The Robbery at the Grammys
Bonnie Raitt stands shocked after receiving Song of the Year.
February 7, 2023
The Grammys have been ongoing music awards show for 65 years. Well-known artists and producers come together to celebrate and congratulate all types of music from the year prior. The 2023 Grammys were held on February 5th at the Crypto Center. Many awards were given out and plenty of recognition was given to the nominees. With all this being said, there were a couple of questionable moments that led people to ask, “Who decided this was a good idea?”
Grammy nominees are selected by a panel of executives, and nominations are sent in via submission by recording academy members and record companies. Other award shows give out awards based on people’s choice or voting, but the Grammys rewards musicians on a higher technical level.
This year, celebrities like Harry Styles, Lizzo, Adele, Beyoncé, and Steve Lacy expectedly received Grammys for their work and talent. However, there were a couple of awards given out to seemingly the wrong people. For example, Song of the Year was awarded to singer Bonnie Raitt. The announcement of this decision immediately sent confusion amongst the crowd and viewers alike. Although Raitt may have crafted an excellent song, it seems odd that a song that most people have never even heard of could have won. Bonnie Raitt herself seemed shocked by the award, understandably, as she was against artists of the decade, such as Lizzo, Adele, Harry Styles, and the queen herself, Taylor Swift. These are some household names that people of several generations can recognize, so how did someone that seemingly no one knew win?
It is not to say that Bonnie Raitt does not deserve the award, but nearly any other song encapsulated the year far more than hers. — Allie Harakuni (11)
Obviously, Bonnie Raitt is a well-known artist, or else she wouldn’t have even been invited to the Grammys in the first place. Nevertheless, Taylor Swift arguably released the song and music video of the century, “All Too Well (10 Minute Version).” The release of All Too Well took the world by storm, charting the billboard and hitting #1, meanwhile, Bonnie Raitt has never had a song come close to #1 on Billboard and has only had one song reach the top 10. Allie Harakuni (11) states, “It is not to say that Bonnie Raitt does not deserve the award, but nearly any other song encapsulated the year far more than hers.”
Not to discredit Raitt, but it does not make sense for a song that has far less popularity to be awarded as the song of the year. Maybe Raitt deserves a different award since Song of the Year should be the song that represents 2022 as a whole and is played on a wide variety of platforms. We should congratulate Bonnie Raitt on “Just Like That” winning Song of the Year, but her win is certainly a robbery to be noted.
