About last night… The Grammys disappoint metal again

by | Feb 13, 2017 | Awards, News, Updates | 0 comments

We’ll start off by saying this – we know, the Grammys don’t care much about metal. Music’s Biggest Night (or so they call it) has paid lip service to metal since 1989, the first year they gave an award to heavy stuff. After making their network debut with a blistering version of “One,” Metallica promptly lost the Grammy to… Jethro Tull. Things never went that low again, but between Nine Inch Nails getting cut off and Tenacious D winning for a Dio cover a few years back, it’s obvious that they don’t much care about heavy music. This year, it wasn’t entirely their fault, but once again, they dropped the ball.

Let’s start off with one thing they did get right. Megadeth winning the Grammy for Best Metal Performance was as good as it could’ve gotten. Sure, Baroness and Gojira might be critical favorites that released fantastic albums this past year, but Dystopia was Megadeth’s best album since Countdown to Extinction, and the band had been nominated 11 times before without winning. However, they couldn’t even win in peace, as the house band struck up a (pretty good, actually) version of Metallica’s “Master of Puppets.” Sure, they probably had that cued up regardless of what band took home the Grammy, but given Dave Mustaine’s past with Metallica, it probably stung a bit, even as the band accepted the award. They maybe should’ve picked another metal song that none of the bands were connected to. 

Then there was Metallica’s performance. We’ve already spoken about the technical issues, and while it’s pretty unacceptable that Hetfield’s mic didn’t work, that’s live TV. Adele started over and cursed during her George Michael tribute, but Hetfield didn’t start over. He’s a pro (and more than twice Adele’s age). But even before Gaga and Metallica took the stage, Orange in the New Black‘s Laverne Cox forgot to announce Metallica. Granted, given that she was the first transgender presenter and had just boldly mentioned the case of 17 year-old transgender Gavin Grimm, she had other things on her mind. And at least she apologized via twitter:

 

 

Technical issues aside, it was a great performance of a new song, and kind of a risky move. Instead of trotting out another Black Album song, which the crow would have likely known, they went with “Moth Into Flame.” Aside from the “moshing” dancers, it was a good performance, and it was obvious that Gaga was a fan. Even without her back tattoo. Also, as an aside, about that tattoo – given that she stage-dove and crowd-surfed, it couldn’t have been that new of a tat.

They only have so much time to cover people that passed in the last year for their “in memoriam” segment, and while there weren’t a ton of significant passings in the rock  and metal world in the past year, there are still a few names that they managed to overlook. On the day that Megadeth picked up their first-ever Grammy, it’s criminal that they didn’t announce Megadeth drummer Nick Menza, who powered the band through their most commercially successful period. Black Sabbath’s Geoff Nicholls should have been included, even though he’s not one of the key four members of the band. And given Three Doors Down’s increased exposure through the band playing the Presidential inauguration, we’d have thought that former guitarist Matt Roberts might be mentioned.

A few people shared their response about the Grammys last night:

 

 

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