The greatest part of the year for a music stan is grammy season. A competition on a world scale pinning the best artists, songs, and albums up against one another to crown the top of each category for the past year. A Grammy may sound like just an award, but to the culture, it is so much more.
This 2018 Grammy season was unlike any other however. 2017 was a rich year in music, as hip hop became the dominating genre of music, latino artists were beginning to break through to the mainstream, and a host of future classic albums were released.
The Grammy’s, however, are notorious for getting things “wrong.” Many casual music listeners do not tend to agree with a majority of the Grammy choices, however a majority do agree with the nominees.
This year wasn’t any different. There was a universal mess up by the Recording Academy. And it all has to do with Pop’s golden boy, Bruno Mars.
Bruno Mars is by no means a bad artist. The fact that he has continued to stay on top of the charts for over 8 years. He has amassed 7 number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, and 15 total Top 10 Hits. He is no joke.
On Sunday night, Bruno Mars received 7 Grammys, sweeping the 3 most sought after categories: Album of the Year with “24K Magic”, Record of the Year with “24K Magic”, and Song of the Year with “That’s What I Like.”
“He won over both Kesha and Lady Gaga,” said senior Sarah Smith, “I was fuming.”
Kesha had an undeniably great album after almost 4 years trapped in a legal dispute.
Maxine Fuselier ‘19 said something similar, “24K Magic was overrated. I really didn’t enjoy it as much as some of the other nominees.”
Another beef commonly held among students regarding Bruno Mars’s wins is that he won over songs that strayed from the typical pop lyrics of yesteryear.
“I’m upset that Bruno Mars won a lot of his Grammys based off of songs about sex when he was up against Kesha and Logic who wrote meaningful and impactful songs,” says Adrianna Sanford ‘18.
Michael Gaessler, a senior at Regis Jesuit, said this about the Grammy choices, “I thought ‘Damn’ by Kendrick Lamar would win because it was commercially and culturally significant.”
But behind all of the disappointment, some moments will continue to break through the bleakness that the Grammys seem to be going.
“Lil Uzi Vert’s speech was straight fire. Wake up, eat some Poptarts. That’s a man,” quoted Austin Mann ‘18.