“I Am … Sasha Fierce” dropping to Taylor Swift’s “Fearless” — believable. “Beyoncé” dropping to Beck’s “Morning Part” — laughable. “Lemonade” dropping to Adele’s “25” — teachable. “Renaissance” dropping to Harry Kinds’s “Harry’s Home” — risible.
4 instances, Beyoncé was nominated for album of the yr on the Grammys, and 4 instances, she got here up quick. Provided that she is probably the most nominated artist in Grammy historical past, and likewise the winningest, the shutout has been notable and borderline inexplicable.
And so some trepidation hovered over the 67th annual Grammys on Sunday evening, the place she was, for the fifth time, up for album of the yr.
This time, although, she gained. And her victory — for “Cowboy Carter,” an album of reimagined American roots music, centered via the lens of Black participation and innovation — was so welcome that even her opponents appeared relieved when her identify was introduced. Swift, one of many losers, clinked champagne flutes with Jay-Z, Beyoncé’s husband: two individuals who virtually definitely didn’t need to need to navigate a fifth Beyoncé loss.
With a purpose to absolutely assess the Grammys’ earlier blind spot, it helps to not dwell too lengthy on the standard of Beyoncé’s albums, that are overwhelmingly wonderful and, on the very minimal, conceptually and technically spectacular. They typically sound as in the event that they required extra labor and thought than all different albums launched in a given yr put collectively. They make ambition sound ecstatic.
However awards exhibits are arbitrary, and awards themselves not terribly significant: In case you take profitable significantly, it’s essential to additionally take dropping significantly. (Beyoncé has now been nominated for 99 Grammys, and gained 35.)
Nonetheless, the truth that Beyoncé hadn’t gained album of the yr earlier than was a Grammy narrative so loud and protracted that it’s made its means into acceptance speeches, trade self-flagellation and finally, perhaps, into Beyoncé’s music itself.
Principally it had the impact of rendering certainly one of pop’s most profitable and influential stars as, successfully, an underdog.
Given the dimensions of ambition of her work, and likewise its degree of excellence, that is an ungainly stress. However it additionally underscored a extra pervasive drawback with the Grammys, which is the way it has ceaselessly sidelined Black performers, particularly Black girls. Given how conversations about fairness have roiled the Recording Academy lately — whether or not within the type of Black artists boycotting the awards, or feedback from a former chief minimizing the work of feminine artists — Beyoncé’s losses had been private, but additionally emblematic.
Maybe no album might have extra appropriately addressed these circumstances than “Cowboy Carter,” which is a part of a bunch of Beyoncé albums that double as treatises on missed Black musical histories. It troubles the very notion of nation music, and likewise casts a highlight on the mainstream nation music trade, which favors very slender stripes of the style, and has largely regarded Beyoncé’s efforts with a collective silence that feels slightly like indignant defiance.
However you too can learn “Cowboy Carter” as an implicit taunt to Grammy voters. Maybe the queer Black dance music that knowledgeable “Renaissance” was too elusive for them. Possibly the cross-platform dominance of “Lemonade” and the shock of the “Beyoncé” shock launch overpowered the musical dexterity of these albums. Or maybe, merely, the voting blocs didn’t have ears and minds tuned to her frequency.
However a young learn of the Beatles’ “Blackbird”? Heat appearances from Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson? Collaborations with Put up Malone and Miley Cyrus? Seen cynically, “Cowboy Carter” is peak Grammy bait — an album that showcases the distinctive inventive imaginative and prescient and unmatched execution of one of many signature pop stars of the twenty first century, and likewise an album of hard-to-miss nostalgia and style faithfulness that even probably the most historic Grammy voter would acknowledge.
For album of the yr, “Cowboy Carter” is a radical decide, in the way it reupholsters the concept of nation music, centering Black collaborators younger and previous. (Or given nation’s Black roots, maybe deupholsters is the best phrase.) It’s a traditionalist decide in its mindfulness of the style’s conventions and elders. And it’s nonetheless an outsider decide, for the straightforward undeniable fact that Black performers — even Beyoncé — are nonetheless too ceaselessly missed in settings like these.
“I need to dedicate this to Ms. Martell,” she mentioned in her acceptance speech, acknowledging Linda Martell, who was the primary Black lady to play the Grand Ole Opry, and who additionally seems on “Cowboy Carter.”
Beyoncé was nominated for 11 awards on Sunday, and conveniently sneaked into her seat simply earlier than “Cowboy Carter” gained greatest nation album, making her the primary Black lady to win that prize. She additionally took greatest nation duo/group efficiency for “II Most Wished,” a duet with Miley Cyrus. These victories had been delicate rebukes of Nashville insularity and orthodoxy, but additionally the results of a world famous person being nominated in classes the place her identify recognition outpaced everybody else’s in mixture. (She didn’t win greatest Americana efficiency or greatest melodic rap efficiency, each style classes that had been gained by traditionalists.)
Beyoncé now turns into solely the fourth Black lady to win the Grammys’ high prize, following Lauryn Hill, Whitney Houston and Natalie Cole. Not Aretha Franklin. Not Missy Elliott. Not Mary J. Blige. Not Diana Ross. Not Janet Jackson. Not TLC. Not Anita Baker. Not Mariah Carey. Not Nicki Minaj. Not Nina Simone.
It’s straightforward to argue {that a} Grammy Awards system that has typically didn’t acknowledge the ability of Beyoncé’s most interesting artwork isn’t a lot of a system in any respect, and that perhaps consequently, the present doesn’t matter.
However it does, if solely as a result of Beyoncé has saved displaying up, granting the awards legitimacy in her willingness to, publicly a minimum of, settle for the end result. Her victory, although, permits the Grammys to shut its undervaluing-Beyoncé chapter and transfer on, and it permits Beyoncé to, ought to she need to, merely keep dwelling. The purpose has been confirmed.
