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You're listening ad free on Amazon Music. Welcome back to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanfy, shop chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number One series. On our last episode, we started walking through the history of the Grammy Awards and their relationship to the Billboard charts. The Recording Academy was founded in the 1950s by industry figures who hated rock and roll and spent the Grammy's first decade avoiding it. The Academy did eventually begin rewarding rock, R and B and other forms of pop, and by the 70s and 80s they were aligning with the charts and popular tastes. But as the 21st century approaches, the center cannot hold. Entering the 90s, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences was reeling from its biggest ever scandal, the 1990 rescinding of the Best New Artist prize from fraudulent hip hop vocal duo Milli Vanilli, which we discussed in depth in a prior episode of Hit Parade.
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Blame it on the rain that was falling, falling Blame it on the stars it shined at night.
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With the Grammys very existence called into question after this scandal, naris began to retrench. The 1991 Grammys were swept by veteran producer Quincy Jones with his multi artist album Back on the Block. And then they went even more old school at the awards of 1992. After a year when alternative rock was on the rise and REM and Nirvana were topping the charts, the Grammys went fully pre rock with a pile of Grammys for Natalie Cole, daughter of the late Nat King Cole. That's what you are.
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Unforgettable.
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On the album Unforgettable with Love, Natalie sang standards made famous by her father. The CD culminated in a duet version of the song Unforgettable, sung by Natalie and the ghostly voice of the deceased Nat. The Academy showered the album with prizes. Most dubiously, they gave Unforgettable, the song not only Record of the year for the eerie recording feat, but also Song of the Year for a tune that had been written by Irving Gordon in 1951. With this prize, the Recording Academy was effectively claiming that no composition actually written in 1991 was worthy of a Grammy.
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That's why, darling, it's incredible that someone so unforgettable.
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In 1993, the Grammys latched onto the unplugged fad that had taken MTV by storm. And the first major beneficiary was guitarist Eric Clapton. Having previously rewarded Clapton little for his output, he did share credit for 1973 album of the year the Concert for Bangladesh, a George Harrison project. The Academy in 1993 rectified the oversight to an extreme degree, showering Clapton with six statues on the night for some of his sleepiest work, including a slowed down cover of his fiery Derek and the Dominoes hit Layla. Got me on My knees. To be fair to Clapton, both his Unplugged album and the unplugged Layla were big chart hits even before he won all those Grammys. That was not the case two years later, when the Album of the Year went to a much larkier MTV Unplugged CD by veteran crooner Tony Bennett.
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It had to be you.
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Bennett's collection of great American songbook standards performed on the MTV Unplugged stage, had barely scraped the top 70 on the Billboard 200 during its 1994 chart run. In a year dominated by the likes of Green Day, TLC and Snoop Dogg, the Academy nomin only Bennett's Unplugged album but an all blues album by Clapton and a live album by operatic singing trio the Three Tenors that even classical aficionados considered a novelty record. When Tony Bennett won over that meager competition, his album became the lowest charting album of the year winner in Grammy history to date.
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Stepping out with My Baby can't go wrong cuz I'm in right Ask me when will that day be?
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After widespread grumbling about the 1995 results not only among critics but Academy members as well, the president of the Academy took action before 1996, installing nominating committees to review Academy members selections and ensure that some more current music got nominated for the record. While most critics and some artists came to regard the review committees as corrupt, your Hit Parade host is a contrarian. I felt the committees saved Narras members from their own worst impulses. Some of the better Grammy nominees after 1995 were likely the work of the committees. They were eventually disbanded in 2021 anyway. In 1996, after the nomination committees were installed, the results were felt right away. That year's Album of the Year nominees were Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, Joan Osborne, Pearl Jam and Alanis Morissette, whose chart dominating blockbuster Jagged Little Pill took the prize. Two years after that, a hip hop album won Album of the Year for the first time, when the miseducation of Lauryn Hill went all the way. Of course, Lauryn Hill's superlative disc is as much a singing album as a rapping album, which brings up another Grammy bugaboo. The Academy's perpetual slights of rap music once Rock became the establishment range. Rap became the music the Grammys held at arm's length.
