It was not a question of race, insisted Grammys boss Neil Portnow, in the wake of the furore surrounding Adele’s victory over Beyoncé for the album of the year award – the top prize – at this year’s awards in Los Angeles on Sunday. “I don’t think there’s a race problem at all,” Portnow told Pitchork. “We don’t, as musicians, listen to music based on gender or race or ethnicity.”
Portnow’s problem is that a lot of people aren’t convinced by his argument that the 14,000 voting members of the Recording Academy “almost put a blindfold on” when they listen to the nominated albums. Adele did not seem convinced in her acceptance speech on Sunday night when she said: “I can’t possibly accept this award,” before addressing Beyoncé directly. “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.”
Sufjan Stevens didn’t seem convinced when he wrote that that the “urban contemporary album” category in which Lemonade won is “where the white man puts the incomparable pregnant black woman because he is so threatened by her talent, power, persuasion and potential”. St Vincent did not seem convinced by the snub when she agreed with him. Solange – Beyoncé’s sister and a Grammy-winner in her own right – did not seem convinced when she hastily tweeted then deleted: “Create your own committees, build your own institutions, give your friends awards, award yourself, and be the gold you wanna hold, my Gs.” Frank Ocean did not seem convinced when he addressed the Grammy producers on Tumblr: “You know what’s really not ‘great TV’ guys? 1989 getting album of the year over To Pimp a Butterfly … If you’re up for a discussion about the cultural bias and general nerve damage the show you produce suffers from then I’m all for it.”
One year, one overlooked album – that might not be a problem. The issue for the Grammys is that in an era when R&B and hip-hop have been going through a period of massive creativity – matched by huge commercial success – the album of the year prize at the Grammys has been going to white artists. The last black winnner was Herbie Hancock, for River: The Joni Letters in 2008. Since then, Taylor Swift has won twice (for Fearless in 2010 and 1989 in 2016), as has Adele (for 21 in 2012 and 25 this year). Meanwhile, black artists have been shortlisted, but lost out: Beyoncé alone has been in the final five three times since 2010 without winning. Kendrick Lamar has had two shortlisted albums without winning. Frank Ocean, the Weeknd, Pharrell Williams have all been shortlisted without winning. Kanye West has not even been shortlisted since Graduation in 2008, and Drake has been shortlisted just once, for Views, this year.
It is not as if these are marginal acts being passed over for something more mainstream; that list of names contains many of the main drivers of popular culture. They are hit artists, the most-talked about artists of the moment. Are they really not as good as Mumford & Sons (2013 winners), Arcade Fire (2011 winners), Beck (2015 winner) or Robert Plant & Alison Krauss (2009 winners)?
But there is nothing new here. The Grammys have always had a problem with the album of the year award. Looking down a list of winners often has you wondering what on earth the voters were thinking, even when the winner was black (was Natalie Cole’s Unforgettable … With Love really the best album of 1992?). There was a period in the mid-70s when album of the year was, more or less, the Stevie Wonder award, as he won it three years out of four between 1974 and 1977, but equally there have been years when the winning album (and the entire shortlist) have ignored not just black music, but a whole load of other great music, too. So, in recognition of the fact that the Grammys have long been both #grammyssowhite and #grammyssocrap, here are some of the least memorable years for the album of the year winner in Grammy history.
1970
Winner: Blood, Sweat & Tears by Blood, Sweat & Tears
The album of the year prize ignored rock, soul and R&B until 1968, when Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band won. It was back to the soft pop of Glen Campbell the following year, and then in 1970 Blood, Sweat & Tears won. It is not that their second album is bad; it was a huge critical and commercial success, and their fusion of classical, rock and jazz styles was groundbreaking. It is more that when you look back at what else was happening, you would be hard picked to call this an album that defined the previous year.
Black artists who were overlooked …
• The Temptations: Cloud Nine
The soul harmony quintet were at their psychedelic soul peak with Cloud Nine, whose opening side – Cloud Nine, into I Heard It Through the Grapevine into Runaway Child, Running Wild – is one of the great achievements of Motown.
• Sly and the Family Stone: Stand!
A huge hit album that contained three of the Family Stone’s greatest pop hits – the title track, I Want to Take You Higher and Everyday People – as well as the discombobulating Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey, was passsed over for the shortlist for album of the year.
