based on sales/streams/airplay. I long for a future world where artistic award shows are not swallowed by identity politics.
That time has apparently passed. It’s been 10 straight years of this shit.
Just think to yourself it’s a stupid award show and maybe you should just relax.
If you took a little more care to understand what you’re replying to, you’d realize I’m not complaining about the stupid award show, but the stupid award show’s stupid reviewer using nonsensical identity politics to complain about who won a certain award and who didn’t.Also, I’m perfectly calm, dude… calmer than you are.
I’m a big fan of MST3K and this is a redone version of a line from the shows opening theme song
Look forward, instead, to a future where you’re so unaware of the artists being honoured that you no longer care.
People now refer to Harry Styles as queer? Is that because he dates a woman or because he wears nail polish?
“His point has some merit… but not enough merit, you should make sure to send some hate his way today”
Does the point have merit though? Surely a “working-class U.K. heritage” is one of the cornerstones of pop music, from Elton John to Adele.
When young Reg Dwight was…young, he mowed lawns, delivered papers and collected milk bottles so he could save up for rhinestones and sequins.
Harry’s House is a great fucking album. And he is an incredibly talented performer. I don’t see the problem here.
Yes you do.Look at the two of them. Now look at your address bar. Yes you do.
I don’t see how the Grammy’s have “failed to do the work” when Beyonce has won… checks notes…. 29 Grammys. With her wins last night she broke the record for most awards.
Exactly, Beyonce has done, and is doing fine. I don’t get this strange, fucked up culture where she supposedly has to win and be recognized for everything ever time, and artists who do win somehow are supposed to feel guilty?
Well, they aren’t Beyonce. They apparently should feel guilty about that, at the very least. I know I do.
It’s important to note that the vast majority of her Grammys have been for R & B performances and only a few in “main” categories.
only a few? what a travesty!
That’s what white Neo racists like you like to say, isn’t it? ‘Oh I’m just being objective, defending white supremacy against Black Women’?
A black woman hasn’t won the best album grammy THIS CENTURY. The fact that she’s won so many grammys while never being quiiiiiite good enough for album of the year why the racism is so blatant.
The most Grammys ever is still a lot of Grammys. It feels problematic to not point that out, and instead continue to focus on what a white guy said, since even the AV Club, even in its outrage, will put that first.
Poor Beyonce. Guess she’ll have to go back to cashing fat checks for performing in gay-friendly Dubai.
White people do that all the time, and keep racking up wins. Why does it only matter to you when it’s a black woman?
She’s the only one I know of to self-congratulate for her gay icon status in the speech.
who said it only mattered when a black woman does it?
are you really saying that Beyoncé, coming where she came from, is less privileged and more queer than Harry Styles? And wrote a discourse about it attacking him just because you like Beyoncé better?
And on the plus side Harry didn’t give a concert in “pro-gay” UAE for 24 million dollars where she also decided Renaissance didn’t exist.
a black heterosexual woman is way more queer than a white bisexual male, clearly. to question otherwise particularly during black history month is a big yikes
This is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard given the amazing homophobia proudly displayed by straight black women.Delete this.
my statement was 1000% serious and not at all sarcasticoh delete yourself
Well, Harry Styles is straight and uses queer signifiers to make himself seem cooler, but otherwise agreed.
Yeah. they are. Beyonce comes from a background that is one of the most egregiously oppressed in the world. Harry is another white boy, stealing the sounds of black music, and profiting wildly off of them. He’s the product of white supremacy, in a nutshell.
Jesus fucking Christ, Allison.You mean St. Mary’s Montessori? That ride-or-die hellhole?
She’s definitely blacker than Styles and that seems to be the Grammy’s sticking point when it comes to album of the year
Right, because they haven’t given the award to a Black person since, let me check… last year.
“The Recording Academy relishes in lauding white, male artists who approach queerness and diversity the same way a Target display does during pride month: as something to be sanitized, perfected, and mass-distributed.”*looks over at Sam Smith*Ehhh… I’m not gonna get involved in this one.
Maybe Harry meant it as in this happen to people like me, i.e. people not born into the industry, raised with industry connections and rich parents, and who luckily got a job in a label-created boy band, but managed to then stoke out their own solo career afterwards? Also boo-hoo to Beyonce fans, so your favorite artist didn’t win the award you personally wanted them to win for? Big deal.
No, it’s race. It HAS to be race. Has to be.
Meanwhile, Beyoncé IS a nepo baby, haha!
