Keeping it strictly to the Album of The Year in the 2000s and 2010s.
And I'm not talking about in retrospect but these albums in the moment dominated cultural conversation, radio and Billboard charts (I'm old enough to remember lol).

2005 - Confessions should have won by a country mile

2006 - The Emancipation of Mimi Mariah was robbed blind

2007 - Futuresex/Lovesounds Sexyback, My Love, What Goes Around, Until The End of Time all on one album

2008 - Back to Black or Graduation should have won

2009 - Check the nominees, anyone but Robert Plant & Alison Krauss should have won

2014 - I'm a Drake stan but GKMC should have won

2015 - This was a f***ing crime Beck's Morning Phase over Beyoncé

2017 - 25 over Lemonade is probably when I stopped caring about The Grammys as concept. Adele even said it on stage that Lemonade should have won

My question is why do urban artists continue to shill for The Recording Academy? I mean they only gave Beyonce the AOTY award for Cowboy Carter as a "Here, Damn" award after Hov complained

what make you think the recording academy actually cares or even has the ability to capture the cultural zeitgeist as you understand it to be?

that's not what the Grammys are about. that's what they have been trying to make it about, but they whole show is ran by people who don't go to the spaces, don't interact with the people, don't do the things, that the average person does. they are all successful business people in the entertainment industry. lawyers, high brow performers, people with doctorate degrees. they aren't the "average" person who buys a cd and scratches up their favorite songs in the car. it will never be about what the average person resonates with, despite efforts these past few years to make it so

id actually argue, they've done a better job at trying to capture the zeitgeist as you and I would imagine it, but again I don't believe that's the function of the recording academy

Explain your side of the story, I'm interested

It's positioned as the most prestigious award in the music industry

White American cultural zeitgeist is represented very well here

I can't argue with the Taylor Swift, Mumford & Sons, Adele and Arcade Fire wins but the ones I mentioned were baffling. The Academy chose to ignore urban music

that beck album is so ass too

but 2012 they kinda got it tho imo

They got it right this year with Bad Bunny

It’s on you if you put stock in what these white people select as objectivity

sometimes i worry that people on here can't decouple popularity with quality...

You stopped caring but made this whole thread about a timeline?

I'd argue the Grammy's aren't even here to do that. None of these examples needed a trophy to solidify their popularity or impact. The charts and accolades were their evidence already.

f*** the grammys now and forever

I love the Grammys. And Fantano

Well yes, it’s an industry prestige award, not a zeitgeist award. You can go to billboard or mtv for that

Yeah the Grammys should give one to Usher for making That’s What That P****’s Made For

And give one to Kanye for “I whipped it out she said she never seen snakes on a plane”

people who win the other categories like to still win those so they not gonna fight against it.

and grammys are about neither

S*** is just another form of industry politricks

There’s a reason why none of the people who win the award actually take them home the same night, and that’s because the award is decided by relationships with the board, not the music or impact of an artist. If it was all about music, you’d get an engraved trophy the day of the event. Not a placeholder, and them pulling a name out of an envelope or a card.
Even the Steve Harvey s*** I think wasn’t his mistake, he just couldn’t publicly admit what really went down.
If you piss someone off the night of, it’s gonna go from “you’re set to win x award” to “the winner is Beck”
A lot of the people who perform at these shows do so to curry favor for future awards

You see how they made an example out of The Weeknd some years back
It’s really some nonsense
But it helps with marketing

quality wise it should’ve gone to Clipse

don’t know why anyone cares about or pays attention to this bullshit awards show in 2026

Really exciting topics being discussed today