Tright here’s nothing the Grammys like greater than classiness. Most of the albums and songs to have gained the highest prizes have been ones which can be handsomely, fairly than raggedly, made; emotionally forthright however maintaining themselves in test. And so it proved on the 2022 ceremony, the place robust work of nice classiness by Silk Sonic, Jon Batiste and Olivia Rodrigo secured the massive prizes.
Silk Sonic’s Go away the Door Open is a really deserved winner of 4 awards, for report and track of the yr, plus R&B efficiency and R&B track (the latter shared with Jazmine Sullivan, additionally the rightful winner of R&B album). With its immaculate session musicianship and vocal harmonising, it appears to be in dialog with R&B itself, lampooning the earnest lust of the late 70s and 80s iteration of the style however not mocking it. There's a form of sketch comedy element to the way in which Anderson Paak makes positive all of the bases are lined to seal the romantic deal, proffering fillet steaks and marijuana – however with out such luxurious songwriting it could have risked coming off as a Lonely Island-type parody. These wins imply Paak’s Silk Sonic associate Bruno Mars is now a 14-time winner, and Mars is maybe the very imaginative and prescient of what the Recording Academy loves: technically sensible, in tune with historical past and alive to like and intercourse with out being threateningly erotic.
Jon Batiste is one other one who is consciously riffing on musical historical past, making a genre-spanning overview of Black American tradition with We Are, which gained album of the yr (he additionally gained 4 different awards). At occasions I discovered this album corny, like a Disney trip round jazz and hip-hop the place you need to maintain your fingers very a lot contained in the automobile – however there are some affecting moments such because the finely etched recollections on Boy Hood, and his ambition, positivity and humanity forged a halo round even the extra generic songs.
Olivia Rodrigo’s three wins in her breakout yr included greatest new artist and greatest pop solo efficiency for the yr’s greatest energy ballad, Drivers License. Just like the aforementioned winners, she will actually promote a tune, and this isn’t faint reward. There's something actorly about her supply – even on bedroom-trashing pop-punk songs – however she is so convincingly offended and damage that she lifts pop into psychodrama, although nonetheless in a really family-friendly manner (an F-bomb however).
You possibly can argue that artists with messier feelings and fewer contained artistry received shut out, resembling Lil Nas X, whose variously waspish and self-lacerating album Montero was nearly as good as pop music will get. Likewise Billie Eilish and her riveting portrait of corroded youth, Happier Than Ever, though maybe voters consciously heeded her cringe at fame and certainly the very public lens that the Grammys places its winners underneath. However Doja Cat, who might have been too purely vivacious for the Academy, fortunately gained greatest pop duo/group efficiency together with her determinedly attractive track Kiss Me Extra that includes SZA. In latest days, she has spoken of eager to retire – right here’s hoping she will discover a method to thrive by the chaos of pop, as she has the form of joie de vivre that makes it value turning on the radio.
Foo Fighters swept the rock classes, and whereas this wasn’t a sentimental alternative – voting had closed earlier than drummer Taylor Hawkins’ demise in March – it did find yourself feeling apt: Hawkins’ spirited taking part in was the very essence of the style. One other deserved winner was Child Keem, who gained the very best rap efficiency alongside Kendrick Lamar: a boisterous 21-year-old memelord whose command of each melody and distinct metre is startling.
In fact, classiness was notably absent in different areas. Some could have been discomfited by Kanye West’s two wins in different rap classes within the wake of an unpleasant barrage in opposition to ex-wife Kim Kardashian and boyfriend Pete Davidson – the post-divorce poignancy of his Grammy-nominated album Donda soured when he introduced his anger and confusion outdoors the music and underneath the glare of social media. In the end, the Donda materials is underrated and his successful songs are compelling – Jail’s fanfare of distortion is a splendidly grand assertion (and brings Jay-Z as much as 24 wins total) and Hurricane advantages from one of many Weeknd’s loveliest vocal melodies – and the voting cutoff was earlier than West’s most sustained hounding of Kardashian.
The Academy’s starker moral failure is in awarding Louis CK with greatest comedy album. In 2017, CK was accused by quite a few girls of sexual harassment, and he admitted to the allegations that he had masturbated in entrance of them. His Sincerely Louis CK comedy particular could have its deserves, and there's a ruthlessly punitive bent to our tradition which denies that individuals will be rehabilitated and higher themselves. However the Grammys carry larger that means than “this was the very best comedy album this yr”, whereas additionally, of their win-lose binary, stripping out any complexity. Honouring CK finally sends the message that sexual harassers needn't fear about their misdeeds, as a number of years later they’ll be again to the very prime of the US cultural tree. It's a unhealthy name in a Grammys yr that made plenty of the proper ones.
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