The Grammy Awards are done and over with, and if you were expecting a well-rounded ceremony that was inclusive of metal and rock, then you probably haven’t watched before. The show has always been somewhat of a trainwreck, so even a solid slot of Best Metal Performance nominees and a tribute to Lemmy with Alice Cooper’s Hollywood Vampires (which also includes two Guns N’ Roses members and some actor named Johnny Depp), wasn’t necessarily enough to quite salvage things.
The majority of the awards, like always, were given out before the ceremony began, with Ghost winning the Best Metal Performance Grammy, and the internet showed that there was more than enough butt-hurt to go around. At the end of the day, the band and their team ran a great campaign, with an ad in Billboard and a compelling music video (remember them?). It’s really no surprise that they won.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/rb9cy3Me0hk[/youtube]
The Motorhead cover by Alice Cooper’s Hollywood Vampires wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t particularly great either. Duff McKagan and Cooper singing co-lead vocals kind of got the whole spirit of Lemmy’s voice, but his bass tone to start the song wasn’t nearly distorted enough. It’s pretty cool that it made it on there, even if playing a portion of “Ace of Spades” and a whole original song should’ve been reversed. At least Lemmy got his due, and as you can see below, his son Paul was psyched about the tribute (fun fact: Motorhead won a Grammy in 2005 for covering Metallica’s “Whiplash”).
Rock-wise, the biggest surprise is that Slipknot got nominated in the rock category as well as metal. While a metal win wouldn’t have been surprising, the band winning in the rock category would’ve been an upset. Instead, Muse won in their place. Alabama Shakes won in every rock category they were nominated in, and given that they’re a solid blues/rock band, it’s a safe bet that they would have. Given that Rob Schneider’s daughter was nominated for rock song for a tune that’s currently a top ten pop single speaks as to how all-encompassing what qualifies as “rock” is. Then again, given that the former drummer of post-hardcore band Grade, Charles Moniz, won a Grammy for song of the year for engineering Bruno Mars’ album, maybe the world of music is smaller than ever.
