![]() ![]() It’s not like sacrificing one or two hard rock veterans would cost the Grammys TV ratings, right? Meanwhile, those on the fringes, only familiar with the aforementioned old names, would have a motive to look up the younger bands. If the Best Metal Performance slate for 2025 included one or two old names alongside – let’s say – Green Lung, Svalbard and Caligula’s Horse, diehard metalheads would suddenly be far more invested. ![]() They’re already a fifth of the way there this year with Spiritbox, so it’s not completely impossible. The second option, however, is the far more interesting one: the Grammys actually start acknowledging newer and/or underground talent. Option number one is just burn that bridge: metalheads don’t take the Grammys seriously, nor do they take us seriously, so let’s just go our separate ways and let the music industry’s pop juggernauts pat each other’s backs every February. There are two ways the Grammys’ relationship with the heavy metal underbelly could improve. It serves no one: Metallica, Slipknot and Disturbed are too big to benefit from another trophy in their cabinets, while the Grammys never look good for simply maintaining the status quo and the bands that could do with some gold are too far under the ceremony’s radar.Īll is not lost, however. What we’re left with is that the annual announcement of heavy music’s Grammy nominees, now, is nothing more than metalheads’ most regular dosage of outrage porn. The Grammys’ desperate clinging to the last vestiges of metal’s “big” bands, in hopes of those artists’ fans paying attention, is increasingly outdated and frustrating. It’s easy to answer the hypothetical list we’ve just proposed with the counterargument, “Well, the Grammys would never touch bands like that anyway – they’re too small!” And that’s the problem, isn’t it? Heavy metal is intrinsically anti-mainstream and the number of bands we had when it was commercially viable is shrinking by the day. Worthy lineups will vary depending on which metalhead you talk to, but it’s a pretty safe guarantee most of them will come up with something better than what the Grammys did. UK up-and-comers Urne released one of the finest collections of riffs of the year, A Feast On Sorrow, in August In Flames returned to form with the blistering melodeath of Foregone in February Crypta are rising monarchs in pan-American death metal and a Grammy nod for Shades Of Sorrow would affirm their place Elder’s Innate Passage, released late last year, is a dreamscape of stoner riffs and hypnotic melodies. The list of bands more deserving of being on the podium of Best Metal Performance in 2024 is incredibly long and not that difficult to drum up. ![]() Even this year, seeing Spiritbox listed alongside Metallica, Slipknot and Ghost inspires a warm feeling in the tummy, as they’re a legitimately fresh and popular force who likely have their best material ahead of them. Baroness getting nodded for Best Metal Performance in 2017 was a pleasant surprise, as was Mastodon winning it the following year with the superb Emperor Of Sand. ![]() Now, to be fair to the Academy, they’ve not screwed up 100 percent of the time. However – with the world of metal currently full to bursting with bands that are both making innovative music and on the cusp of breaking through – this continual misunderstanding has never been more inexcusable. Of course, saying “The Grammys are getting heavy metal wrong” is about as revolutionary as saying “The world keeps on turning.” Ever since the Recording Academy started recognising hard rock and heavy metal in 1989, they’ve been messing it up, with the ghost of them giving a prize to Jethro Tull over Metallica still haunting the institution. ![]()
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