After a long year of press, touring, and releases, a singer takes a seat with friends in the field as they enjoy a night of performance and awards. Their most important album is up for “Album Of The Year” and the tension couldn’t be higher. An album filled with their deepest heartbreak swirled in with their highest hopes, everything is on the line.
Bright and glittery dresses swirl around them and only shine more with the spotlight pouring down upon perfectly done curls. A card in hand, everything comes down to this. Thousands of fans watch them from home, hoping, praying, and quietly pleading to themselves that they walk out of the ceremony with that hard earned trophy.
The presenter steps up to the microphone with the winners name placed safely in an envelope, and the singer’s album’s name being announced is now a “what if?” daydream for their fans.
“Snubbing” is a pop culture phenomenon that comes back to surface every year during awards season, it centers around the recurring event where an artist isn’t being given an award even though a large group of people were wanting them to.
In music, during the 67th Annual Grammy Award Ceremony there was a large wave of shock over the internet when popstar Billie Eilish wasn’t awarded the “Album Of The Year” award for her 2024 album “Hit Me Hard And Soft.”
Just recently, “Wicked: For Good” was nominated for zero Oscars despite receiving heavily well received reviews from fans, and the year before both Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande won zero Oscars for their work in “Wicked.” Between the Oscars and the Grammys, “Defying Gravity” recently won “Best Pop Vocal Duo” and Paul Tazewell won an Oscar for “Best Costume Design.”
This happens because award voters often have a different quota compared to the general masses, some may be more focused on how a piece of media is representative of minority groups and another may be more focused on a work’s ability to world-build the story it’s trying to portray. There are over 15,000 Grammy voters, so there is always a chance that the winner doesn’t appeal to the audience watching.
While there’s nothing we can do when it comes to awards, I do believe there is good from the loss. Part of the fun is waiting to see who will win, and there will always be someone who doesn’t believe that the winner deserves the award. Your favorite singer or actor might not win the award of the night, but someone else’s inspiration may walk home with it instead.
