LINDSAY ZOLADZ Yes, the album of the year category is overcrowded once again, but it does include an interesting rematch of 2017, when Adele’s “25” beat Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” — and Adele, somewhat awkwardly, admitted from the stage that she thought Beyoncé should have won. Like Macklemore’s infamous and admittedly much more embarrassing text message to Kendrick Lamar three years prior, the racial politics of that moment were difficult for many viewers to ignore.
In the years since, and perhaps as an attempt at compensation, the Grammys have gone out of their way to fête Beyoncé. Never forget the cringe felt ’round the world when, in 2021, Trevor Noah ambushed her to announce she’d just tied a Grammy record. (We’ll always have the memes.)
That’s an undeniably impressive stat, but Joe, as you point out, Beyoncé hasn’t won in a “major” category since 2010, when “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” took home song of the year. Of course, that feels like 10 Beyoncés ago by now. It’s high time the Grammys awarded her at least one of the Big Four again, and if “Renaissance” were to win album of the year, it would make her just the fourth Black woman in history (alongside Natalie Cole, Whitney Houston and Lauryn Hill) to take home that statue.
Plus, they’d actually be rewarding an adventurous, artful and immaculately recorded piece of work — imagine that! I do still think “30” is Adele’s best album, by the way, but if she beats Beyoncé again I fear whatever is left of Twitter by February will actually implode. Do you guys think these two are the album front-runners, or could we get an upset?
JON PARELES I agree with you that they’re the front-runners, Lindsay: Adele because she exemplifies old-school, ballad-loving, acoustic-musicianship-forward, previous-winners Grammy preferences. And Beyoncé not only for the quality of the album, but because at least some Grammy voters realize that they have embarrassingly slighted her.
But now that the Grammys have expanded the top categories to 10 nominees, there’s always the chance that a plurality — rather than a consensus — will vote in a winner. If R&B partisans are split among Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige and Lizzo, and big-voiced ballad aficionados split between Adele and Brandi Carlile, maybe “Harry’s House” could win the kind of craftsmanship-loving, familiarity-craving constituency that gave Silk Sonic last year’s record and song of the year. With the Grammy votership, you never know.
Jon Caramanica, Joe Coscarelli, Jon Pareles and Lindsay Zoladz
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