The Grammys are upon us! The third most popular music awards show every year, behind only the I Heart Radio Music Awards and every single person revealing their Spotify Wrapped and pretending that their taste in music is kooky and eccentric and that listening to Taylor Swift for the time equivalent of 33 days over the course of a calendar year is normal.
With that in mind, we have enlisted our resident pop culture gadfly Matt Drufke to come and answer questions for people who don’t pay attention to music that gets selected for these awards, or me, who is too old to care and still carries a chip on his shoulder for Johnny Cash not winning music video of the year in 2003 at the MTV Music Awards.
Brandon: The Grammys are live this Sunday on CBS, which means it’s probably going to be hosted by noted asshole and Leinenkugel flavor Bari Weiss and the guy from Big and Rich who sets all his stuff on fire if they don’t actively root for the KKK. Before we get into the awards, this is the final broadcast for CBS before the rights move over to Disney next year. Obviously, this is something that will be used to fill time on network television the weekend before the Super Bowl, but it’s also going to be simulcast on Hulu. At what point do all of these shows just end up on streaming services, or is the ad revenue enough to keep musical hand jacking sessions like this on broadcast television?
Matt: I mean, I think this is an interesting question and it all has to do with the fact that broadcast media is dying and The Grammys are a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Back in the day (god, I’m old), The Grammys were something millions upon millions of Americans watched because it was the only real chance to see any of these performers. But now there are so many channels and everyone prefers streaming and we all would rather just be watching YouTube anyways. Network television has basically just been relegated to sporting events and Dick Wolf shows these days. It’s why we’re seeing the Oscars move to YouTube and, I imagine, the Grammys soon will only be able to be seen on Disney/Hulu. What some people fail to understand is that what I just said is a good thing.
Moving a show to an online streaming service means two big things for The Grammys. First, it can take large steps back towards legitimacy. We’ll talk more about this later, but one of the problems with “music’s biggest night” is that CBS has wanted to make sure it reaches their target demographic, aka old white people. This is why there have been a lot of “safe” presenters and even safer winners. Sometimes, the Grammys have felt like a show that is trying to prove to America that Boomers are still cool. But, with the move to streaming, you don’t have to worry about that audience and you can actually focus on trying to reward good and exciting music. Plus, money is moving away from networks and going towards streaming and that isn’t going to change. The Grammys need to look at this as an opportunity to pull it’s voting block and audience into the 21st century, or at least the later part of the 20th.
Brandon: Harry Style’s new album, “Kiss All the Time, Disco Occasionally” comes out in March so it’s obviously not able to be nominated this year, but how many awards will it win next year, and if the answer is less than “every award possible” then what do you have against Harry Styles?
Matt: Who doesn’t like Harry Styles? He is doing what Justin Timberlake did two decades ago, which is making fun dance-pop that 30-some people can fuck to while still feeling young. He won three Grammys in 2023 for Harry’s House including album of the year, and as long as this album has some bangers (and it’s safe to assume it will), then he’s gonna be the front-runner in that category again. So, I don’t think he’s going to win Best Contemporary Polka Album, but most other awards are fair game.
Brandon: Two part question: What is the difference between Record of the Year and Album of the Year? And who do you have winning each one?
Matt: Ok, so when we’re talking about Record of the Year, it’s important to know that we’re talking about Song of the Year, which is also an award. Here is the key distinction: Song of the Year goes to the artist who sang it, while Record of the Year goes to the producer and songwriter. Album of the Year, which also goes to the artist, is about the whole album. So I’m going to talk about all three categories.
It doesn’t seem that long ago when Jon Baptiste won album of the year in 2021 and it felt like the Grammys had just given up trying to guess what anyone under 50 listened to. But all of these nominees are all, actually, pretty good. It feels like a three-way race between Kendrick Lamar, Bad Bunny and Lady Gaga, none of whom have won in this category yet. Because “Not Like Us” won both Record and Song of the Year last year, I think the momentum is going to keep going for Kendrick Lamar and I think he’ll be onstage accepting for the brilliant GNX.
Song of the Year has been the one category where the Grammys have usually celebrated what the most popular song of the year is, and no song has been more popular than “Golden” from K-Pop Demon Hunter. It’s going to win Best Original Song in this year’s Oscars (and I suspect the film will also win Best Animated Feature) and it’s also going to win a Grammy for this category.
Record of the Year has the chance of giving Bruno Mars his fourth Grammy in this category for “Apt.”, his song with Rosie. But I think what is more like is another win for Kendrick Lamar. He’ll be winning for the consecutive straight year in this category, this time for “Luther”, his collaboration with his tourmate SZA.
Brandon: How much of a late night meltdown does Donald Trump have if Bad Bunny wins one or both of the big awards?
Matt: I mean, we saw the hissy fit thrown by the conservative movement when it was announced Bad Bunny was going to be the Super Bowl halftime artist. The outspoken international superstar ruffled all kinds of feathers when he announced holding back on American tour dates as he feared ICE raids at his concerts and that just stirred all kinds of white rage. So, we definitely should expect some aggressively Truth Social tweets… or posts… or whatever the shit he calls them. Then you’ll see a bunch of his followers saying they never have heard of Bad Bunny, as if anyone cares what those nonsense yokels enjoy musically.