• Isaac Hayes – Hot Buttered Soul
A US No 8 hit, Hot Buttered Soul set a template for soul as the 70s dawned: lubricious, ambitious and luxurious. Hayes stretched out on epic versions of Walk on By and By the Time I Get to Phoenix, and created the soul loverman. A landmark in soul. Hayes did get an album of the year nomination in 1972 for Shaft.
The Grammys also missed …
Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin I and Led Zeppelin II, Rolling Stones: Let it Bleed and The Band: The Band
1973
Winner: The Concert for Bangladesh by George Harrison and Friends
Pop’s capacity for backslapping on the rare occasions it manages to do A Good Thing manifested itself in this live recording of Harrison’s charity show winning the album of the year prize. This is rarely an album dug out when one fancies hearing a former Beatle.
Black artists who were overlooked …
• The O’Jays: Back Stabbers
Two brilliant, massive singles – the title track and Love Train – and a top 10 album were not enough to draw the attention of the Recording Academy, even if Back Stabbers was the pinnacle of the Philly soul sound.
• Aretha Franklin: Young, Gifted and Black
Aretha Franklin has won the Grammy for best female R&B vocal performance 11 times, but has never even been nominated for album of the year. That’s despite the fact that in the late 60s and early 70s, on Atlantic, she produced arguably the greatest run of soul albums ever: this is one without a single track you would skip.
• Curtis Mayfield: Super Fly
A film soundtrack that overshadowed its parent film, Super Fly was a huge creative breakthrough for Mayfield, and a critical and commercial smash: a soul concept album that stood up in its own right, with impassioned commentary on the state of black America.
The Grammys also missed …
Neil Young: Harvest, Todd Rundgren: Something/Anything? and David Bowie: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
1980
Winner: 52nd Street by Billy Joel
There’s nothing wrong with 52nd Street – it’s got My Life on it, and who doesn’t like My Life? – but when you look at what was missed out that year, you realise that this was the Grammys at their very safest.
Black artists who were overlooked …
• Chic: Risqué
The year being rewarded, 1979, had been the Chic Organisation’s annus mirabilis. The third Chic album opened with Good Times, the song that to this day defines the sound of disco, but that was only the start of Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers’s achievements that year …
• Sister Sledge: We Are Family
Chic also took the reins of the soul trio, producing what Rodgers believes to be “our best album, hands down”. And who is to argue, given it contained He’s the Greatest Dancer and Lost in Music, as well as the title track?
• Michael Jackson: Off the Wall
As if missing the previous two was not bad enough, the Grammys also ignored what was, arguably, Michael Jackson’s greatest album (Thriller would win in 1984). The only disco record to get an album of the year nomination in this, the genre’s golden year, was Donna Summer’s Bad Girls. Though there was room on the shortlist for both Minute by Minute by the Doobie Brothers and The Gambler by Kenny Rogers. Just not Off the Wall. Or Risqué. Or We Are Family. For shame.
The Grammys also missed …
The Clash: London Calling, Neil Young: Rust Never Sleeps. Abba: Voulez Vous
1981
Winner: Christopher Cross by Christopher Cross
As the aftershocks of punk echoed through music, as hard rock enjoyed a massive resurgence, as disco started to give way to hip-hop, the Recording Academy decided that the best album of 1980 had been a soft rock record of unimpeachable craftsmanship (if you count John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy as soft rock, we are in the midst of a four-year run of soft rock winners).
Black artists who were overlooked …
• Diana Ross: Diana
The Chic Organisation were back, this time steering Diana Ross to make what was probably her best solo album, led by a pair of hits – Upside Down and I’m Coming Out – that were as good as anything she ever recorded.
• Teddy Pendergrass: TP
The leading male R&B singer of his era had been passed over the previous year for Teddy, and the pattern was repeated with TP. Never mind that it was a platinum album, that Pendergrass was at the peak of his powers, and that Love TKO was one of the great Philly singles.
• The Jacksons: Triumph
Well, if you’re going to disregard Off the Wall, you may as well disregard what was to all intents and purposes its successor, too. Michael Jackson, at the top of his game, did most of the lead singing and writing on Triumph, another platinum album. Incredibly, the brilliant opener Can You Feel It peaked at No 77 in the US.