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There's no need to argue, parents just don't understand.
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Rap's presence at the Grammys began inauspiciously in 1989 when a Best Rap Performance Grammy was introduced and DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince's novelty hit Parents Just Don't Understand took the inaugural prize. The New Rap Award was not televised and Jeff and Fresh Prince Will Smith led a boycott of the ceremony. In future years, rap Grammy results improved. Early 90s winners included LL Cool J, Dr. Dre and Queen Latifah. But it took a full decade and a quarter century after the birth of hip hop before a rapp took one of the top all genre prizes. Lauryn Hill's win was unquestionably a triumph, but it had no coattails. After Miseducation, it was another five years before a hip hop album took the Grammys top prize. In 2004, Outkast won album of the Year with their penultimate release, the double CD Speaker Box the Love Below, an album which again, Andre 3000 and Big Boy were singing as well as rapping. Twenty years later, Speaker Box the Love Below remains the last hip hop album of any kind to take home the general field. Album of the year in the 2000s, the Grammys continued their retrenchment even when the nominating committees put forward adventurous or just on trend music. The voters homed in on the middlebrow. In 2001, for example, the Album of the Year race included Eminem's controversial The Marshall Mathers LP.
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Anyways, I hope you get this man. Hit me back. Just a chat. Truly yours, your biggest fan.
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And Radiohead's Cutting edge Kid A, both of which have been number one albums on the Billboard 200. But Grammy voters sidestepped the Eminem controversy and the Radiohead edginess and went instead with Steely Dan's ultra smooth 2000 comeback album Two Against Nature, which had been off the album chart for months. When it won, the sardonic witty duo of Donald Fagan and Walter Becker, now relegated to elder statesman status, finally won the prestige prize. Decades past Steely Dan's prime over a newer generation of upstarts. Indeed, there was a lot of smooth music clogging the Grammy ballot In the aughts, it was the peak of the so called Starbucks album. Easy listening, jazzy or rustic sounding CDs that sold near the counter at the coffee chain. Album of the year winners that got their early boost as a side dish to a cafe latte included 2003 winner come away With Me by jazz pop vocalist Norah Jones, I Waited Till I.
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Saw the Sun, I Don't Know why.
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I Didn't Come and soul legend Ray Charles final CD, Genius Loves Company, which won in 2005 posthumously because Charles had died the prior June as part of Brother Ray's Grammy sweep. His duet with Norah Jones, a song that had come nowhere, nowhere near the charts, took Record of the year as well. And in 2008, Herbie Hancock's river the Joanie Letters, a CD of jazz covers of songs by Joni Mitchell, won an upset Album of the Year victory over better remembered discs by Amy Winehouse and Kanye West. By the way, Norah Jones sang on Hancock's album, too. The other Grammy fixture in the decade of Starbucks albums was bluegrass vocalist Alison Krause, who provided her sterling pipes to the soundtrack of oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Winner of the 2002 album of the.
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Year Grammy When I Die, Hallelujah by and By, I Fly Away.
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And seven years later, Krause teamed with veteran Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant for the Americana folk album Raising Sand, a big winner at the 2009 Grammys. In Led Zeppelin's heyday, the band's music won zero Grammys. The group was only nominated for and lost Best new artist in 1970. But as an elder statesman, Robert Plant and his new duet partner cleaned up sweeping Album of the year as well as Record of the Year with Please Read the Letter.
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That I wrote.
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By the 2010s, even indie rock seemed venerable enough for the Grammys, especially as an alternative to rapid and dance pop. In 2011, the Arcade Fire were shocked when their album the Suburbs took Album of the Year over Eminem, Lady Gaga, Lady Antebellum and Katy Perry. As with several prior 21st century winners, a fine album won for possibly the wrong reason.
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The feeling.
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In 2014, Electronic Dance Music took its first album of the year when Daft Punk won for their final album, Random Access Memories. Not incidentally, it was the robotic French duo's most retro sounding lp.
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She's Up All Night to the Sun I'm Up All Night to get some She's Up All Night for Good.
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The other Grammy trend that compounded in the 2000 and tens was the repeat winner. Not since Stevie wonder in the 70s had Grammy voters gone back to the same candidates so many times, whether it was Adele in 2012. Or Adele in 2017.
