Beyoncé’s Album of the year win
On Sunday February 2nd, 2025, the 67th annual Grammy Awards was held. This year, Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter won Album of the Year for the first time in her nearly thirty-year career. Despite being the most Grammy awarded artist in history, she had never been awarded Album of the Year. Many Beyoncé fans and Black music lovers generally feel like Beyoncé has been repeatedly snubbed due to the academy’s lack of appreciation for Black talent and culture.
The academy’s track record corroborates that story, only four Black women have won Album of the Year in Grammys history, including Beyoncé’s historic win this year. The last Black woman to win Album of the Year was Lauryn Hill for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1999, twenty-six years ago! At 2023’s Grammys, Beyoncé’s Renaissance was nominated for Album of the Year, but she lost to Harry Styles’s Harry’s House, which shocked fans. In 2017, Beyoncé’s Lemonade lost to Adele’s 25, and in her speech Adele said that the award should have been Beyoncé’s.
controversy over beyoncé’s win
Despite the academy’s overdue appreciation of Beyoncé’s talent and artistry, many fans of other artists online do not agree with their decision. On my TikTok feed, I have seen many Billie Eilish fans upset about Beyoncé’s victory, saying that Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft should have won. Eilish’s fans claim that Beyoncé is undeserving of her award, that Cowboy Carter was not impressive, that Billie Eilish has better vocal abilities than her, and that the album did not have any meaning.
To say that someone who has been in the industry for nearly thirty years and is consistently denied recognition is undeserving is an asinine claim. Beyoncé changed the game with how artists drop music and her self-titled album impacted many young Black people with her prideful display of Blackness in Lemonade. She has been innovative with her sounds with Renaissance and Cowboy Carter. Most, if not all of her music is impressive sonically, vocally, and thematically, and her live performances are wildly impressive displays of vocal and physical talent and stamina.
The themes of Cowboy Carter explore Beyoncé’s life, how hard she has had to work to get to where she is, and how she has been denied a place in the country community despite her country roots. To say the album lacks meaning is to say that you either did not listen to it or you made no attempt to understand it when you did listen.
It is important to note that these fans online also are not giving the same criticisms to Sabrina Carpenter, who won over Billie Eilish in more than one category during the awards. It is not lost on me that these people find it easy to pick apart and critique the Black woman who won over Billie, and not the white woman.
In a similar fashion, I have seen people complaining about Beyoncé winning Country Album of the Year. I have seen many statements about Cowboy Carter not being a “real” country album. However, Morgan Wallen is innovative with his country sound, including similar elements to what was heard sonically in Cowboy Carter, but nobody questions the legitimacy of his existence in the country music community. Is it possible that Beyoncé’s themes about her Black experience and her Black identity itself are what make people believe that she cannot be a legitimate country artist?
While I cannot tell anyone that they should enjoy Cowboy Carter, I do think everyone should be aware of what it means for Beyoncé to win Album of the Year and Country Album of the Year. I say all of this to argue that it is important to be aware of internal biases. There must be some reason that people are angry about Beyonccé winning over Billie Eilish, but not Sabrina Carpenter. There must be some reason why Beyoncé’s place in the country community is questioned even though she is from Texas and is not the first to be innovative with the country sound. I want to encourage people to be mindful of the way they speak about Black women, because while Beyoncé will not hear their critiques, other Black women they know more personally will, and it is a slap in the face to each and every one.