Hollywood

The Grammys Couldn’t Find A Single Female Artist To Nominate For ‘Album Of The Year’

The Grammy nominees were announced last night, in a ceremony hosted by Taylor Swift and LL Cool Jay (which also featured Swift’s rap stylings), and there’s a lot to be excited about. We couldn’t help but notice, however, that the “Album Of The Year” nominees this year are awfully white and male.

The albums nominated for the award are:

- El Camino by The Black Keys

- Some Nights by Fun.

- Babel by Mumford & Sons

- Channel Orange by Frank Ocean

- Blunderbuss by Jack White

With the exception of Ocean, that’s a lot of white dudes. The eligibility period for the 2013 Grammys was Oct. 1, 2011, to Sept. 30, 2012, making nominations for Taylor Swift’s Red (released on October 22nd, 2012, and definitely one of the biggest albums of the year) or Bat For Lashes’ The Haunted Man (also released on October 22nd) impossible, but come on. We can’t put up a single a female artist with an excellent album — like Melanie Fiona’s The MF Life, which I loved and which was also critically adored — or a female fronted band that released a widely popular record within the last year (like, say, Florence + The Machine’s Ceremonials which was relegated to “Best Pop Vocal Album”)?

The Grammy nominations process is heavily dominated by record companies and voted on by industry insiders; of course they’re not going to fall perfectly along demographic lines. But really? Not one female artist produced a record worthy of being nominated “Album Of The Year” in 2012? We’re skeptical, especially given that past winners have included Adele, Taylor Swift, The Dixie Chicks, Norah Jones and Lauryn Hill. We think that the National Academy Of Recording Arts And Sciences can do better. I guess there’s always 2013!

TAGS: grammys

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