Grammy Nomination Review
Tyson Lewis | December 8, 2022
With every passing year, there are a near infinite number of important album releases: groundbreaking artists reaching new heights. Even better, there’s how we listen to and rank them all. Spotify Wrapped released their 2022 and the 2023 GRAMMY nominations. In spectacular music nerd fashion (cooler than Anthony Fantano), I present my thoughts and feelings after reading this year's nominations.
A notable aspect of this year's nominations is the GRAMMY nomination for Bad Bunny. His album Un Verano Sin Ti is stacked with bangers and of course it feels good to see representation. Genuine representation on the artist’s terms. He sings as he pleases in his language, something to be celebrated when looking at the list of nominations.
As for the best rock album of the year, I adore Idles’ Crawler, and of the list, I hope this one wins. With melancholic lows and harsh noisy highs, this British Post Punk band put out a masterful album. Car Crash is a particularly catchy track with the standard rock instrumentation alongside big electric swells and screams.
Nonetheless, the rest of the list is uninspiring, with MGK and Ozzy Osborne standing out as sore thumbs, which is most fitting given Tony Iommi’s features on the album. MGK — self proclaimed “Mainstream Sellout” — whining about not being considered real punk falls flat with his attempted ironic album title. Ozzy Osbourne has, on the other hand, fallen into mediocre projects including Patient Number 9. Alas, the GRAMMY’s love to nominate legacy artists.
A missing recommendation for a rock album this year is Black Midi’s Hellfire. A cinematic soundscape of an album. Cacophonous math rock that flirts simultaneously with jazz, musical theater and noise music among — I’m sure — many other eccentric subgenres.
Another rock album to check out from this year is associated banned Black Country New Road’s Ants From Up There. I’d previously seen them as they were on tour with Black Midi, and their newest release is a masterpiece of rock with unique instrumentation and composition.
Jazz was a kind of underwhelming list overall on the part of the GRAMMYs, and furthermore this is unfortunate because they could have had a phenomenally vibrant and textured jazz list. A part of this comes down to the categorization of the picks.
Not Tight by Domi and JD Beck is for all intents and purposes a jazz album and it is mildly disappointing to not see it categorized as such regardless of the virtuosic musicians status as members of the Blue Note record label.
Suffice to say, I hope they do win best new artist which is their nomination as well as “contemporary instrumental.”
A jazz album this year that I recommend most is Tumi Mogorosi’s Group Theory: Black Music. Avant-jazz with a choir, this album was the perfect mix of the darker or eerier sides of psychedelia as well as a dark and dusty jazz production style.
The rap category has picked up mild controversy over the list of many great albums this year that did not make it with criticisms against the nomination of Jack Harlow. I would be beating a dead horse to say that Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers ought to be the winning album regardless, but really I hope it wins best album of the year too.
As for some rap albums to go check out, I’ll leave you with a list:
Soul Sold Separately, Freddie Gibbs
5 To the Eye With Stars, R.A.P Ferreira
Aethiopes, Billy Woods
As for best album of the year, I shall expand as well as conclude my review. Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers will be a landmark album in not only the music, tight raps and remarkable production with cues from jazz and musical theater, but also in content. It is truly an album of the times as Kendrick covers toxic masculinity, generational trauma and his journey accepting and loving people for who they are. Stand out tracks on the album are United in Grief and Father time.