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Hello from the Other side.
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Taylor Swift in 2010, Swift in 2016. Or Swift in 2021. Or Bruno Mars, who kept winning Record of the year in 2016, In 2018 when he also took Album of the Year, Or in 2022 when Bruno took the prize with his retro style. Anderson Paak duo Project Silk Sonic. To be sure, Adele, Taylor and Bruno were all leading lights of 2010's pop, relatively deserving of their wins. But the blockade by these artists effectively locked out from the top all genre categories, such hip hop leading lights as Kendrick Lamar, who by the way, has won a damn Pulitzer. The only musician outside of classical and jazz to win that prize, but he's never won a Best Album Grammy.
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You up? But if God got us then we go Be all right, we gonna be all right we gonna be all right.
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And post hip hop R B queen Beyonce, who, despite now holding the record for most Grammys ever won by a single artist as of this podcast episode she has 32, has won almost none of her prizes in the general field categories. After releasing three of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful albums of the last decade, Beyonce, Lemonade and Renaissance, that feels rather unjust. So could this have been avoided? What are some guidelines for good Grammy governance? How, hypothetically, should a conscientious, critically minded and chart aware music fan vote for the awards? I don't have a ballot, but I'm so glad you asked. We'll be back momentarily. Here's the thing about complaining about the Grammys. You can't make firm rules to improve them. You wind up contradicting yourself. It's all well and good to say nobody should win Album of the Year multiple times. But then which of Stevie Wonder's or Taylor Swift's big prizes would you take away? It's intuitive to say no artists past their prime should win a big Grammy. But then Paul Simon wins for Graceland at age 45 and he's scoring hits again like he's back in his prime. Or Bob Dylan finally wins Album of the Year for the first time at age 56, with 1997's time out of Mind and virtually everyone agrees, good for Bob. It's about time. And look, as you have no doubt gathered throughout this Hit Parade episode, I am a chart follower and a lover of current pop. I'd love to tell the Recording Academy, stop giving statues to records that barely even charted. Nobody cares. Stop wagging your finger at the general public. And then an album like Jon Batiste's We Are Wins album of the year in 2022 after charting no higher than number 86.
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When I move my body just like this I don't know why, but I feel like freedom.
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And well, am I going to be the jerk who says a musician's musician like John Baptiste shouldn't win a Grammy? Not to be a spoil sport, but personally I would have given Baptiste some smaller prizes that year and given the big prize to Lil Nas X or Olivia Rodrigo, but that's just me. So with my usual pile of caveats that what follows is meant to be not only subjective but suggestive, I am going to offer a top five list of Grammy guidelines. The idea is a hypothetical Grammy voter should mix and match these guidelines as best they can to come up with winners that feel credible, relevant, aiming for consensus, not coolness. Because, let's be real, the Grammys have never been cool, but at their best they can feel like they captured a moment in our culture. A Stevie Wonder moment, a Fleetwood Mac moment, a Michael Jackson moment, a U2 moment, a Lauryn Hill moment, an Adele moment. As long as the Grammys continue to exist, let's aim for that Grammy guideline one Aim for cultural impact. Or in other words, the charts are your friend. Not always, but often the Grammys miss the mark because they try to second guess popular taste. This has happened quite a bit in the song category, and so did I.
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Now when I remember Spring.
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This is the Shadow of youf Smile, winner of the 1966 Grammy for song of the Year. It's a jazzy pop stander that has long outlasted the flop Elizabeth Taylor film the Sandpiper, for which it was penned. It's been covered by dozens of artists, and this version by Tony Bennett reached number 95 on the Hot 100 in 1965, all very respectable. But among the other nominees that the Shadow of youf smile defeated in 1966 for song of the Year was this yesterday.
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All my troubles seem so far away now it looks as though they're here to stay.
