The Final Word On Beyoncé, Beck & Album Of The Year
Beck won the curse of being remembered by the general public only in association with Beyoncé
As a die-hard Beyoncé fan, I’m still struggling to process this past Sunday’s events. I’m baffled by the lack of recognition for her groundbreaking self-titled album during the 57th Grammy Awards. That being said, this writing is not a rant bashing the Grammys, nor is it a Beyoncé-gloryfing sermon. I seek to share my views, as objectively as I can, on what the category Album Of The Year should represent, and why Beyoncé should have won what would have been her most prestigious Grammy award.
Genre Specific vs. General Categories
There are about 33 genre-based fields on the Grammy ballot, each containing categories where voters get to compare apples to apples. While each voter has the opportunity to vote in any 20 genre-specific and the four main categories, most stick only to their fields of expertise and the general four.
“Deloitte lets us know that quite a few ballots come in with just the general four categories and two or three more. And of course, some come in with 20 filled out. It gives us a sense that people aren’t saying, Okay, I need to find a bunch of random categories to vote for,” shares Bill Freimuth, the Academy’s VP of Awards.
The genre awards recognize excellence within a certain area, which should be the sole context for evaluation. While every voting member has their own criteria, this is the place to recognize artistry, delivery, sound quality, sound evolution, lyrics, concepts, etc. as they pertain to the particular genre. A record could lose its genre category and still be worthy of winning the Grammy for Album Of The Year. That’s why I didn’t get discouraged by Beyoncé’s loss to Pharrell in the category Best Urban Contemporary Album. I strongly disagree with that choice, but still find it plausible. Having produced tracks on two other nominated albums in the R&B field (Beyoncé and Lift Your Spirit by Aloe Blacc), perhaps in the eyes of the industry experts Pharrell is the person pushing the envelope in today’s R&B.
Album Of The Year is a category collecting votes from every single voting member of the Academy; a category where they compare apples to oranges. It is unprofessional to argue which of those records is superior as a piece of art. So what should be taken into account when voting in this category?
The True Meaning of Album Of The Year
The Grammy for Album Of The Year is one of the greatest honors an artist could receive. Say it out loud to grasp the power of this honor, a power that should match the footprint and impact left by the recipient album. What album has shaken the industry? What album has sold the most copies in today’s singles-oriented market? What album has impacted our everyday lives? What album is the most critically acclaimed? What album has broken records? What album has raised awareness for social issues? What album will remain known as an album, not just a host for a hit single? What album has appealed to fans of multiple genres?
Regardless of your personal preference, the fact is that Beyoncé can be the answer to each of those questions.
Before the voting deadline (Jan 16th), Beyoncé was the best-selling album in the U.S. out of the five nominees, with 2.2 million copies sold (Sam Smith and Ed Sheeran have both sold more than a million copies, while Pharrell’s record has barely passed 500,000). The winner, Beck, is the lowest-selling winner in this category since 2008 with roughly 300,000 copies sold.
Beyoncé’s album has the highest score on MetaCritic, 85, followed by Beck’s Morning Phase with 81. The other three albums have a score below 70. If we are to evaluate artistry in this category, the most highly-respected music critics have spoken.
In terms of cultural impact, none of the nominated albums managed to infiltrate our everyday language with its lyrics and message the way Beyoncé has. Catchphrases like “Surfboard, surfboard” and “I woke up like dis, flawless” have come out of many young people’s mouths on multiple occasions in 2014.
Using social media to measure to that impact, here’s how we use lyrics from these albums as hashtags on Instagram: #surfboard (792k posts), #surfboardt (#12k posts), #surfboardsurfboard (3k posts), #staywithme (210k posts), #wokeuplikethis (240k posts), #wokeuplikedis (33k posts), #causeimhappy (41k posts), #thinkingoutloud (186k posts), #flawless (6.9 million posts). I couldn’t think of a Beck lyrics that would be hashtag-worthy, to be honest. I’m also not suggesting that every use of these hashtags pertains to the artist, but if you look through the tagged content, a lot of it does.
The search volume on Google for each of the five records clearly indicates that Beyoncé’s album sparked the highest level of interest and curiosity. On top of that, she maintained that interest at a higher level than the other nominees for almost the entire year.
Challenging the Traditional Model
Along with the commercial success, the critical acclaim, and dominating the general public’s attention span, Beyoncé shook the music industry like 10-magnitutde earthquake. As she sings on her recently-released collaboration with Nicki Minaj: “Changed the game with that digital drop / Know where you was when that digital popped.” No need to get into details behind the release.
While the strategy was brilliant, it challenged the classic album release / distribution model. It proved this model is not the only way to put out a record and have success. It devalued the role of major distributors and record labels. Frankly, it pissed off some of the old guard—Target and Amazon boycotted the release and refused to sell its physical copies.
Despite living in West Hollywood, California, it’s impossible for me to stumble upon a physical copy of her self-titled album; not even after she re-released it in November 2014. Despite these obstacles, the album still ranked #6 on the Best Selling Albums of 2014 list. Sam Smith is the only other nominee who made top 10.
Beyoncé proved a traditional model wrong, while helping a traditional format to persevere. Self-titled was intended to be experienced as a full body of work and remind people how exciting it is to discover music in a long-form format. None of the songs was made available for single purchase in the first week (maybe even longer, I don’t remember exactly) of release. She performed the entire album as a 14-minute medley at the MTV Video Music Awards in August to reestablish that message.
I’m not going to address the album’s visual component. Contrary to what you might think, she is not the first artist to film a video to every song of their album. Olivia Newton John’s Physical comes to mind when I think of previous cases. She is the first to incorporate the visual component in the release strategy in such unique way, though.
I’m also not going to address the social message behind the album (the promotion of feminism, the social campaign #WhatIsPretty inspired by the song “Pretty Hurts”). By now you get my point that none of the nominated records have impacted the music industry and pop culture the way Beyoncé’s has. In my opinion, when you impact an industry the way she did, Beyoncé winning Album Of The Year was her right, not a privilege.
Kanye West made a premature comment that Beck needs to respect artistry and hand over the award to Beyoncé, which I don’t agree with. Beck’s music is not my cup of tea, but I’ve listen to the album and the record is by no means less artistic than the other four. Beck is a musician that plays 14 instruments and a true virtuoso in his genre. However, Album Of The Year is not a genre category; it’s a general category. And as the title suggests, an album’s value is measured on a more general scale.
I’m inclined to believe that a lot of industry professionals wanted to vote against Beyoncé and punish her attempt to sabotage the traditional business. And in that sport, Beck happened to receive more votes than Sam Smith because it was his time and Sam had already gotten plenty of votes in Record Of The Year and Song Of The Year. That’s how I see it. No one can prove me right or wrong; we’ll never know the real reason. To put it in Beyonce’s own words: “With a lot of success comes a lot of negativity.”
The fact remains: Beck’s album won the curse of being remembered and mentioned by the general public only in association with Beyoncé’s groundbreaking record. The rockist in you might not like it, but deep down you know that when you bring it up in 2017, that will be the context of the conversation.
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