(Louise Pomeroy for The Times)
Ten and a half years in the past, Beyoncé and Taylor Swift confronted off for album of the yr on the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards in January 2010.
It was the primary time each ladies had competed for the Grammys’ most prestigious award — the one which embodies the Recording Academy’s carefully tied concepts about craftsmanship and custom — and as they waited for Carlos Santana to say the winner’s title, each had expressions of nervous anticipation . .
Swift, then 20, gained album of the yr that night time together with her second LP, the 10-times platinum “Fearless” — making her the youngest particular person in Grammy historical past to steer the class. (Billie Eilish set a brand new report when she gained at age 18 in 2020.) Since then, Swift has gained the Academy’s prime prize three extra occasions, together with earlier this yr, when her Victory with “Midnights” broke ties with Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder making her the primary artist to gather 4 trophies for album of the yr.
Beyoncé, in the meantime, misplaced album of the yr three extra occasions — a galling achievement for music’s most intellectually formidable celebrity.
Now, for the primary time since 2010, these era-defining giants are poised to as soon as once more compete for Album of the Year, Swift with “The Tortured Poets Department” and Beyoncé with “Cowboy Carter,” when nominations for The 67th Grammys can be revealed Nov. 8. Not solely that, however Swift’s “Fortnight” and Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” — every of which is a No. 1 single. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 with tons of of thousands and thousands of streams on Spotify — they’re going to possible battle it out for each the yr and music of the yr information.
The prospect of an epic rematch between the 2 would little doubt please academy officers, who’re all the time on the lookout for methods to entice viewers to tune right into a tv awards present within the age of social media. After all, Bey-and-Tay moments have been a dependable magnet for consideration because the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, when Kanye West famously interrupted a Swift acceptance speech to declare that Beyoncé deserved the award for Best Female Video .
Last yr, the ladies posed for photographs that instantly went viral when every appeared on the premiere of the opposite’s live performance movie. And who can neglect the hysteria that erupted following rumors (ultimately denied) that the 2 had agreed to affix forces behind Vice President Kamala Harris on the Democratic National Convention in August?
Yet the showdown would additionally emphasize some fault traces within the Recording Academy and the music world at giant involving race, gender and authenticity — and never for the primary time. Grammy watchers will bear in mind an earlier battle between Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” and Adele’s “30” in 2023, which itself adopted Adele’s tearful proclamation on the 2017 Grammys that she could not rightfully settle for album of the yr for her blockbuster “25” figuring out that her victory had come on the expense of Beyoncé’s epochal “Lemonade.”
The level Adele was making is that, by denying Beyoncé the recording trade’s equal of the Best Picture Oscar, the academy had didn’t adequately reward main work, simply because it did when “Morning Phase” by Beck had overwhelmed Beyoncé’s self-titled LP for album of the yr in 2015 – and, certainly, simply as occurred on the 2023 ceremony, when “Renaissance” (and “30”) misplaced to Harry Styles’ “Harry’s House” throughout a present the place Beyoncé would in any other case have change into the world’s most profitable artist. The historical past of the Grammys.
Beyoncé’s husband, Jay-Z, acknowledged this paradox on the present final February in a speech by which he identified that his spouse “has gained extra Grammys than anybody and has by no means gained album of the yr. So, even by your parameters, it does not work. Think about it: Most Grammys: Album of the Year ever gained. It doesn’t work.”
Jay-Z did not point out Swift in his speech, however on the night time she gained her fourth album of the yr trophy, it wasn’t laborious to surprise why her music persistently will get that top-tier recognition whereas Beyoncé’s credit on minor scale. awards in numerous style classes. The discrepancy displays the academy’s long-standing choice for a singer-songwriter method (just like the one Swift takes) over the extra collaborative course of Beyoncé makes use of to make information that may incorporate the work of dozens of musicians; additionally means that Grammy voters see Swift extra as an auteur than Beyoncé, which, if true, might assist clarify why solely three black ladies — Natalie Cole, Whitney Houston and Lauryn Hill — have gained album of the yr within the sixth version of the Grammys. 1/2 many years.
What makes the present Grammy race notably attention-grabbing is that “Cowboy Carter” is kind of a rustic album, with a lot of the form of hand-played instrumentation that Swift used all these years in the past on “Fearless.” (“The Tortured Poets Department” seems like a cross between the synthesized “Midnights” and Swift’s radical “Folklore.”) Setting apart the numerous worthy fascinations of “Cowboy Carter,” the problematic optics of denying a nomination for the he album of the yr — for an LP that does so many Grammy-affirming issues — means Beyoncé is all however sure to get one subsequent month.
However, that leaves open the query of how she is going to fare within the nation classes — a state of affairs made much more sophisticated by the truth that “Cowboy Carter,” which Beyoncé mentioned was impressed by the frosty reception she acquired as an artist on the 2016 Assn. Country Music Awards, was utterly not noted for nods at this yr’s version of the Nashville ceremony.
Beyoncé’s sophisticated historical past as album of the yr means all eyes can be on that award when the Grammy nominations are introduced. But this time the story of his place within the firm will even be instructed later within the vote.