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The Beatles number one smash yesterday, which Guinness World Records estimates has been covered more than 2200 times. You want standards? This is a standard and a record that captured the Zeitgeist in 1965. As I noted earlier in our Grammy history, the Academy was slow to recognize the Beatles. Giving Song of the Year to yesterday would have been an easy way to do so. Something similar happened in Record of the year in 2002. U2 had won the prize in 2001 for their big hit Beautiful Day, and then they won again the following year for Walk On, a single from the same album that didn't even make the Hot 100 and peaked in the middle of Billboard's rock charts. Listen, I am fond of U2, but giving record of the Year to the Irish band two years in a row. The second time for a song that wasn't even a major hit was overkill. Two decades later, Walk on has less than 1/10 the Spotify streams of U2's biggest songs, including Beautiful Day. Also at the 2002 Grammys, Walk on beat a pair of number one hits fallen by Alicia Keys. And Ms. Jackson by outkast. Each of these hits has had a much longer legacy and much stronger Spotify streams. The charts are not a perfect yardstick by any means. Several Grammy winning LPs that critics have complained about, like Natalie Cole's Unforgettable, Eric Clapton's Unplugged or Ray Charles Genius Loves Company, did top the album chart. But in each case, these Grammy winners beat albums packed with chart conquering singles like Green Day's American Idiot, Kanye West's the College Dropout or REM's out of Time.
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That's me in the corner. That's me in the spot, like Losing My religion.
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So whether it's Frank Sinatra beating the Beatles in the mid-60s or Beck beating Beyonce in the mid 10s, ask yourself, hypothetical Grammy voter, is it really a virtue legacy wise to ignore the wisdom of the crowd? Maybe the crowd had a point. My second guideline is sort of a corollary to the first. You could even pair them together. Grammy guideline 2 don't ignore cultural Relevance or Embrace Current Pop from rock and roll in the 50s and 60s to hip hop in the 90s and beyond, there is always a genre or a sound that Grammy voters are leery of embracing. This often produces the most head scratching results and sometimes the most regrettable.
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Runners up she said Baby, let's go.
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Yeah. Usher's 12 week number one smash in 2004 and the lead single to his diamond selling blockbuster album Confessions was many Americans introduction to the sound of crunk, the southern rap subgenre pioneered by Lil John usher was nominated eight times at the Grammys of 2005 and he won three prizes, but only in the R B genre categories. As noted earlier, the big prizes that year were taken by Ray Charles's posthumous album and his duet with Norah Jones.
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Here We Go.
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Even if the Academy felt obligated to honor the late Charles giving his single Here We Go Again record of the Year over Usher's yeah is the pinnacle of avoiding cultural relevance. Something similar happened a decade earlier in the 1997 album of the Year contest.
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Oh my.
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Now let's give Celine Dion's 1996 album Falling into you its props. It was a big hit, three weeks at number one, diamond sales, several hit singles. This was not a case of the recording academy ignoring the charts when they gave it Album of the year, except Dion's competition that year included the aforementioned Odalite by Beck, the Fugees, seminal hip hop smash the Score, Smashing pumpkins, magnum ops, melancholy and the infinite sadness. And the acclaimed Babyface produced soundtrack to Waiting to Exhale. All of these were multi platinum albums. Yes, even Beck's and all of them sounded more like the mid-90s than Celine Dion's album did. Of course, it's predictable that Grammy voters, given those five choices, would go with a showbiz pro like Celine Dion. But it doesn't have to be inevitable. When George Michael took Album of the year in 1989 with Faith, it was his first major win over such prior Grammy favorites as Bobby McFerrin, Sting and Steve Winwood. Grammy voters are capable of looking past their industry faves toward pop upstarts, but that means accepting the idea that the sound of now could be more than a flash in the pan. We'll be right back. Speaking of pop upstarts, Grammy guideline 3 when in doubt, Reward youth this is the opposite of what Grammy voters tend to do in the aughts. In particular, the oldster nominee seemed to win every time Santana over TLC and the Chicks, Steely Dan over Eminem and Radiohead, the late Ray Charles over Usher and Green Day, Herbie Hancock over Amy Winehouse and Kanye West. But on those occasions when Grammy voters go with the younger nominee, the results virtually always look good in retrospect. In 2020, Billie Eilish was the youngest nominee in Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Song of the Year, and she swept all of them. Four years later, as Eilish comes off an Oscar win, multiple Grammy wins and is poised to dominate another awards season, that 2020 sweep looks prescient.