Where was this “outrage” when your “Queen” Bey gave a concert in the UAE. You know the country that kills the people she’s supposedly celebrating with Renaissence? The album she decided didn’t exist when she gave the concert because she didn’t sing a single song from it. Fucking hypocrites. Selective outrage for the win, right? Beyonce is overrated and I hope she never gets album of the year if only for you people to cry some more.
Is this really a Newswire? Did they take away For Our Consideration where these types of blog screeds were usually filed away?
But Everyone (on twitter) is Talking About It, so it must be newsworthy!
I was going to say this. Not to get too hung up on fairly arbitrary labels, but this piece goes well beyond just reporting the facts and straight into a thesis statement on the event. And yes, I know that even just the news articles on the AV Club have an editorial flavour, but there are several sections this kind of writing is better suited to: For Our Consideration, like you mention, or Reactions, or a Roundtable if you wanted to get a few voices on it.
Renaissance is a generational work.Asking as a dork so far outside the music mainstream that he listens to Louis Armstrong and Rimsky-Korsakov: Is it, really, or at least arguably? Or is this more hyperbole along the lines of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the best/worst movie of the century!”?
My opinion? A big fat no.A much better argument could be made for Lemonade than Renaissance.
It’s a dance music knock-off album, a pastiche of common dance music tropes. The best thing on the whole fucking album is the sample of Big Freedia, every time I hear that song I think: I wish I was listening to a Big Freedia song.
My gf – who works among people who actually listen to this stuff – identifies it as music for pregnant teenagers.So, yeah, in that sense it is definitely generational work.
interesting…and who are the “people who actually listen to this stuff” that your gf works among? can you be more specific?
Just doubling checking… because the award winner didn’t align with your (subjective) opinion of who should have won, he should apologize to the other performers? This is utter nonsense. Beyonce is not the end all/be all of pop music. Yes, some people like her music, but many, many do not. Just because she did not win this award does not mean that her entire career is invalid. I’m sure she is plenty happy with all money she had made as a performer, and the various lives she has affected. Beyonce will be fine, and you should be too.
Fucking fuck this site. Wearing the AV Club’s dead skin on it like a costume.
Or, maybe Beyonce’s recent strategy of coming down from the mountaintop once every few years to gift the world an album and then disappearing again didn’t help with Academy voters. Harry Styles has been touring, performing live on TV, generally doing things to get his new songs out to a wider audience than his core fanbase. Beyonce hasn’t felt the need to do that in years (I never did get Tidal…)
I agree that could be a factor. Dude was everywhere for better or worse
I thought he isn´t a man anymore? Thats what his recent actions and costumes say at least.
woke up to a Twitter peppered with promises of a “race war,”So, just like every other fucking day on Twitter?
Maybe just accept that a general “album of the year” award is pretty meaningless. There’s no real way to compare albums from all the various music genres, and most voters probably vote on their own musical taste. Beyonce won her genre’s category — dance/electronic music — which tells you, in the eyes of the Grammy voters, anyway, she accomplished what she set out to do with her album. She made the best album of its type in 2022.Personally, I think if they really want to “fix” the Grammys, they should get rid of the general categories altogether and just have genre-specific ones. There’s no, like, overall winner at the Olympics. You compete against the people who do the same thing as you.
Well, now I do want a gold medal for the athlete who Olympic’d best.
Good to see someone still using the phrase “do the work” unironically in 2023.
White guys from the UK who have won Album of the Year:The Beatles (George and John also won for solo albums), Fleetwood Mac, Phil Collins, U2 (2x), George Michael, Eric Clapton, Robert Plant, Mumford & Sons.So, this has happened to “guys like” Harry eleven times in total in the 64 times the academy handed out an “Album of the Year” award.The bucket of just “white guys” ups those numbers quite a bit. If he means “UK guy who was part of popular band but then went solo” then it’s just 6 times.
U2 are from the Republic of Ireland, which is rather famously not part of the United Kingdom.
It won’t let me edit it now
Fleetwood Mac had two female lead singers.George Michael was Greek, does that count as white?In any event, what the fuck are you going on about?
What a brave thing for you to say.
shut the fuck up
No. You’re a mentally ill old woman.
im not your mom
No but you are a mentally ill old woman.
like i said try to keep up kid
You’re a lonely old woman spending the final years of your life staring at a computer screen, desperately trying to make a human connection, even if it’s negative.
yawn
Jesus christ you’re lonely and pathetic.
im not lonely i have you❤️
Jesus christ that’s sad.
