As fun as it is to watch awards shows every year, perhaps the most popular pastime of interested viewers is complaining about how awful the choices are. On social media during the Oscars, the Golden Globes or even the Country Music Awards, the grievances and recriminations are swift and brutal.
The Grammy’s are no exception. In some cases, it’s worse because the subjective nature of what makes for the best music PERIOD in a given year fuels the fires of those who are passionate about Hip Hop or Reggaeton or ambient math folk. With the “biggest night in music” on the horizon, we thought it might be fun to look back at some of the absolute worst selections for one particular category: Album of the Year.
You might think a group that includes some of the unquestionably greatest albums of all time as nominees and winners would be relatively free of clunkers. You’d be wrong. Check these out organized by sub-categories.
THE DUPLICATES
More Music from Peter Gunn – Henry Mancini (1960)
Jesus Christ Superstar (1972 and 1973)
They thought it was so nice, they voted for it twice. In 1960, only the second year of the awards, there must not have been much to choose from because songs from Henry Mancini’s Peter Gunn soundtrack, which won the very first Album of the Year Grammy the previous year, got a second selection (it didn’t win) with a record of even more songs from the same movie. Then, in the ’70s, two versions of the same hippie musical — one by the London cast and another by the original cast — went back-to-back with nominations (neither won).
NOT THE TIME, GRAMMYS
The Broadway Album – Barbara Streisand (1987)
The 3 Tenors in Concert 1994 – José Carreras, Plácido Domingo & Luciano Pavarotti with Zubin Mehta (1995)
Occasionally, the Grammy voters show their age (cough…Jethro Tull beats Metallica in Best Hard Rock/Metal…cough) and just how out of touch they can be. In 1987, when (thankfully) Peter Gabriel’s So and Graceland by Paul Simon (the winner) were also on the ballot, the voters just HAD to give Babs a nod despite her greatest success being over a decade behind her and now classics like License to Ill were released in the same year. And don’t get us started on a live recording of the 3 Tenors? That record and Tony Bennett (who won the whole thing) took the spots that could have been taken by Dookie (Green Day), Grace (Jeff Buckley), The Downward Spiral (NIN), Purple (Stone Temple Pilots), CrazySexyCool (TLC) or Weezer. Good grief.
THEY WERE DESERVING
Time Out of Mind – Bob Dylan (1998)
Vitalogy – Pearl Jam (1996)
Two Against Nature – Steely Dan (2001)
Too often, the Grammys miss incredible artists in their heyday and then try to go back to rectify the situation later. These three records are perfect examples. Sure, Highway 51 Revisited and Blood on the Tracks were nice, but Time Out of Mind, now that’s an award winning record, bucko! Grumpy Donald Feigen joked after finally being acknowledged almost 40 years into Steely Dan’s career, ”They gave us plenty of time to work on our speeches.” And with all due respect to the good but overwrought Vitalogy, Pearl Jam’s seminal album Ten wasn’t even in the running when it came out. The Grammy’s tried out grunge and decided it wasn’t their cup of tea, apparently.
THEY WERE NOT DESERVING
Silk Degrees – Boz Scaggs (1977)
Mistaken Identity – Kim Carnes (1982)
Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em – MC Hammer (1991)
Millennium – Backstreet Boys (2000)
That Boz Scaggs record produced a couple of hits and band members who eventually would become Toto, but sorry “Lido Shuffle,” that Yacht Rock anthem doesn’t feel like award winning material. Kim Carnes grew famous quickly thanks to radio’s incessant playing of the god-awful ear worm “Bette Davis Eyes.” You would have thought it was the only song in every top 40 station’s catalog if you turned on the radio in the summer of 1981. The Backstreet Boys belong on an Album of the Year list about as much as Alvin and the Chipmunks. And in perhaps one of the worst years of selections this category ever, MC Hammer managed to get chosen alongside Wilson Phillips (barf) and Quincy Jones’ Back on the Block, which shockingly won. You want to know what else came out in 1990? No, you definitely do not.
NAME SOUNDS FAMILIAR
…Nothing Like the Sun – Sting (1989)
Love. Angel. Music. Baby. – Gwen Stefani (2006)
Heart in Motion – Amy Grant (1992)
Nothing says, “We really don’t listen to popular music that much” like giving nominations to people who just happen to be known in the business but probably have no business on this list. Amy Grant and her crossover into pop music from the world of Christian rock beat out Nevermind (Nirvana), Ten (Pearl Jam) and Blood Sugar Sex Magik (Red Hot Chili Peppers) for starters. …Nothing Like the Sun — only Sting would be pretentious enough to start his title with a freaking ellipsis — was probably the worst of his solo albums in a year that could have featured the far superior album …And Justice For All (Metallica) — guess we were wrong about that ellipsis thing — or the tragically missed Straight Outta Compton (N.W.A.). And, let’s be honest, Love. Angel. Music. Baby. getting a nomination should have been met with a collective “Are? You? Fucking? Kidding?”
WHAT THE WHAT?
My Son the Folk Singer – Allan Sherman (1963)
The Singing Nun – Soeur Sourire (1964)
The Age of Aquarius – The 5th Dimension (1970)
There is no shortage of strange selections for various categories over the years. Album of the Year is no different. Allan Sherman was a comedian — comic recordings used to vie for spots here including Bob Newhart, who won — and this was meant to be an album of funny songs. We gave it a listen. Meh. The title was in full “Allan Sherman’s mother presents…My Son the Folk Singer.” Oof. The Singing Nun was apparently quite the rage in the ’60s. This was part of a number of Christian songs and records that made the charts. Maybe the most famous was Sister Janet Mead, who got all the way to number four on the Billboard charts with her rendition of “The Lord’s Prayer.” Finally, The 5th Dimension. The same band that did “Up Up and Away” (in my beautiful ballllooooooon!) and other very soft pop hits of the early ’70s. The best version of “Aquarius,” was performed by Steve Carrell and the cast of The 40-Year-Old Virgin during the final credits.
WE ARE THE WORLD…
We Are the World – USA for Africa (1986)
There were plenty of songs for causes in the 1980s. It was kind of that decade’s thing. Many of them revolved around the plight of starving people in Africa, certainly a worthy cause. But, it started to get weird with tributes from England, Canada, metal bands and even Swedish metal bands, specifically. All of these efforts culminated in or were around the same time as Live Aid, the massive concert in two countries. But the biggest contribution to the song list was “We Are the World,” which featured some of the biggest names in the history of the music business all together on one stage. They even made a documentary about it only recently on Netflix. For all the good it did, this was a serious clunker of a ballad with some pretty weird one-line solo moments. None of these were great — oh, Canada, what were you thinking? — but only “We Are the World” absolutely dominated the radio for months regardless of whether anyone wanted to hear it or not, and yet it had no place on the best albums list. We didn’t even realize it WAS an album until now. Go figure.