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Turns out I'm not real, just something you paid. What was I made for?
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Other youthful Grammy juggernauts include Stevie Wonder, 23 in 1974, Michael Jackson, 25 in 1984, Alanis Morissette, 21 in 1996 and Taylor Swift, who was only 20 when she took Album of the Year for the first time in 2010 with Fearless. Talk about betting on the right horse. Swift took the prize again in 2016 with her 1989 album and in 2021 with her LP Folklore. This year Taylor is a favorite again for Album of the year for her 2022 blockbuster Midnight Love, Swift's work, and will understand if she wins a record setting fourth time in this category after the year she had in 2023. Who would be surprised? But I'm not necessarily rooting for Taylor this time because of my next rule. Grammy Guideline 4 Avoid repeat winners let's pause and reflect right now on this cringeworthy moment. The last speech at the 2017 Grammys.
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And like a bit of me, has come back to myself, but I can't possibly accept this award and I'm very humbled and I'm very grateful and gracious, but my artist of my life is Beyonce in this album. For me, the Lemonade album was just so monumental, Beyonce. It was so monumental and so well thought out and so beautiful and soul bearing and we all got to see another side to you that you don't always let us see. And we appreciate that. And all us artists here, we adore you. You are our light.
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That was Adele winning Album of the year for her LP25, and literally apologizing from the stage for defeating Beyonce's Lemonade, the most acclaimed album of 2016. As fine as 25 was, the fact was Adele didn't need the prize. She'd already swept the awards in 2012 for her more acclaimed and even better selling 21 album. Now here's another speech from a decade earlier at the 2006 Grammys. The speaker is Bono from YouTube.
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This is our second album of the year.
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But.
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But we've lost to acting, baby, and all that you can't leave behind. So I know how it feels. Kanye, you're next and it's a great artist being on the road with us. Extraordinary. Yes sir.
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However you may feel about Kanye west now, his album Late registration was 2005's most celebrated LP and a Grammy win in 2006 over U2's less acclaimed how to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb probably would have saved a lot of headaches at future award shows. More to the point, as with Adele in 2017, when the winner of a prize feels they have to provide an apologia live from the stage, the voters probably got it wrong. And as Bono indicated In his speech, U2 had been nominated numerous times and won before for the Joshua Tree. Not giving the prize to a repeat winner might not only have gotten Beyonce a top Grammy in 2017, it might have gotten Kendrick Lamar a Grammy in 2016 for his To Pimp a Butterfly LP, which was defeated by repeat winner Taylor Swift one question where you and.
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I was walking now I run a game got the whole world world everybody want to cut the legs off him.
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Black man taking no losses don't come after me 50s I love 1989 but Kendrick over Taylor that year is an easy call. Not giving Paul Simon a Repeat Grammy in 1976, remember, he'd already won with Simon and Garfunkel and would win again a decade later for Graceland might have made room for Elton John's album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy to take the prize. Weirdly, Elton John has never won Album of the Year. The point is, is when checking boxes for a previous winner, especially in the big categories, the conscientious voter should consider the opportunity cost of sending that winner back to the podium. You may be missing the chance to correct a historic oversight. Which brings me to my last edict. Grammy Guideline 5 hip hop is Music I feel I need to say this as plainly as possible. Fifty years after the birth of hip hop, the Recording Academy still seems to be coming to terms with the idea that rap is not only musical but worthy of its major all genre prizes. Jay Z put it succinctly in 2018 on a joint single with his wife, Beyonce Build 2 the Carters, just after Jay had gone 0 for 8 at that year's Grammys.
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Tell the Grammys that O for A have you ever seen the crowd going ape?