“his working-class U.K. heritage”Yeah but fuck that right? Didn’t anyone tell him that everything has to be all.aboit race all the time?
American’s inability to understand inequality as a class issue is continually astounding.
That’s way, way more complex and less emotionally stimulating than just separating the skin colors.
I sorta wanted to know why Renaissance was being billed as a queer album but not enough to ask in a comment because that’d invariably come off sarcastic, so I went and looked it up and damn, okay. The article I read laid it out really well for the most part, the only mistake being leading with “It sounds a lot like Donna Summer and Diana Ross, favorites among the queer community” which is really burying just a shitload of ledes under “Gay people like some straight people who had a similar sound.” And yet after that, sure enough just a ton of queer influence and inclusion. That’s cool.
Was the album any good? Feels like that should be a factor.
So all the stuff you said before this actually isn’t something of concern? “Styles shouldn’t be faulted for winning an award he was nominated for: furthermore, he can’t be blamed for expressing pride over his work, or his journey to this point in his career. But to award Styles AOTY over an opus like Renaissance, a worldwide smash like Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti, or even a career-shifting statement from a tried and true Grammy favorite like Adele’s 30, only exemplifies the Recording Academy’s hollow sentimentality. So the only issue is, that he won over more deserving albums? Which is it—what he said during his acceptance speech or the fact that he shouldn’t have won? I’m confused.
rather bold of you to assume an avclub article had a point
Don’t blame me. I voted for a-ha
Well, we haven’t heard the last from them
I had to read this terrible article and all the other comments to learn a-ha released an album in 2022.
I learned… now… that my throwaway joke based on hearing “Take On Me” on the soundsystem at my gym the other day actually had relevance.
Good on those guys for being alive.
I didn’t realize Beyoncé’s publicist worked for the AV Club
> “The Grammys have again failed to actually do the work”
At risk of defending the Grammys, what do you think “the work” is exactly?
rewriting press releases mostly
“Waaah, the Grammys Only Gave Beyonce 32 Awards”
Or alternatively, “Queer White Man Doesn’t Apologize Hard Enough for Being Less Oppressed than Beyonce”
“[The Grammys] don’t give black women the respect they deserve”.
Is that why Beyonce has more Grammys than any other artist? Because they hate her so much?
The silver lining of all this “outrage” is that Harry is finally stop sitting on the fence and come out as bi/pan/non-binary, just to get the heat off his ass.
Whatever valid points this may or may not be making, filing this as a “news” story is absurd. This is an opinion piece through and through.
Considering there’s only one best album award every year it does not in fact happen often.
Oh jesus christ, this is exactly why many people don’t like Beyonce, fanboys like you act like every thing she does is the greatest thing ever. Her album this year was one big derivative copycat, with every song on it evoking an oldschool song that did it better.Plus she’s SO goddamn serious and self-righteous, I’m not trying to have Maya Angelou on my party tracks. When Beyonce says “we getting fucked up tonight,” it’s like hearing your middle-school teacher say it, like, Jeez Missus Carter, please leave the cussing to people who know how to do it.Bottom line: Beyonce is good, but she hasn’t made a classic in years, and now floats on her own self-import and the uncritical ears of fans like you who insist that she’s better than everyone else, even in years like last year, when she absolutely wasn’t. Late Night Talking is 10 times better than anything on her album, and will live in the public consciousness 10 times longer.
Whether you watched the Grammys last night or woke up to a Twitter peppered with promises of a “race war,” you probably know by now: Harry Styles’ Harry’s House beat out Beyoncé’s Renaissance for Album Of The Year in what was widely considered a colossal snub.Who the fuck still uses Twitter?
“Journalists”
Of all the awards in the coveted EGOT, the Grammys is the one that most closely resembles a sales conference.
Beyonce has a famously toxic and abusive fanbase, stop amplifying their idiocy
AV Club is now so old they’re bitching about virtue signaling in Grammy results. Bracing for the upcoming reviews of The Five
Just here as a casual music listener mentioning that I have 1) Still never heard a Bad Bunny song, despite his “immense popularity”. 2) have only heard the godawful “Cuff it” off of Renaissance. 3) Heard Harry on the radio literally every day in 2022.His win does not surprise me. It shouldn’t surprise anyone.
If something as terrible as a race war comes to pass, I hope it’s at least over something more significant than an awards ceremony.
