The nominations for the 2018 Grammys have been released, and it’s true — I don’t know how to feel about the nominees. This year, it was a little different from the norm. Popular artists who had wildly successful years, such as Harry Styles and Demi Lovato, got seemingly snubbed of any nominations. This left an open space for more diverse artists such as Khalid and Childish Gambino to be nomination (several times, I might add).
So my immediate reaction was, “Hey, this is great. I love seeing sort of offbeat artists get recognized.” But then when I saw some of my favorite mainstream artists not being nominated alongside these other artists, I was upset. How could they forget some of the biggest names in music? I would even argue that the nominees in “Best Pop Performance” aren’t all that popular except for Ed Sheeran.
So this left me in a weird conundrum. For the past couple of years, award shows have been constantly berated about their lack of diversity. The Oscars in 2015 hardly had any nominees of color. We all sort of agreed that this needed to change and that this wasn’t acceptable. If entertainment is supposed to represent our reality, then what does that say for us?
When something does change, though, people get up-in-arms about it. I’m not the only one who was confused about the Grammy nominations list for 2018. There was a story on the “moments” sections of Twitter about it the day the Grammy nominations came out. People voiced their opinions, saying, “Where’s Drake’s nom?” and “Taylor released her album before the cutoff!”
Have we even considered that maybe it’s time to allow artists like SZA — who isn’t only a girl boss, but also has the most nominations this year — to shine!? Perhaps their music has something new and fresh to say that mainstream artists like Styles just isn’t doing yet.
I think it is okay to be sad that some of your favs were “snubbed” this year. Ultimately, it looks like the Grammys are taking a new direction, and hopefully other award shows are soon to follow.
The Grammys have been home to some iconic performances and moments in pop culture. It’s seen years of Taylor Swift’s unusual dancing, Prince and Beyonce’s duet to Lady Gaga’s egg arrival. It is arguably the biggest stage in music. And this shouldn’t be limited to the already megastars; New blood should have to opportunity to take the stage. Even at one point, Beyonce showed up as a fresh face to the Grammys when she was back with TLC. Chance the Rapper, the most successful “streaming-only” artists was nominated for 7 grammys in 2016 and won 3.
Change is inevitable, but it still hurts. The most important thing to remember is that if we get upset about whitewashing movie awards, we should hold every award show to the same standard. I love Demi Lovato as much as the next girl, but the reality is that we should expect all of our media to represent the makeup of the U.S. as well as they can. And if that means, giving nominations to artists that you may have never even heard of, then so be it.
Let us know what you think about these nominations in the comments!