Archive | Award Show Battles
So aside from Adele and Whitney Houston’s estate, there was another big winner at last night’s Grammys: Slayer. Although the band wasn’t even nominated for any awards, they were prominently displayed throughout the night, courtesy of Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl’s T-shirt. The Foos were another big winner, picking up four Grammys. So in between the band’s two performances (more on that later) and their acceptance speech after winning Rock Album of the Year, that was a lot of Slayer. Other than that, the Grammys and the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) continued to show their cluelessness and general disdain for metal.
First of all, let’s start with the merging of Best Hard Rock Performance and Best Metal Performance into one category. We’ve spent enough time venting about how unfair that is, and assumed that more mainstream acts would win every time. Then the worst case scenario happened, with Mastodon, Megadeth and Dream Theater having to compete against Foo Fighters and for some reason, Sum 41. So it wasn’t very surprising at all when the Foos won, for the admittedly kickass “White Limo.” Although Dave Mustaine was gracious in defeat, Megadeth is a legacy act that still hasn’t gotten a Grammy, and if anyone deserved it, it was them. Perhaps Grohl wore the shirt throughout the evening to make up for the fact that his band won an award that he wouldn’t even have been nominated for had the two categories been kept separate.
The Foo Fighters stood out as a breath of fresh air during the ceremony, first bringing the crowd to life with their energetic rendition of “Walk.” And their speech when they won Best Rock Album for Wasting Light was pretty inspirational. “Rather than go to the best studio in the world down the street in Hollywood and rather than use all of the fanciest computers that money can buy, we made this one in my garage with some microphones and a tape machine,” Grohl said during the speech. “To me, this award means a lot because it shows that the human element of music is what’s important. Singing into a microphone and learning to play and instrument and learning to do your craft, that’s the most important thing for people to do. It’s not about being perfect, it’s not about sounding absolutely correct, it’s not about what goes on in a computer. It’s about what goes on in here (pointing to his heart) and what goes on in here (pointing to his head).” As heartfelt as that speech was, it was somewhat negated about an hour later when they played a dance remix of “Rope” with techno artist Deadmau5.
Another place where the Grammys were tone deaf was in their “In Memoriam” segment. While onetime Thin Lizzy guitarist Gary Moore made it into the tributes, one glaring exception was Warrant frontman Jani Lane. While Warrant was never nominated for any Grammys, the band was multi-platinum and Lane should have been included. And while it shouldn’t have been a given that GWAR guitarist Cory Smoot would be mentioned, it would’ve been nice. And it was funny but true when our friend Maura Johnston at the Village Voice stated via Twitter “guess Seth Putnam doesn’t get a shoutout in this montage.” Obviously, the Anal Cunt frontman didn’t, but then, neither did Soul Train frontman Don Cornelius. Steve Jobs did, however. Plus, they legitimized convicted batterer of women Chris Brown by allowing him to return and perform, then awarded him the R&B Album of the Year. So it turns out that maybe NARAS isn’t just clueless about metal.
The 54th Annual Grammy Awards will be taking place in LA this Sunday, February 12. And without fail, The Grammys proved how ignorant they really are in regards to metal music once again when they announced the nominations for “Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance.” As it turns out, though, it’s not just metal that’s been screwed over by the Grammys.
Digital Music News had a little fun with Grammy.com’s “Past Winners” database and compiled a list of 54 incredibly influential artists that never won a Grammy. And the list is quite shocking. Major hard rock influences like Guns N’ Roses, KISS, Deep Purple, Motley Crue, and Rush are a few non-Grammy winners included on the list. As surprising as it may be to some to hear those snubs, we were more shocked to learn that bands like Led Zeppelin, Queen, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, The Doors and even ZZ Top never picked up an award.
Granted, some of the bands listed have been inducted into the award show’s “Hall Of Fame.” However, it’s pretty alarming to us that at least half the 54 influential artists mentioned haven’t won a single Grammy award. Suddenly, the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame seems more accepting. You can check out all 54 artists who’ve been snubbed by the Grammys over at Digital Music News, while you can also do a little more research on past winners via the Grammy’s database.