Brandon: Country Music has been divided into best Contemporary Country Album and best Traditional Country Album. Anyone that has even a tenuous grasp on music knows that Best Traditional Country Album is actual country, and nearly all Contemporary Country is the kind of overproduced slop that gets played at 11am on a Tuesday at Kohls. They seem to have gotten the nominees fairly correct, as I can tell you that Willie Nelson is nominated in one and Jelly Roll is nominated in another, and you instantly know which is which. The outlier is Tyler Childers, seems to be in the contemporary category more for his popularity than his sound. Hip hop has done something similar with Best Rap Performance and Best Melodic Rap Performance. Is this just the Grammys trying to be more inclusive, adapting to a wider range of music, or just a sickness of people whining about their favorite artist every year not getting picked, leading to them making a million new categories?
Matt: The Grammys have so many categories. There are, and I am not kidding, 95 categories, almost none of which will be televised. The addition of Traditional Country Album as a category all seems to lie solely on the shoulders of Beyonce, whose Cowboy Carter won the Best Country Album last year, sending the Grammy’s country voters into a tizzy unlike anything we have ever seen. Is there a racial component to their outrage? Well, Beyonce was the first person of color ever to win this award, so it sure damn seems like it, doesn’t it? There was this giant backlash of people claiming Cowboy Carter was not real country (as if Jelly Roll somehow is) and eventually, the Grammys decided to add the new category in the hopes of having older (white) country stars will feel appeased and still have a chance to win something.
Brandon: Noted musicians of our time Crazytown never won a Grammy. Doesn’t that prove the system is broken?
Matt: Never won. Never nominated. A generation of people with regrettable tattoos mourn.
Brandon: Noted FBC contributor Jack Baker released his Youtube comedy special, but was not nominated for Best Comedy Album. Should you and I shoulder the blame for not doing enough to get it in front of the people that matter? And since Jack can’t win (except in our hearts), who you got between Bill Burr, Ali Wong, Jamie Foxx, Sarah Silverman, and Nate Bargatze.
Matt: We need to talk about this category a little, because this category is almost as old as the Grammys itself. Do you want to know who the first winner was? It was Alvin & The Chipmunks for “Christmas, Don’t Be Late”. People laughed at weird stuff back then.
The immediate answer would be that this would seem to be a slam dunk for Nate Bargatze, the man who hosted last year. However, Bargatze’s hosting performance was so horrible (spearheaded by the idea that he would take money away from a charitable donation if speeches went too long) that the Grammys went back to Trevor Noah as a host. Both the Grammys (and, let’s face it, probably Bargatze as well) are hoping you forget all about last year, so let’s give it to Bill Burr, a man that seems to check all the boxes for the Grammy voters. Here’s hoping Jack’s next special is in the running once the FBC promo machine gets a little more money behind it. Time to start a gofundme for a few hundred million dollars!
Brandon: When you look through all of the nominations, which one would you find the funniest and which one would make you the happiest? For me, Amyl and the Sniffers winning Best Rock Performance would be the funniest, and Deftones winning Best Rock Album would make me happiest, as the long overdue Deftones revival would continue.
Matt: First off, I want to see Justin Bieber win something for this last album because it’s an absolute joy to listen to. If “Daisies” won Best Pop Vocal Performance, that would put a smile on my face. To me, the funniest nomination isn’t because it’s a bad song, but because of a little nomination fraud. The Grammys were so desperate to make sure Doechii got nominated this year, they found a remix of her song “Anxiety” that came out last March just so they give her a chance to win (despite the fact that the song is almost three years old). I also think that the category of Best Song Written for a Visual Media did a nice job of putting Trent Reznor and his song from Tron:Ares against K-Pop Demon Hunters. Had the Oscars had any balls, they would have nominated “As Alive As You Need Me To Be” because that song fucking rips.
Brandon: Final question, Jack Antonoff is basically plastered all over most of the categories. His trading card stats this season are insane: He is listed as producer on two of the Record of the Year finalists, He is on two Album of the Year finalists, and two Song of the Year finalists. This could actually be considered an off year for him, since Taylor Swift didn’t release a new album this year, which his name is usually slapped all over. Is Antonoff the best producer going, or does he just know how to distill music down to the lowest common denominator to make the easiest music for people to ingest?
Matt: Jack Antonoff is, absolutely, the best producer working today, but it’s not because of what he does in the studio. Antonoff’s super-power is minimalism all while knowing how to give the most pure form of the artist he is working with. He’s not going to be the guy who works with a diva who can sing the paint off the walls; a track produced by him usually has very basic sing-song melodies that alternate between 2-3 notes in a verse. It allows lyrics to come to the forefront and shine, and Jack knows how to place keys and strings around them without drowning them out or making them seem simplistic. Want to know why Taylor Swift is the biggest artist alive? It’s because Jack Antonoff knows how to take her super power (brilliant lyricism) and just lay it out in the most basic and pure form. I think that’s why the American public hasn’t gotten sick of him or his style yet, because his style isn’t about making people look at him, it’s about what he can do for the artists he works with.
Fancy Boys Club 