Feature photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
You ever felt something better than migraine meds kicking in? No, me either! Here’s a small joy, though: Your Monday Pop Culture Fix!
+ Okay let’s talk about last night’s Grammy Awards. Things started off great! At the premiere ceremony, Viola Davis won Best Audiobook, Narration and Storytelling Recording for her memoir, Finding Me, which nudged her into achieving her EGOT! Then, at last night’s event, Brandi Carlile was introduced by her wife and daughters, and she won Best Americana Album, Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song. Sam Smith and Kim Petras performed “Unholy” in delightfully hellish fashion, after winning Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. The win made Kim Petras the first openly trans woman to snag a Grammy in that category, and she thanked SOPHIE. Beyonce became the most decorated Grammy winner of all time, and she thanked the queer community in her speech. The 50th Anniversary of Hip Hop performance featured Missy Elliot and Queen Latifah! Lizzo won Record of the Year, jumped up and down on stage, and gave the most wonderful tribute to Beyonce. And then, Beyonce ONCE AGAIN had Album of the Year STOLEN FROM HER. It ended the whole night on a really sour note. Like. You’re telling me Beyonce — BEYONCE!!! — has won the most Grammys ever, but never Album of the Year? That math, as they say, ain’t mathin‘.
+ Paramount is remaking Showtime in the “image of Yellowstone,” which Nic has correctly re-headlined as: Showtime doubles down on shows featuring white men; says, diversity schmiversity.
+ Y’all planning to watch this Station 19/Grey’s crossover? They’re burning Meredith’s house down!
+ Natalie spotted Auliʻi Cravalho in the trailer for The Power, the adaptation of Naomi Alderman’s 2016 novel that made even President Obama’s Best Books list.
+ The Woman King is coming to Netflix on February 16th.
+ Jasmin Savoy Brown and Tatiana Maslany? Together in a horror movie? Somebody’s making Autostraddle’s bravest warriors’ dreams come true! (Not me, I’m a weenie. I’ve never seen a horror movie in my life.)
+ Tubi is picking up a lot of HBO Max’s abandoned shows, which is nice, because HBO Max is abandoning A LOT OF FORKIN’ SHOWS!
+ There’s a Black queer Jewish contestant on this season of Survivor.
+ Oh man, I cannot WAIT for Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.
Personally, I can’t stand Beyonce and think she is incredibly overated…even when she was still in Destiny’s Child so it’s about time others are given the chance to win. She’s done so enough for awhile!
Personally, I think she is a genius – I mean this without sarcasm. Renaissance was an incredible record that I regularly listen to, months after its release.
Who could be more overrated than Harry Styles? The controversy about Album of the Year is that Beyoncé has NOT been given the chance to win and has often lost to albums that were less critically acclaimed and had less of a cultural impact.
I can’t think of another performer from a boy band or girl group in the last 20 years who has proven to be as innovative as Beyoncé. Like her or not, her evolution as an artist has been remarkable and she deserves recognition.
“Beyoncé is overrated” is definitely…um, an opinion. I defer to Roxane Gay to defend her, but she is objectively the hardest working performer in the business. The visual style and stage performance of Lemonade as a stand alone I personally think puts her in the category of icon, legend, and other superlatives that at the very least deserve one g*dd*mn album of the year already
Let’s remove Beyoncé from the conversation completely. You cannot convince me that Harry’s House was THE best album of last year even with any of the other albums in contention. To be honest, I knew a person of color was not going to win that award just because historically the recording academy tends to go the other way. Hell, Lizzo is only the third black woman to win Record of the Year. That is insane!
What’s wild is that article from Variety that’s being shared around the internet of various academy members blatantly admitting that they don’t even listen to a lot of the music being nominated and vote for/against people based on the most ridiculous, arbitrary reasons. The Oscars are the same way. That’s why all these awards show are not a good barometer on which to judge who is the most talented, deserving of anything really. Let alone of what’s popular. That one academy member is in his 70s! Of course, he doesn’t relate to Harry Styles and thinks Beyoncé needs humbling for being so popular(or uppity if we are being honest).
[This portion of the following comment has been removed as it is in violation of Autostraddle’s Comment Policy. Repeat or egregious offenders will be banned. The remainder of the comment continues in full.] Renaissance was a good dance album, but Beyonce hasn’t stirred from her home to promote it at all. Except for NYE in Dubai, after all the press talk about how this record is for the gays. . .
I guess.
It makes perfect sense for a commercially successful pop-rock record with some interesting instrumentation to take it this year. Especially after last year going to a jazz record mostly no one had on their radars.
lmao i completely forgot that the grey’s midseason finale ended with The Grey House in flames! clearly has been weighing heavily on me
didn’t think i would see this much Beyoncé hate in the comments…sheesh.
I did. She always inspires a considerable amount of hate and contrarianism in certain um groups of people in a way that no other artist seems to. All that woman has to do is breathe and there are 20 think-pieces the next day. She’s not doing pregnancy right. She’s not doing veganism right. She makes me feel bad about my work ethic. She’s not celebrating queer people in the right way. She’s using samples in her music. Etc. LOL. Bitch, is there anything you DO like?
Right?! I don’t get it.
An FYI — despite their historic, numerous and indescribable contributions to music specifically, a Black woman’s album hasn’t won Album of the Year in 24 years.
Please don’t make the mistake of thinking we’re only talking about Beyoncé here.
that is not fully surprising, but it is egregious
it is truly WILD that having accomplished as much as she has musically – including AT THE GRAMMYS ITSELF LITERALLYYY – that B has not won AOTY. Like truly shows how fucking arbitrary (ie racist) the rules still are.
I’ll say I’m also biased because one of my Hot Takes is that I’m neutral to negative on Harry Styles.
These comments are so odd – you don’t have to be a Beyonce fan to acknowledge her impact on music. i don’t care for Adele’s music and also find the hype around her wildly annoying, but can understand why she wins awards. People shouldn’t be denied recognition for their impact on music because you find the way people talk about them annoying.
I’ve also seen lots of conspiratorial talk about how Harry won via personal connections to the organisers of the Grammies and it’s just so tiring. With all these years of evidence of black women being overlooked for the bigger Grammy awards despite their contributions to music, to me the most obvious reason is “strong history of racial bias”, yet people still want to think it’s actually “big conspiracy organised personally by white dude and his friends”.
Unfortunately I am a huge Harry Styles fan and I still find it egregious that he won album of the year. Every album Beyonce releases explores a new aspect of her musicality and she’s undoubtedly one of the greatest performers of our time.
Also if you weren’t going to give it Beyonce after all these years, LIZZO WAS RIGHT THERE.