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Although the Carters do have plenty of Grammys between them. 32 for her, 24 for him, 56 in total. Total plus daughter Blue Ivy Carter has one of her own. The fact that none of these prizes are in an all genre category is remarkable. The only exception is Beyonce's Single Ladies, which in 2010 took the all Genre Song of the Year prize and that award went to its songwriters, not Be herself. Beyonce, I would venture, has been overlooked in the top categories, even as a superlative R B singer for her proximity to rap and hip hop culture. Again, to reiterate, there have only been two hip Hop Album of the Year winners, Lauryn Hills and Outkasts, And both were fronted by non rap singles. This should be a source of regret for the Recording Academy. In addition to B J, Kanye and Kendrick, major category nominees that have been blanked include MC Hammer, Coolio, tlc, Nelly, Eminem, Ludacris, Lil Wayne and Missy Elliot. So the conscientious Grammy voter should keep this in mind. There is a lot of unfortunate history to redress here. Rappers as late as the 2010s and 2020s are getting the same cold shoulder from the Academy Academy that rock was getting in the 50s and early 60s. Where does this leave this year's ballot? The Grammys of 2024 Prior wins for John Baptiste and Taylor Swift would invoke my no repeats guideline. So sorry John and Tay Tay, it's me.
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Hi. I'm the problem. It's time Everybody agrees the indie supergroup.
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Boy Genius is a strong contender. Their album the Record charted well, peaking at number four and it has had a significant cultural impact, if a bit like Beck in 2015. They would certainly feel fresh were they to win.
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Don't know why I am the way I am not strong.
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I would also strongly consider Olivia Rodrigo, who certainly fulfills my cultural impact and youth guidelines. She's only 20. Her superb second LP, Guts, debuted at number one and is still lodged in the top 10, and it generated a number one Hot 100 smash with Vampire. About the only small strike against Rodrigo is she already won Best New Artist two years ago. But the artist who really sweeps all five of my Grammy guidelines is this year's nominations frontrunner SZA on every level, SZA deserves to win. Cultural cultural impact check. SOS spent 10 weeks at number one last year. Cultural relevance check. SZA's music is very au courante and has been played across radio formats from pop to rap to even alternative rock. Youth check. SZA is 34, not the youngest in this year's Grammy race, but the same age as Taylor Swift. A non repeater. Check. SZA has only won one prior Grammy in a genre category for a supporting role on a Doja Cat single and finally a benefit to hip hop. Big check. Though SZA's music is broadly categorized as R B and she sings, not raps, she is this generation's queen of hip hop soul. For a voter, following my guidelines, SZA is a slam dunk. Of course I am prepared to be disappointed, as I so often am when I sit down to watch the Grammys on February 4th. Honestly, I mostly watch in the hopes it will be a good show stuffed with music. The Grammy show is often more lively than the Oscars, the Emmys and even the Golden Globes. And truly, the awards are a sideshow on the Grammys. In the days after the telecast, the biggest chart impact comes from the performances, not who gave the best speech. It's as if the audience has decided to the music is what matters. Also, I kind of enjoy those weird Grammy mashups one time collaborations like Kendrick Lamar and Imagine Dragons, Sting and Bruno Mars or Eminem and Elton John. Some are trainwrecks. I'm still recovering from Gwyneth Paltrow with CeeLo Green and the Muppets in 2011, but honestly, the WTF Ness is often part of the fun. Like my favorite WTF Grammy moment of all time, the 1985 synthesizer showdown. Picture it, Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, Thomas Dolby in a Beethoven wig, and Howard Jones standing behind a bank of synths and computers playing a Frankenstein's Monster of a Pop medley. I watch it on YouTube at least once a year. I get back in touch with my inner teen Gen Xer, and I remind myself that at the end of the day and another year of music, the Grammys are kind of important, kind of silly, and should be fun. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Hit Parade. Our show was written, edited and narrated by Chris Melanie. That's me. My producer is Kevin Bendis. Kevin also produced the latest installment of our monthly Hit Parade the Bridge shows, which are available exclusively to Slate plus members. In our latest Bridge episode, I talk to Billboard Awards reporter Paul Gr about the checkered history of the Grammy Awards and how they align with the charts. To sign, sign up for Slate plus and hear not only the Bridge but all our shows. The day they drop, visit slate.com hit parade plus Derek John is executive producer of Narrative Podcasts, and we had help from Joel Meyer. Alicia Montgomery is VP of Audio for Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster of shows@slate.com podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the hip parade back your way. Until then, keep on marching on the one. I'm Chris Melanfy.
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Sam.