The 2018 Grammys award show is guaranteed to be like none other before it. For the first time since 1999, no white men were nominated in the Album of the Year category, to Ed Sheeran fans’ chagrin. While it seems like the Grammys may finally be catching up to the culture, it's not enough.
Lorde is the only woman nominated for Album of the Year, and no women are nominated for Record of the Year this year. All of the men nominated for Album of the Year will be giving solo performances during the show, but according to Variety, the Grammys didn’t allow Lorde to give a solo performance. Instead, the Grammys allegedly offered the singer an opportunity to perform with other artists as a part of an "American Girl" tribute to the late Tom Petty. Understandably, the New Zealand-born artist declined.
Why in such a historic year is the the show still failing to celebrate women in the industry? Lorde’s mother Sonja Yelich pointed out the discrepancy by tweeting an excerpt of a New York Times article that reads, “Of the 899 people to be nominated for Grammy awards in the past six years, only nine per cent were women.”
Lorde received her first Grammy nominations in 2014 when she was just 17. She performed her breakout track "Royals" solo and took home two awards for Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance. That same year, Kendrick Lamar was snubbed when he lost three rap nominations to Macklemore. Four years later, the absence of a performance by Lorde highlights a notable gap between the Grammys' attempt to consistently create a diverse, inclusive award for everyone and their ability to actually do it.