Last night, when the nominees for the 54th Annual Grammy Awards were announced, there was one conspicuous absence. Actually, there were many absences, but we’ll get to that. Despite the Recording Academy’s announcement that the show would “feature a special live announcement from a truly iconic group regarding their historic band reunion set to take place,” and their own tweet strongly hinting that Van Halen would be that band, the award nominations came and went without a mention of any reunion. Granted, the band may still wind up performing at the actual awards ceremony on February 12, but if so, they’re going to announce it on their own timetable.
When asked for comment, Recording Academy chairman Neil Portnow pointed the finger at Van Halen. “What happened was very simple,” he told HitFix. “In the world of creativity, everything is fluid. In the process of discussions that we had been having with an expectation that perhaps we would be at a point tonight where the artist involved and we, moving forward, would be ready to announce [a reunion], they weren’t quite at that point. So it’s live television, we go on to the next act. It’s rock and roll and so on. That being said, we were genuine about the intention and we are genuine about the discussion.”
On to the nominations themselves. We’d already pointed out that when deciding earlier this year to consolidate the number of categories recognized from 109 to 78, the “Best Metal Performance” and “Best Hard Rock Performance” would be combined. Well, here are the nominees for “Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance”
Dream Theater
“On The Backs Of Angels”
Foo Fighters
“White Limo”
Mastodon
“Curl of the Burl”
Megadeth
“Public Enemy No. 1″
Sum 41
“Blood In My Eyes”
WHAT?! Who even knew Sum 41 even had a new album out? Or that they were considered hard rock? Alternative, sure, but where there are only five slots to recognize two different genres of rock music, it’s a bit of an insult to have one of those nominees be a song that nobody’s heard from a band we’d describe as more pop-punk than metal. We’re actually OK with the first four. Dream Theater put out a solid record that sold well, and it’s pretty good to see prog metal represented. Megadeth is almost a given at this point, and “Enemy” hits the sweet spot between commercial and heavy. Mastodon and the Foo Fighters are the best representation of the newly-combined category. While first and foremost a metal band, Mastodon have indie cred (whatever that means) and are beginning to get some mainstream acceptance. And while Dave Grohl is a multi-platinum rock star, the Foos’ “White Limo” sounds like it could have been on the Probot record. But when cutting down an already-marginalized category from 10 slots to five, the nominee list is at least 20% bullshit.
Elsewhere, there’s not a ton of metal to be found. Foo Fighters were the only rock band to be nominated for Album of the Year, but since they’re not Adele or Lady Gaga, likely won’t win. Fans of dubstep and From First To Last might be excited to find out that Skrillex picked up a handful of nominations. So in short, another year of more of the same.
As most of you probably know, the UK’s Metal Hammer Magazine has been hosting their own Golden Gods metal award show across the pond for a couple of years now (way before Revolver Magazine started to hold their own in the States). We didn’t compare and contrast the nominees of this year’s Revolver and Metal Hammer’s award shows like we did last year. However, we thought this time around we’d take a look at who won at the UK ceremony held yesterday at indigO2 in London, England and see how it matches up against the American Golden Gods.
You can see the entire rundown of winners of the Metal Hammer Golden Gods after the jump (and the winners of the Revolver Golden Gods here), but here are a few stand out wins:
-Though they didn’t sweep the awards like they did at Revolver’s ceremony, Avenged Sevenfold did snag the Metal Hammer Golden God for “Best International Band,” thus proving that even the UK love A7X.
-One major difference between the two Golden Gods is that Revolver’s recognizes singers and drummers in addition to guitar players, while the only single instrument award handed out by Metal Hammer is for guitarists (actually, they have two separate awards for guitarists). A7X’s Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance picked up the “Best Guitarist(s)” at Revolver’s show, while Metal Hammer gave “Dimebag Darrell Shredder(s)” to Ozzy Osbourne/Firewind guitarist Gus G. and the “Riff Lord(s)” to Down’s Pepper Keenan and Kirk Windstein.
