Ah, the Grammys, the black sheep of the award show family. In recent years, producers have realized that all anyone who tunes in wants to see are musical performances, so they’ve wisely added more songs and fewer retrospectives. It’s a slight step toward watchability, because as is, the Grammys aren’t as “IMPORTANT” as the Oscars or as drunk and goofy as the Golden Globes; they’re somewhere in the oft-boring middle. Which is why many famous artists have taken potshots at them over the years (also, because they’re not good at picking nominees).
Here are some famous examples.
1. Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHEYs0CMe4U
It’s not that Eddie Vedder hates the Grammys (Ticketmaster on the other hand…). It’s more, he’s completly apathetic toward them, as he proved in his acceptance speech for Best Hard Rock Performance in 1996. Warning that he’s about to say something “typically me,” Vedder commented, “I have no idea what this means. I don’t think this means anything.” Then he brought up his dead dad, before adding, “Thanks, I guess,” which is how all award speeches should end.
2. Jay-Z
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vliK2vJva-g
“I didn’t think they gave the rightful respect to hip-hop.” That’s what Jay Z had to say about “music’s biggest night” in 2002, adding, “It started that they didn’t nominate DMX that year. DMX had an incredible album. He didn’t get a nomination. I was like, ‘Nah, that’s crazy.'” This was three years after his first boycott, when he wrote in a statement, “Rappers deserve more attention from the Grammy committee and from the whole world. If it’s got a gun everybody knows about it; but if we go on a world tour, no one knows.” Vol. 2…Hard Knock Life won Best Rap Album that year.
3. Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor
Trent Reznor is like Eddie Vedder, if Eddie Vedder had rabies. The Nine Inch Nails frontman called the Grammys “an utter waste of time” after his performance with Queens of the Stone Age, Lindsey Buckingham, and Dave Grohl got cut off by airline commercials, leading to the following ZING of a tweet: “Music’s biggest night…to be disrespected. A heartfelt F*CK YOU guys.” Reznor would later tell the Hollywood Reporter, “Having won a couple Grammys for stupid sh*t — Best Metal Performance — it’s hard to feel good about the integrity of that.”
4. Flying Lotus
Other, more famous artists have raised more prominent stinks about the Grammys in year’s past, but only Flying Lotus told them to “suck a donkey d*ck.” So he’s understandably here instead of Kanye, who bitches about everything anyway.
5. Sinead O’Connor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUiTQvT0W_0
While not quite as controversial as when she ripped up a picture of the Pope on SNL, a whole lot of people foolishly got mad at Sinead O’Connor when she refused to accept the award for Best Alternative Music Performance for her 1990 album I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. Her absence was a form of protest against the extreme commercialism of the Grammys, which considering a goddamn Phil Collins song won Record of the Year that year is easy to understand.
6. Public Enemy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKlNb_GN55c
In “Terminator X to the Edge of Panic,” a track from Public Enemy’s landmark album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Chuck D and Flavor Flav rap, “Terminator X packs the jams/Who gives a f*ck about a Goddamn Grammy.” Public Enemy sure didn’t in 1991, when they boycotted the ceremony because only the “major Grammys” were presented on TV. Best Solo Rap Performance was considered a “major Grammy,” but not Best Rap Performance By a Duo or Group, the category Public Enemy was nominated in. They were also backing Def Jam president Russell Simmons, who cried foul at the “same old broken-record snub of inner-city contributions to the music industry.”
7. Metallica
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaodlYmleeQ
In 1989, cosmic flute-rockers Jethro Tull’s Crest of a Knave took home the award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental over Metallica’s …And Justice for All. Ian Anderson and the rest of Tull didn’t even bother showing up, because they assumed they had no chance at winning. Years later, after Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance was split into two categories, Lars Ulrich told Guitar World, “Jethro Tull walking away with it makes a huge mockery of the intentions of the event.” After the upset, Metallica suggested that a sticker reading “Grammy Award Loser” be added to every copy of Justice, but thrash-metal icons have made nice with the Grammys in recent years. They’ve won nine trophies.
8. Wu-Tang Clan’s Ol’ Dirty Bastard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdNHS8b9C7I
“Wu-Tang is for the children.”
That’s as true now as it was then, when they got snubbed by Shawn Colvin?