Televised award ceremonies don’t exist to celebrate excellence or achievement in a field. They exist to make the industry that profits off that field look legitimate and important. And for advertising. Sweet, sweet advertising.I know I posted this same comment elsewhere but I feel it bares repeating so don’t bother pointing that out.
Why do I keep coming to this fucking site.
People who don’t like Beyonce are always suspicious to me. They’re the kinds who donate to BLM, go to protests, to look like allies but they’re all secretly Karens who call the cops on black children. Styles’ win comes from a long line of robbing Black people of their production, from the early ‘record labels’ stealing blues and jazz, to the hip hop ‘producers’ who reaped millions from black bodies. And now this mediocre Klansman/neo nazi fraud steals from Beyonce. Anybody who can defend him remind me a bit of the so-called ‘Good Germans’ who let their neighbors go to the gas chambers.
weird i think the same of people who overly praise beyonce.
This is one of the more pathetic things I’ve read on the AVClub in quite a while.
The entire network here is up in arms about this and I have to wonder if even Beyonce cares remotely as much as the writers here.
The lack of grace anyone gives for things said off-the-cuff like that has just really gone off the rails. I really hope that no one who writes on these networks ever says something poorly in passing or even has a typo in an article. Is there really no other reading that can be taken from that small portion of his comment other than “well us white dudes never win!”. Come on.I think we can all agree that these shows can do better in a million ways, but is Beyonce really the hill to die on here? There’s a multitude of excellent artists of color who never even get the time of day. This is just getting into rabid fanbase territory at this phase.
The point is the notion of broad popularity/’crossing over’ still being A Thing in 2023. The ‘just be happy she swept R&B’ crowd forgot the ‘stay in your lane!’ crap endured when her Texan ass swung by the CMAs to sing with The Chicks or the Lil Nas X crap or how in the same night Bad Bunny’s performance was shittly closed captioned. Feel how you wish about Styles or Knowles-Carter but that’s it. Now we contemplate her Training Day.
The performance with the Dixie Chicks was pretty universally acclaimed, including by the folks who had said “Yeah, whispering ‘Texas’ and saying ‘Yee-Haw” doesn’t actually make a blues rock song ‘country.’”
https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/11/4/13521928/beyonce-cma-awards-controversy-deleted-performancehttps://www.thewrap.com/beyonce-is-performing-at-cma-awards-and-people-are-mad/
Ooookayyyy? I was very specifically referring to the people who reacted to the recorded version with “This might not be straight pop like Blake Shelton or Florida Georgia Line, but saying ‘Yeehaw’ and ‘Texas’ doesn’t make this blues-rock song country” crowd.Those folks liked the Dixie Chicks performance, and specifically pointed to it as an example of what Beyoncé singing a country song would sound like…in contrast to the released version of Daddy Lessons.Zero interest in defending the Morgan Wallen crowd.
The Grammys still happen?
I’m puzzled: is Harry Styles too queer or not queer enough for you? And is there any scenario where he’s the perfect amount of queer? Spoiler Alert: the answer is no. Here is a man who dresses in women’s clothing in 80% of his public appearances, but he’s still problematic because… um….
Hear me out for a second because I know critical thinking is not the strong suit of people here sometimes: maybe when he said it doesn’t happen to people like him he didnt mean “straight white males” maybe he was being more specific? As in “usually people from shitty boy bands dont end up where I am” ? Because he’d be 100% correct on that.But sure whine more about white people and men.
shut the fuck up
As I understand it, “Kanye West is a genius” and “(White Person) who won this award didn’t deserve it” are two of the Stations of the Cross for white people writing about music.
Doesn’t Beyonce have more Grammys than any other artist since the award’s inception?
Do people really think Renaissance is Beyonce’s best work? I thought shes done much better.
Harry Styles always looks so unbathed.
Keep it up. Lets just burn everyone out. Over sensitivity is countered by desensitization.So: rabble rabble, the queen is dead, long live the queen, yawn…
Ummm.. probably just your opinion that Renaissance is a generational work. Says you. Not everyone has to agree. Obviously voters did not agree with you. Just because Beyonce is nominated does not guarantee her a win. And.. um… this line “Black women don’t get the respect they deserve”… really? while talking about Beyonce?? You mean the black woman who has more Grammy wins than anyone on earth?… that one?
FWIW: Team Beyoncé. Let’s get that out of the way. But how cooked is the article to note the Beyoncé became the most awarded artist of all time while bemoaning that she didn’t win an award that is subjective?