-Rob Zombie presented the “Golden God” award to Alice Cooper during Revolver’s festivities. At Metal Hammer’s show, though, it was Cooper presenting the “Golden God” award to Zombie.
-Revolver gave the “Best New Band” award to The Black Veil Brides, while Metal Hammer gave the same award to The Damned Things.
-Rammstein were given the “Best Live Band” award by Revolver this year. Metal Hammer, on the other hand, gave their “Best Live Band” award to Skindred…wait what?
-Another big win A7X got at Revolver’s award show was “Album Of The Year” with Nightmare. The “Best Album” award at Metal Hammer’s show went to Killing Joke’s Absolute Dissent.
Those are just a few highlights from the two Golden Gods. You can check out the rest of the 2011 Revolver Golden Gods winners here, while the rest of the 2011 Metal Hammer Golden Gods winner can be seen after the jump: Read more »
Headbanger’s Brawl is a weekly column where Metal Insider’s Bram and Zach take a moment to debate and analyze two opposing sides of a topical issue occurring in the world of metal and/or the music industry.
Yesterday, the nominees for the 3rd annual Revolver Golden Gods Award Show were announced. In the past, the show’s credibility has been questions. While this year may not resolve those accusations, the Revolver Golden Gods Award Show still remains one of the only U.S. award shows to at the very least acknowledge the genre of metal. And at the very least, they do a better job than another award show we could name.
So with that in mind, Bram and Zach pick out who they predict will win each Golden Gods Award in this week’s Headbangers’ Brawl.
Epiphone Best Guitarist(s):
Zach: My bet’s on Gus G. winning it this year. He’s proven himself to be an awesome guitarist both on Ozzy’s latest album Scream and live. Plus, he’s easily won over many of Ozzy’s diehard fans, which is no easy task considering how loved Zakk Wylde was.
Bram: I’d put money on Gus G. as well, but I don’t think he really deserves to win. It’s not like the band wrote Scream together, and while he is a great guitarist live, I don’t think anyone can name a Firewind song, and until we get to hear songs that he’s written for and with Ozzy, I don’t know that he deserves it.
Who I think should win is Iron Maiden. First of all, they have three guitarists, which rules. Secondly, The Final Frontier is the best record the band’s put out in a decade. And finally, I don’t know if legacy counts for the Golden Gods, but Maiden have it wrapped up compared to everyone else
Drum Workshop Best Drummer:
Z: It’s either a tossup between Joey Jordison or Mike Portnoy. Both have had busy years and have been in the headlines for both their playing and drama surrounding certain bands. However, Portnoy may have seriously experienced backlash from even his hardcore fan base for leaving Dream Theater in such a public matter. So with that in mind, plus with Slipknot on the road to recovery after the passing of Paul Gray, I say Jordison has the edge.
B: It’s a little weird that Jordison is nominated for Zombie and not Murderdolls. And if it was Jordison that died and not Gray, he’d definitely win posthumously, but I don’t think he’ll get the sympathy vote. I’d give it to Portnoy, who proved that there’s life after Dream Theater and that he could adapt to a band like Avenged.
Read more »
Though the award show’s official press conference is supposed to take place later today, the website for the 2011 Revolver Golden Gods Award Show has already gone live online. In other words, we now officially know the nominees and performers for the 3rd annual metal award show. We also know that the Golden God Award will be given to shock rock legend (and soon to be Rock And Roll Hall Of Famer) Alice Cooper, while the Ronnie James Dio Lifetime Achievement Award will go to Motley Crue. In a somewhat surprising move, though, the Revolver Golden Gods Award Show has appeared to have left off the “Hottest Chick In Metal” award. Maybe they’ve heard all the criticism they’ve gotten about the “demeaning” award and thought it best to leave it out this year.
