This year’s Album of the Year Award made the discrepancy between the recognition of accomplishments of men and women in the music industry all the more apparent. This award is given at the Grammy Awards, presented by the Recording Academy of the United States.
Taylor Swift’s tenth studio concept album, Midnights, produced by Jack Antanoff and herself, won the 2024 Album of the Year Award. She has won the award four times already, winning in 2010, 2016, 2021 and 2024 for various other albums, which may seem to undermine the complaint about recognition of female artists. Swift, however, actually is making history by being one of only 17 female winners. This is compared to the 49 other annual award winners. She joins other women like Lauryn Hill for her 1998 album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and Norah Jones for the 2002 album Come Away With Me.
This year, Swift was joined by other nominees such as Lana Del Rey’s Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, and Boygenius’s The Record.
Because of the weight this award holds and its prestige and significance in the music industry, it’s upsetting to see how much excellence seems to be ignored by the Academy, with some people even believing that it’s rigged and that some artists are “snubbed” for this award, along with other Grammy categories.
Tyler Klingerman, a Tualatin High School senior, said, “I don’t like the album that won at all. I liked other nominees like SZA. No way that award was fair.”
Albums we know and love that have come out this year are being sent forward for nominations currently, with the deadline for nomination being Nov. 8, 2024. With albums such as Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess and Charli XCX’s Brat culturally defining this year’s summer, it seems like a close call. Although this Grammy season is on its way, the predictions are almost entirely female-dominated, which seems only fitting because of how important these albums are to listeners across America.
Although this year we’ve seen improvements in female recognition and representation within major Awards such as The Grammy’s, the gap between genders achievements remains clear.
