2024 was a truly great year for pop music, and both new and established artists released high quality music – Charli XCX, Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Ariana Grande, just to name a few. Not only did so many of the so-called “pop girls” put out great projects this year, but most of them additionally got rightfully recognized in the Grammy nominations. Thus, many people were invested in this year’s Grammys, given the number of strong contenders.
In recent years, the Grammys have always been plagued by controversy since the Recording Academy almost always fails, by audiences’ accounts, to properly award at least one artist, so there was bound to be talk of snubs and fandoms angrily warring in comment sections all over the Internet. This time around, the big controversy concerns Beyoncé’s Album of the Year, or AOTY, win.
First, let’s address the elephant in the room, shall we? Yes, Billie Eilish’s album “Hit Me Hard and Soft” (HMHaS) was amazing and should have won at least one award. However, this isn’t to say that Beyoncé’s win in this category was undeserved. I will be mostly discussing Billie as a potential contender in this category, as I saw the most discourse about it and every other pop girl nominated for AOTY took home at least one award except for Taylor.
In Taylor’s case, I thought it was actually a good thing that she didn’t win anything because the inevitable uproar would have been even more severe than it currently is for Beyoncé – just look at what happened when she swept last year’s Grammys. (Please don’t come at me Swifties – Taylor has been my most listened to artist for the past 3 years and I liked TTPD a lot). For what it’s worth, if you watch the Grammys footage, Taylor clearly enjoyed herself the whole time and was happy for the other winners.
I too was upset that Billie didn’t win anything, as I thoroughly enjoyed HMHaS and thought it was one of her best. Thus, as a fan of pop music who is over the stan wars and really enjoyed both Billie and Beyoncé’s albums this year, I will try and do my best to explain why Beyoncé is still deserving of the AOTY award.
First, it’s important to note that just because something is your personal favorite album of the year doesn’t guarantee that it will win the Grammys’ Album of the Year. As an example, several Swifties I know acknowledged that although TTPD was their favorite album this year, they didn’t think it would win and didn’t think it should because of the hate Taylor would get and because there were a lot of strong candidates this year. The term Album of the Year, at least for the Grammys, does not simply refer to or award the Album that was the most critically acclaimed or regarded as the “best” musically.
As I noted in my earlier Grammys prediction article, the most critically acclaimed album this year was actually Brat, with Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter coming at a close second. Whether or not you personally liked the album, Cowboy Carter was the second most acclaimed album in the category by critics. Like I mentioned previously, the Grammys also consider cultural impact and commercial success.
In the commercial success department, Billie’s album did sell better, but Beyoncé’s numbers are nothing to sniff at either. Besides, commercial success is arguably the least important of the categories the Grammys considers.
Additionally, to everyone criticizing Beyoncé online, how many of you have actually heard the whole project multiple times and really sat with it? I will be the first to admit that Texas Hold ‘Em is far from the best song on the album, (and also far from the best song on the radio this year), but if you actually look at the tracklist you will notice that of the 27 tracks, 8 are interludes, with 6 of them being sub-one-minute tracks. Clearly the album is meant to be consumed as one body of work and not just the singles. I don’t think it’s fair to criticize the album without giving it a chance first – hearing the full project through, ideally with multiple listens.
The first time I heard Cowboy Carter, I will admit that I thought it was decent but not great. The third time around, it fully clicked and I enjoyed it a lot more. I find it hard to believe that this wasn’t a factor in many people’s hasty assessments that Billie should have won. After all, Beyoncé’s album clocks in at 78 minutes, while Billie’s is only 43 – Cowboy Carter is over 70% longer than HMHaS. I get that with shorter attention spans it’s more demanding to sit through something, but I truly urge any critics to thoroughly listen to Cowboy Carter a few times and then formulate their opinion – let the art speak for itself.
This is part 1 of my thoughts on why this was a deserved win, so keep an eye out for part 2!