WWE wrestler Chris Jericho returns this year to host the award show. While the ceremony will take place on April 20 at Club Nokia in Los Angeles, the highlights and performances from the show will be aired on VH1 Classic at a later time. In addition to receiving the Golden God Award, Alice Cooper will be performing with the original Alice Cooper Group at the ceremony. Also slated to perform is Duff McKagan’s Loaded, Devildriver, Asking Alexandria, Volbeat and Fozzy (Chris Jericho’s band).
We will keep you posted when more information about the awards show is revealed. You can vote for who wins at the award show’s website. There are definitely a few questionable nominees on here, but we’ll leave it for you to discuss in the comments section. Here are the nominees for the 3rd Annual Revolver Golden Gods Award Show: Read more »
So in case your Internet connection was out for a day, the Grammys were last night. We didn’t watch, but apparently it was a good day for The Arcade Fire and someone named Esparanza Spalding. As per usual, the awards for metal and hard rock were presented before the actual ceremony, the equivalent of a restaurant seating your party by the kitchen.
The good news? Iron Maiden won Best Metal Performance for “El Dorado.” It could be argued that Slayer deserved to win, or that it would have been innovative for Megadeth to win for a song taken not from an album, but a failed franchise video game. But at the end of the day, Iron Maiden got the respect they deserve for a solid song taken from their best album in years. It’s a shame the award wasn’t presented during the ceremony, because it would’ve been amazing to have Eddie accept for the band.
And while I would have preferred Alice In Chains to pick up a Grammy for “A Looking In View,” Zach went two for two in his prediction of who would win the Metal and Hard Rock Performance Grammys, having picked Them Crooked Vultures to win for “New Fang.” I guess the combination of Zeppelin (via bassist John Paul Jones), Dave Grohl and Josh Homme was catnip for the NARAS voters, and they went for the safest bet in a field crowded with other safe bets.
Headbangers’ Brawl is a weekly column where Metal Insider’s Bram and Zach take a moment to debate and analyze two opposing sides of a topical issue occurring in the world of metal and/or the music industry.
The Grammy Awards are comfort food for the music industry, a way to look back at the past year amid declining record sales and shifting paradigms and pat each other on the back for a job well done anyway. Usually there are few surprises, and this year is no exception (“New York State of Mind” nominated for Song of the Year? NO WAY!). This is especially true when it comes to the Metal and Hard Rock categories. There’s nothing particularly wrong with any of the artists nominated, but when the biggest upstart band in any of the categories in Lamb of God, who formed in 1994, you sort of know what you’re in for. And the nominees are:
Best Metal Performance:
Iron Maiden, “El Dorado”
Korn, “Let the Guilt Go”
Lamb of God, “In Your Words”
Megadeth, “Sudden Death”
Slayer, “World Painted Blood”
Best Hard Rock Performance:
Alice In Chains, “A Looking In View”
Ozzy Osbourne, “Let Me Hear You Scream”
Soundgarden, “Black Rain”
Stone Temple Pilots, “Between The Lines”
Them Crooked Vultures, “New Fang”
Also, in other metal-leaning nominations, Steven Wilson picked up a nominee for his band Porcupine Tree’s The Incident for Best Surround Sound Album. See? We told you. And Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage got nominated for Best Long Form Music Video. So who do we expect to win each award? Bram and Zach make their predictions of who will win in this week’s Headbangers’ Brawl.
Bram: We’ll tackle Metal first. All five bands are pretty safe, predictable and conservative. That said, there’s nothing particularly wrong with them, with one glaring exception. Lamb of God are nominated again. For an album that came out in 2009. And they were nominated for another song off that same album last year! Really Grammy voters? There were so few metal albums released this year you had to go back to the well for one that came out last year and was already nominated?! That’s a huge fail on your part.
