The Grammys Failed To Represent Modern Metal In 2022

OK so - on The Grammys wikipedia page - it says that "The Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance is an award presented at the Grammy Awards to recording artists for works (songs or albums) containing quality performances in the heavy metal music genre." It goes without saying that the performance is from the 12 months prior to the year prior to the Awards being held. This year, there were 5 tracks nominated - all released in 2021. 

And look, what comes below is probably MOSTLY opinion, and please, feel free to disagree, this is entirely subjective, but I am not going to lie, this list just does NOT feel like it represents modern metal and its spread of human beings performing it and representing it around the world. Of course, quotas for representation's sake is also not helpful, but jeez, the list of winners of the metal grammy over the years also shows a larger indicator of metal being skewed towards old dudes - Check it out. There was not a single female-identifying band member nominated for a Grammy until 2018 with Code Orange's Reba Meyer, and 2021 had both Poppy and In This Moment, but this year's nominations went back to the all-dude cavalcade. 

Not only that, the YOUNGEST band member of all the nominated bands is 40 - Gojira's drummer, Mario Duplantier. And yes, you can of course argue that age doesn't take away skill and that these records are fantastic etc - and yep, you'd be right. But man, this doesn't feel like the representation of the overall year we have just had in heavy music. This feels lazy. It feels like a "Dream Theater have been around so long but have never won the gong, let's give it to them before they call it a day - all the rest have either won or been nominated more times than them, it's DT's turn." 

OK. This is the 2022 Metal Grammys nominees and winner.

Dream Theater - "The Alien" - WINNER
Deftones - "Genesis"
Gojira - "Amazonia"
Mastodon - "Pushing the Tides"
Rob Zombie - "The Triumph of King Freak (A Crypt of Preservation and Superstition)"

Sure. All great songs as metal performances go and they are all fantastic performers (in fact I loved all of these records last year, save for Dream Theater, to be honest), technically and theatrically, but holy shit, that's a lot of OLD and a lot of DUDE. In terms of when each of those bands began releasing music, check these out: Dream Theater began in 1985, Deftones 1988, Mastodon, the 'young bucks' here, began in 2000, Gojira in 1996, and Rob Zombie also in 1996. Is this REALLY the best showing of metal/heavy music worldwide released in 2021? I put it to you it's not - and man there's some cracking releases that really got over-looked here.

In a year that boasted releases from younger bands/acts or bands featuring non-male members that very realistically could have been nominated, like Spiritbox, Architects, Lorna Shore, Miley Cyrus' Metallica collaboration, Turnstile, Jinjer, Poppy, Slaughter to Prevail, While She Sleeps, Don Broco and more, the worldwide scene feels VERY under-served by the nominations and eventual win.