Why Everybody Was Mad On Twitter About The Grammys Last Night

There was a lot going on during the Grammys, including a Best Album nominee not being asked to perform, and only a handful of female winners.

By nowproducerdave on January 29, 2018
(Photo by Steven Ferdman/Getty Images)

The Grammys happened last night, and there was a lot to take away this year. Here are some of the key reasons why people were angry at the Grammys though, and what they were tweeting about them:

#GrammysSoMale was trending. Despite all the attention the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have been getting recently to recognise women in the entertainment industry and to help bring an end to sexual harassment and misconduct in the industry, there many of the wins were male-dominated. Alessia Cara was the only televised-female winner of the evening, with her win in the “Best New Artist” category. Congratulations to her though for sure on that win, by the way. But one of the specific categories that was angering people was the “Best Pop Solo Performance.” In that category, there were 4 women nominated – Pink, Lady Gaga, Kesha, Kelly Clarkson, and rounding off that list of seriously impressive female talent was Ed Sheeran. Ed wound up taking the award in that category, and he wasn’t even at the award show last night. That’s angering a lot of fans who were tweeting things like:

You get the point.

Lorde was nominated for “Album of the Year.” Thing is, she wasn’t asked to perform at the show. Well, she kind of was, but was apparently asked to perform a small section of a Tom Petty tribute. She wanted to perform an entire song from her “Best Album” nomination, and producers for the show wouldn’t have it. They couldn’t make an agreement, so her performance was dropped completely. The other 4 artists nominated in that category though – all guys – got to perform a song, although Jay-Z declined to perform last night. Bruno Mars gave her a shout-out though, during his acceptance speech for “Album of the Year” by saying “Wow. First off, first off, to the other nominees in this category, Lorde, Kung Fu Kenny, Jay Z, Gambino, you guys are the reasons I’m in the studio pulling my hair out because I know you will only come with the top shelf artistry and music.” So his shout-out included the other nominees in the category, but he did give her credit for making him work hard. Pretty cool still.

According to the article, in the past 6 years there have been 899 people nominated for various awards – and only 9% of those artists were women.

Something else, people were questioning the choice to have Donnie Wahlberg and Hailee Steinfeld announce the “Best Country Album” award. They’re not exactly known for their work in the country music industry, but… *shrug* Someone had to announce it, I guess. Not a big deal, just a little strange is all.

Not necessarily being tweeted about but relevant to this story, the President of the Recording Academy, Neil Portnow, was asked specifically about the hashtag, #GrammysSoMale, and said, essentially, that women are welcome in the industry, and that it’s the jobs of those people who are in the industry to “make the welcome mat very obvious,” and that women need to “step up” and get into the industry. “Step up” meaning basically to just come forward and try to get started. We’re not sure if he was saying that women just aren’t trying to break into the industry, or what exactly he was getting at, and we don’t want to assume, but you can read his full statement here.

For a list of who won on the televised broadcast, check it out here. If you want a complete list of all winners in every category, including a lot of other women who won an award last night, check out that list here.

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