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Snubs, surprises, the lucky and the not-solucky
This year is not getting any better for Kanye West.
After canceling his Saint Pablo tour and spending Thanksgiving in the hospital for exhaustion, West received more bad news with Tuesday’s Grammy nominations. Although he tied peers Drake and Rihanna with eight nominations each, (Beyoncé led with nine), West’s The Life of Pab
lo was excluded from the major categories, receiving nominations only in the rap field.
Also absent from this year’s major categories was David Bowie, dashing fans’ hopes that the rock star would posthumously receive the album of the year award for Blackstar, released two days before his death in January.
Here’s a look at the most notable Grammy snubs: KANYE WEST Once again, the major Grammy categories continue to elude the rapper/producer. While West is a perennial winner for best rap album and song, he has never broken through to win song or album of the year. As a consolation prize, West could be recognized in the album-of-the-year category with a production credit for Drake’s Views. That’s likely not good enough for the notoriously ego-driven star. DAVID BOWIE Ambitious and experimental, Bowie’s
Blackstar was warmly received by critics. Then the 69-year-old singer died days after its release, and the album became almost a mythological artifact of Bowie’s final months, with allusions to illness and death hidden throughout its songs. Although Bowie is remembered with a posthumous nomination for best alternative music album, Blackstar didn’t earn an album-of-the-year nod, and its lead single Lazarus was absent from the main song categories. PRINCE Bowie isn’t the only recently deceased star whose last album was snubbed by the Recording Academy. Prince’s underrated Hit n
Run Phase Two, released in December 2015, was the 39th and final studio album by the pop icon, who died in April. While Hit n
Run Phase Two earned a Grammy nomination in the production, non-classical category, the album is absent from the R&B categories Prince has won in the past. JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE With his chart-topping hit Can’t Stop the Feeling! released on the Trolls soundtrack, Timberlake may have been trying to emulate Pharrell Williams’ success with Happy, his Despicable Me 2 collaboration song that won two Grammys in 2015. Unfortunately, Can’t Stop the Feeling! earned only a nomination in the music for visual media field, instead of the major categories. THE CHAINSMOKERS No song reigned over the charts in 2016 like Closer, the millennial magnum opus from the electronic music duo that spent 12 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. But the Recording Academy wasn’t as generous to Closer as listeners were; while the Chainsmokers snagged a new artist nomination, their breakthrough hit is missing from both song of the year and record of the year. COLDPLAY The British rock favorites have found success at past Grammys, taking home a win for record of the year for Clocks in 2004. But just like Beyoncé overshadowed the band at their Super Bowl performance this year, their 2015 effort Head Full of Dreams didn’t make an impact on voters, earning just one nomination for the
Up & Up music video. BECK The singer/songwriter is a proven favorite of the Recording Academy, walking away with a surprise album of the year win in 2015 for
Morning Phase. Unfortunately, his playful, pseudo-rap single Wow didn’t have the same effect on voters; it didn’t receive any nominations. With Wow appearing on a new Beck project reportedly on the horizon, he’ll have another chance to win them over next year. GREEN DAY The cultural climate may be particularly politicized this year, but Green Day’s bombastic single
Bang Bang didn’t make an impact on the Grammys, with the band absent from the nominations. Their full album Revolution Radio won’t be eligible until next year, giving the band a chance at the rock album award they won in 2005 ( American Idiot) and 2010 ( 21st Century Breakdown).