The Weeknd Earns Grammy Nomination Despite Boycotting the Event
The Weeknd earned nominations at the Grammy Awards 2022 even though the singer had earlier announced that he would be boycotting the event. Last year at the 63rd Grammy Awards, the singer’s critically acclaimed album ‘After Hours’ didn’t receive even one nomination. Therefore, he vowed never to submit his music for Grammy Consideration again. But he nevertheless picked up three bids when the 2022 nominations were announced on 23rd November.
While The Weeknd declined to submit his own music for consideration, that didn’t stop other artists from submitting their collaborations with him. And that’s where all three of his nominations came from. He’s up for Best Melodic Rap Performance for Kanye West’s ‘Hurricane’. That song’s parent album, ‘Donda,’ received an Album of the Year bid, so The Weeknd is nominated there as well as a featured artist. He has one more ‘Album of the Year’ nomination as a featured artist on Doja Cat’s ‘Planet Her.’
For last year’s ceremony, Abel Tesfaye, known by his stage name The Weeknd, failed to receive even a single Grammy nomination despite being expected to win big. The singer’s hit ‘After Hours’ album was snubbed from the ‘Album of The Year’ category even though the album held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 chart for more than three weeks. The singer had publicly slammed the committee behind the nomination process and said that he would not submit his upcoming projects for the awards. He had taken to his Twitter and wrote, “The Grammys remain corrupt. You owe me, my fans and the industry transparency…”
After receiving major flak over the previous year’s Award ceremony, the Recording Academy had made some major changes behind the scenes. For the first time in 27 years, the final choices in each of the Big Four categories — album, record, and song of the year plus best new artist — were being made by the roughly 12,000 voting members of the Recording Academy. The Academy disbanded all of its nominations review committees, including the one that determined the finalists in the Big Four categories.
Image Courtesy: Newsweek
Meanwhile, artists like Jon Bastie, Justin Bieber, Doja Cat, and Billie Eilish have scored the most number of nominations for the 64th Grammy Awards. Jon Bastie leads with 11 nominations, while Justin Bieber, H.E.R, and Doja Cat follow with eight nominations, Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo bagged seven nods.
—Silviya.Y
