Unequivocally, Beyoncé advised us herself about her 2024 album Cowboy Carter, “This ain’t a rustic album.”
However apparently, Grammy voters disagree.
It was a really mediocre displaying for Beyoncé through the Grammy pre-telecast ceremony on Sunday (2-2). She she misplaced three of the 4 awards she was nominated for in nation and roots classes, in addition to struggling losses in a number of different style classes. But it surely didn’t appear to a lot matter when she walked away with the 2025 Grammy for Greatest Nation Album simply after 8 pm on the televised portion of the awards.
In lots of respects, the actual story of the 2025 Grammy Awards in nation music feels prefer it must be Sierra Ferrell, regardless that she didn’t win a single nation Grammy, and didn’t even make it on the night telecast. What she did do is sweep all of the American Roots music classes in nation’s cousin style, in addition to win Greatest Americana Album for 2024’s Path of Flowers, making her a really uncommon 4-time Grammy winner all on the identical day.
The nation music Grammys that got out earlier within the day didn’t embody the identical electrical energy, shock, suspense, and buzz because the roots classes did as a result of Sierra, and didn’t even embody a number of controversy to stir dialog. As an alternative they felt extremely predictable, although the winners weren’t essentially undeserving.
Chris Stapleton received Greatest Nation Solo Efficiency for his music “It Takes A Girl.” It’s a wonderful music from Stapleton, and positively an awesome efficiency, however exhausting to assert as defining of the nation style during the last 12 months or so. As a favourite of awards exhibits, any time Stapleton is nominated, he’s all the time the entrance runner, and his win can’t shock anyone.
Greatest Nation Tune went to Kacey Musgraves and her co-writer Shane McAnally for “The Architect.” Although it’s simply the best music from Kacey’s newest album Deeper Effectively, it additionally doesn’t really feel like a music that defines nation music in 2024, or the perfect of what the style needed to supply. However “The Architect” is well-written, and worst songs might have received. Just like Stapleton, Musgraves is an awards present and Grammy darling, and her win can’t shock anybody. If something, it was once more a boring, uneventful choose.
Beyoncé’s early win for Greatest Nation Duo/Group Efficiency with Miley Cyrus on “II Most Wished” gave Queen Bey the nation Grammy she’d been craving. However Beyoncé was additionally denied the sweep of the nation classes that she very properly might have pulled off. She was nominated in all 4 nation classes, in addition to Greatest Americana Efficiency for “Ya Ya,” which she misplaced to Sierra Ferrell’s “American Dreaming.”
Beyoncé was nominated for a field-leading 11 Grammy awards going into Grammy Sunday 2025, however was shedding left and proper. Till she didn’t. Beyoncé profitable Greatest Nation Album meant her taking the most important prize in nation music for an album that she says unequivocally isn’t.
As Beyoncé she mentioned in her speech, echoing quite a few inferences on her Cowboy Carter album, “I feel generally style is a code phrase to maintain us in our place as artists.”
However that’s the reason for genre-specific Grammy classes. They’re there to verify pop stars value $800 million {dollars} who’re married to billionaires can’t are available and abscond with consideration meant for performers who don’t really feel like style is one thing to “maintain them of their place,” however as an alternative really feel it’s one thing to honor and respect.
There are Grammy awards for albums, artists, and songs that defy style. It’s known as pop. The purpose of style particular classes is to focus on works that adhere to the respective genres.
As a lot as Beyoncé’s win for Greatest Nation Album might be celebrated, it knocks each little woman and boy who grew up eager to be a rustic star and devoted their lives to the style one notch down. It robs the style of a chance to fete a performer who might be within the nation style subsequent 12 months, and the 12 months after, and the 12 months after that. It units a doubtful precedent that when you merely declare your self “nation” (or in Beyoncé’s case, you don’t), you’ll be able to win a rustic Grammy.
Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter was a industrial catastrophe. It fell to #50 within the albums charts in simply 13 weeks, and out of the Billboard 200 fully after 28 weeks—staggering numbers for Billboard‘s recently-named “Pop Star of the Century.” However the media and Beyoncé Stans efficiently launched a canard that Cowboy Carter was nation, and an awesome album, regardless of no one listening to it.
Finally although, it won’t a lot matter. The Grammy Awards will take a giant credibility hit with nation followers. However the true story in nation music continues to be the resurgence of precise nation artists, precise nation sounds, and significant songwriting. Beyoncé is solely an epiphenomenal anomaly with little lasting impact.
Cowboy Carter‘s Greatest Nation Album win wasn’t earned, it was compelled. With a gun to its head, Grammy voters did what they needed to do to make sure the establishment wasn’t known as racist. And regardless that it’s a giant win for Beyoncé, it seems like a foul loss for all genres that attempt to current the unadulterated expressions of tradition that come from all individuals of all races and walks of life, and that go into presenting the sensible tapestry that’s American music.
Some will rejoice what this implies for range in nation music. However in fact, it represents the dying of range in music. When the identical artist value $800 million can win Grammy Awards in pop, hip-hop, R&B, dance, and EDM, it represents the widening of the gulf between the have’s and the haven’t’s, and the way an elite stage of performers can stroll away with all of the spoils, particularly since Beyoncé would go on to additionally win the all-genre Grammy for Album of the Yr.
Nation does have a race drawback, each traditionally, and at present. However whether it is ever going to resolve that drawback, it has to develop artists from inside. These artists additionally have to be nation, not imported from pop. Then and solely then will a win by a Black girl for Greatest Nation Album have which means.
Till then, all of that is only a massive distraction from the issues that matter, and overshadows artists who labored their lives to scale the mountain, and did by celebrating the modes of nation and roots music versus attempting to defy them—artists like Sierra Ferrell, who regardless of being relegated to the pre-telecast presentation and the “American Roots” Grammy classes, is the true winner in nation music in 2025. As a result of her wins weren’t compelled. They had been earned.
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