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Grammys: Harry Styles wins Album Of The Year for ‘Harry’s House’
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- Title
- Grammy Awards Winners List - Updating Live
- Authors
- Erik Pedersen
- Published
- Feb 6 2023
- Word count
- 1616 words
An interesting perspective from Vulture: How Harry's House Beat Beyoncé.
Before reading the article, I was curious about production credits. There are, by my count, 42 unique credits on Harry's House and 196 on Renaissance. Whereas Renaissance is a powerful survey of dance music and a variety of cultures, Harry's House is a retreat to a familiar 80s sound (albeit elevated, as opposed to reimagined). The article addresses this, as well as the Academy's attitude toward sampling. It essentially says there is favor in the smaller production teams, perhaps at the expense of quality, in the eyes of voters.
The article addresses more historical points I was unaware of, but a crucial one stood out immediately to me in the personnel size of the albums.
I do not know anything about the process of making music, especially not mainstream pop music. But 42 people already seems like a lot and 196 just blows my mind.
The large 196 count is due to the appropriate and legal crediting for samples. Basically, even if no music was used, there may be a writing credit due to interpretation.
Much of Styles's record is similar personnel like Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson showing up on basically every track. John Mayer and Pino Palladino actually make appearances as well, which is somewhat surprising. But you can see most of Styles's extra credits are for engineers. The others are session musicians, which is totally expected. Compare that to Beyonce's numerous lyric and composition credits, likely for samples.
......kendrick lamar something something robbed ahhhh who gives a shit
I absolutely hated that record when it came out... but I gave it a listen this morning and it isn't so bad. Definitely not best of the year by any metric, but not as bad as I originally thought.
From the list... every Coldplay album sounds the same... the rest are bland pop. I'm definitely not the demo to vote for this stuff, though. The Lizzo record has some good joints.
I didn't even think it was close to the best rap album of the year either but the Grammys don't really go by that metric. But the nominee list for Best Rap Album this year was bad. Two of the five nominees for Best Rap Album had no business being anywhere in the list considering which ones were not:
I would have liked to have seen Lupe Fiasco, JID, Conway the Machine, and Nas. DJ Khaled should not be anywhere near this list.
I don't know a ton about the process of submitting an album to the Grammy's for consideration; I only learned that was required last month. I am not an expert on that side of things. From the hip-hop side of things, it is insane that Jack Harlow and DJ Khaled's albums are up for best rap album when 2022 was such a stacked year for the genre (IMO). I don't have anything against Jack Harlow or DJ Khaled; I think most of their songs are bad-to-mid and I think their albums are shallow, but I don't have anything against the artists for releasing the music they want to make, and I don't begrudge anyone that enjoy's their music. It does feel like a damning inditement of the Grammy's though when just this year we also got:
Hell, if the bar is just better than DJ Khaled's album then albums that aren't album of the year but more deserving to be on the list like
I was curious about the nomination and voting process and this 2016 Vox article breaks it down. They're stating 20,000+ submissions per year to the Academy, as well as a few nomination requirements to even send the record. There's not much information on how the albums are received by voters (of which there are 12k eligible). It's inferred in the article that popularity is a huge part of one's success, and it's unfortunate that an album's musical prowess can be lose out to name recognition.
to be honest, I’m not sure i’ve ever heard Khaled outside out the samples.
it’s too bad award shows are largely irrelevant.
Ohh I forgot that billy woods album came out in 2022. That definitely would be up there if the Grammys had a more artistic bent.
are you an Aesop fan? if you told me that record was Aes, i’d probably believe you.
In other Grammy news:
Viola Davis becomes an EGOT
As It Was would be such a good track at half the duration.
edit: I take it back! 2m45s! perfect! total banger
See that's what I'm saying on this. As It Was is like a pop masterpiece. The whole album is strong. It took me months to listen to it but I've played it a couple times every week for the last month because it's just so enjoyable.
ok, listening through this record.. it’s pretty good but way over-produced. definitely that pop sound, which is a shame for my tastes.
still better than i ever thought a Harry Styles record would be.
I actually quite like his debut solo album. Fine Line is also good but not as strong as the other two imo.
Fine Line has a fantastic front half, imo:
Golden, Watermelon Sugar, Adore You, Lights Up, Cherry, Falling.
The second half brings the album down, but the first six songs are good enough that I'd rank it higher than his debut and either just above or equal to Harry's House.
My Harry's House ranking (this won't be controversial...)
Daydreaming
Satellite
Keep Driving
Late Night Talking
Music for a Sushi Restaurant
Daylight
As It Was
Little Freak
Cinema
Grapejuice
Love of My Life
Matilda
Boyfriends
My girlfriend is a massive fan of One Direction and their solo careers. I have become a fan by association (lol).
My experience with One Direction was limited. I was a teenage boy when they were big so I was not the demographic for them. Though I did enjoy maybe one or two songs from them at the time.
I actually became a Styles fan kind of early on, when I heard Sign of the Times which I thought was incredibly beautiful. And that was the same year he had Dunkirk, so that was what did it for me.