Welp, here we bloody go mates. The Weeknd has fired up at the Grammys after the fairly remarkable snubbing he received in this morning’s award nominees announcement.
Despite having inarguably the most ubiquitous song of 2020 in Blinding Lights, and having one of – if not the – highest-selling and most critically acclaimed albums of the year in After Hours, and despite being heavily predicted to feature prominently in nominations, The Weeknd featured exactly zero times in this morning’s Grammys announcement. That snubbing – the scale of which is reasonably incomparable in recent memory – sparked immediate and fervent fan uproar. And now old mate has chimed in himself.
In a rather forthright tweet, The Weeknd asserted that the Grammys “remain corrupt” while demanding transparency for the nomination process.
The Grammys remain corrupt. You owe me, my fans and the industry transparency…
— Abel Tesfaye (@theweeknd) November 25, 2020
The Weeknd doubled down on that sentiment by echoing it across Instagram simultaneously.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CH_mZAkBlcI/
Per Variety, Grammy nominations require a two-step process involving panels of industry figures and experts listening to, and rating, a shortlist; that list is whittled down from hundreds of submissions by a selection committee. All personnel involved in both processes are kept anonymous.
Variety spoke to Harvey Mason Jr, the interim president and CEO of the Recording Academy, who claimed “I don’t think [the Weeknd’s omission calls the nominations] process into question, honestly,” he said. “The process is there so we can continue to monitor excellence. I was in the ‘core room’ this year and I observed, and the people in it are music professionals, at the top of their craft in songwriting and producing and there are a lot of artists.”
“The people in that room care: there are no agendas in there, there’s no ‘let’s snub this person’ or that person. It’s about, ‘Let’s try and find excellence,’” Mason stated.
The Weeknd missing out on record, album, and song of the year becomes all the more confusing when you consider Beyoncé‘s output across the past 12 months consisted of one standalone single, a ‘visual companion’ to The Lion King, and a guest appearance on a Megan Thee Stallion remix, and yet that was enough to earn nine nominations: the most of anyone in this year’s class, and the same amount of nominations Beyoncé received in 2017, the year of eligibility for Lemonade.
It’s gonna be a bumpy ride this year, you ah… can feel it coming.