Korn still have a fan base, but there’s tons of other bands that could have gone in their place. Deftones put out their best album in a decade. I doubt even their die-hard fans could say that about Korn III. Maiden is a fan favorite, and they also put out a good album too. “El Dorado” takes half the song to get to the chorus though. It’s pretty interesting that Megadeth was nominated for a song that’s only available on a video game, which might be the edgiest thing about any of the nominations.I’ll go with “World Painted Blood” for the win. Not only are Slayer an institution, this is the best of the five songs nominated, in my opinion. It’s a title track, has a riff that’s instantly identifiable as Slayer, and a chorus you can yell along to.
Zach: All the nominees are safe bets, but at least each song is an original. I always hated how Metal award has sometimes been given to live tracks or b-side songs. That’s not always the case, but it was last year when Judas Priest won it for a live song (and every other year before that). However, I also have a bit of beef with Slayer and Lamb Of God being nominated. I love both bands and both albums, but those albums were released in 2009. Seriously? They couldn’t nominate a band who had an album out in 2010? With all that said, my money is on Iron Maiden. “El Dorado” wasn’t the strongest track on The Final Frontier, but it’s still a song that came off of one of the best albums of 2010. Plus, The Grammys have a knack for giving awards to elder/recognizable bands, giving Iron Maiden the edge.
B: As far as Hard Rock, again, very predictable. All of the bands could have been nominated for the 1993 Grammy Awards for Hard Rock. Well, except for Them Crooked Vultures. They’re a totally new band – WITH THE BASSIST OF LED ZEPPELIN IN THEM. I think everyone that likes Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters, and Zeppelin kind of liked Them Crooked Vultures, then forgot about them about 10 minutes after hearing the album. As for the others, its basically Ozzy lording over Seattle. Alice In Chains had an amazing comeback against all odds, putting out an album with a new singer that exceeded expectations. Also exceeding expectations was “Black Rain,” a previously forgotten song from the Badmotorfinger sessions that reminded people why they liked Soundgarden so much back in the days of the first Bush. As for STP, it feels like they broke up, went to rehab, reformed again and broke up since their last album came out. And Ozzy pretty much wrote this song so it could be played at sporting events. It’s a fine song and all, but it’s pretty slight. I’d give the edge to Alice In Chains, but only due to their back story.
Z: I don’t know why you think everyone has forgotten about Them Crooked Vultures, Bram. They’re arguably one of the best supergroups to come out in a long time, and had one of the best albums of 2010 (well, at least one of my favorite albums). Their debut album lasted on the charts for a while, and they’ve still been getting quite a buzz from critics and fans. With that in mind, my money is on Them Crooked Vultures to win the Hard Rock award. Plus, another thing to keep in mind: not only does the band have the bassist of Led Zeppelin, but they also have Dave Grohl, a Grammy favorite (proof by the amount of times The Foo Fighters have won and performed at the Grammys).
The second annual Revolver Golden Gods Awards will be held in L.A. this coming April. While it is being marketed as the only American Heavy Metal award show, Revolver Magazine isn’t doing anything particularly new. For the past couple of years, the U.K magazine Metal Hammer has been holding their own metal award show called the Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards (what a creative name…oh wait).
It’s got less to do with Revolver ripping off Metal Hammer and a lot more to do with Future, the parent company of both magazines. But whereas the UK awards are prestigious and a must-attend for the metal elite, last year’s inaugural U.S. ceremony was derided by much of the industry for being poorly run, overly corporate, and not giving metal fans a chance to vote. Hopefully, they’ll iron out the kinks this time around. With that in mind, we decided to take a closer look at both shows’ 2010 nominations and performances to further see how the two compare and contrast with each other.
Read more »
So aside from Adele and Whitney Houston’s estate, there was another big winner at last night’s Grammys: Slayer. Although the band wasn’t even nominated for any awards, they were prominently displayed throughout the night, courtesy of Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl’s T-shirt. The Foos were another big winner, picking up four Grammys. So in between the band’s two performances (more on that later) and their acceptance speech after winning Rock Album of the Year, that was a lot of Slayer. Other than that, the Grammys and the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) continued to show their cluelessness and general disdain for metal.
Posted by Bram Teitelman on Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 10:40 am
Award Show Battles