The Grammys also missed
Pink Floyd: The Wall, AC/DC: Back in Black, David Bowie: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
1986
Winner: No Jacket Required by Phil Collins
After a two-year break for Thriller and Lionel Richie’s Can’t Slow Down, the soft rock supremacy returned with No Jacket Required. It’s not a bad album – none of these winners is – but there were some issues with what was missed.
Black artists who were overlooked …
• Prince: Around the World in a Day
Prince’s 1999 had been nominated for album of the year in 1985, but lost out to Can’t Slow Down. Prince was also nominated for Sign o’ the Times in 1988 but incredibly never won album of the year.
• Whitney Houston: Whitney Houston
Never mind that voice, or those three US No 1 singles: the multi-platinum debut album by a singer who redefined female pop-soul and R&B singing, and who became the biggest star of her generation, crossing race boundaries and appealing to young and old, black and white, was no match for No Jacket Required. Though nominated in three categories at the 1986 Grammys, Houston won only one, for best pop vocal performance (for Saving All My Love for You).
• Luther Vandross: The Night I Feel In Love
The mid-to-late 80s were the heyday of the smooth, sophisticated male soul star; as well as Vandross, Alexander O’Neal was an international star, and Freddie Jackson’s debut album was a monster US hit in 1985. At this point, it may not come as a surprise that none of the smooth, sophisticated male soul stars were ever nominated for album of the year.
The Grammys also missed …
Kate Bush: Hounds of Love, Tom Waits: Rain Dogs and Talking Heads: Little Creatures
1993
Winner: MTV Unplugged by Eric Clapton
There is a case for saying that no awards ceremony that preaches diversity should ever reward Eric Clapton, who – despite being given multiple opportunities to do so – has never seen fit to apologise for or backtrack from his notorious onstage pronouncement in 1976 that “Enoch was right”. Yet he was rewarded for an album of acoustic rerecordings of old tracks in one of hip-hop’s great years.
Black artists who were overlooked …
• Michael Jackson: Dangerous
It dealt with the kind of platitudinous big themes that often get rewarded (Black or White, Heal the World), it took Jackson into new jack swing, it sold a bazillion copies, but Dangerous did not even get a nomination. Bad had been nominated, in 1988, but Thriller was to be the only album of the year award Jackson ever won.
• Arrested Development: 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of …
A landmark in conscious hip-hop that managed to be infectiously enjoyable, intriguingly weird and joyously danceable – as well as being one of the first statements that southern hip-hop was about to eclipse its coastal counterparts.
• Mary J Blige: What’s the 411?
Blige’s first album was the big hit that the Grammys require before granting one of the big awards. It was also, like the album above, a portent of something new, in this case the melding of hip-hop and soul into something that managed to be simultaneously tougher than leather, but washed down with tears.
The Grammys also missed …
Beastie Boys: Check Your Head, Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes and U2: Achtung Baby
1995
Winner: MTV Unplugged by Tony Bennett
One sure way of getting Grammy success was to be a great recontextualising your music: hence Clapton, and in 2000 Santana’s Supernatural album, pairing him with younger artists. Tony Bennett revisiting his back catalogue fell slap-bang in the middle of that period. It is hard to begrudge an evidently decent man, and a great singer, but once again, look at what was passed over.
Black artists who were overlooked …
Nas: Illmatic
One of the great hip-hop albums, one of the great debut albums, and a hit to boot – it peaked in the US chart at No 12. This was a landmark hip-hop album, yet it would be another nine years before OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below became the first hip-hop record to win the album of the year award.
Warren G: Regulate … G Funk Era
Warren G actually got two nominations in the 1995 Grammys – for best rap solo performance and best rap performance by a duo or a group – but the album of the year category that year rewarded safety: alongside Bennett, the nominees were the Three Tenors, Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt and Seal.
The Notorious BIG: Ready to Die
One of the greatest rappers ever, and someone who helped revitalise east coast hip-hop, Biggie Smalls never got an album of the year nomination. In what was already a depressingly familiar pattern, he was instead confined to genre categories, with Big Poppa getting a best rap solo performance nomination the following year.
The Grammys also missed …
Soundgarden – Superunknown, Nine Inch Nails: The Downward Spiral, Jeff Buckley: Grace
• This article was amended on 19 February 2017 to correct a misspelling of Teddy Pendergrass’s name.
