As awards season comes into view, everyone’s favorite punching bag, the Recording Academy, is at it again. On Tuesday, Brandi Carlile took aim at the Grammy Awards after she learned her single “Right On Time” had been categorized as Pop, rather an Americana, for the coming 2022 awards. Carlile took home three Grammys in 2019 for Best Americana Album (By The Way, I Forgive You) as well as Best American Roots Performance and Best American Roots Song for “The Joke”.
Taking to Instagram, Carlile addressed the classification report as confirmed by her management. The singer-songwriter, whose 2021 album In These Silent Days was released on October 1st and is not eligible for the 2022 awards, noted that “Americana/American Roots music is more than a genre to me.”
“The importance of staying and working within Americana is greater than just me,” she continued. “There is not a moment where I don’t view my role as something larger. I feel great responsibility in representing marginalized queer people in rural America who are raised on country and roots music but are repeatedly and systematically rejected by the correlating culture. Every rung I can sling my gay sequined boot up on top of gets queer people a little higher on the ladder to being seen as just a bit more human in the great American roots landscape.”
Related: Brandi Carlile Schedules ‘Beyond These Silent Days Tour’ For Summer 2022
Carlile took home the Americana Association’s Artist of the Year Awards in 2019 and 2021, plugging that gap with three wins from the same Association for her supergroup The Highwomen (who also took home “Best Country Song” at the Grammys last year for “Crowded Table“). Earlier this month, In These Silent Days debuted at Number 1 on Billboard‘s Top Americana/Folk Albums and Top Rock Albums. This latest LP was made at the same location with the same producers and band as 2019’s By The Way, I Forgive You which, by the way, won Best Americana Album.
“While I’m incredibly flattered to be considered ‘pop’ as a 40 year old crooning lesbian mother, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit surprised and disappointed to learn the Recording Academy decided to move ‘Right On Time’ out of the American Roots genre and into the pop category,” Carlile wrote.
“Being recognized by the Grammys — in any form — is a great honor,” she closed in saying. “I just want folks to know this wasn’t my decision. Regardless, it doesn’t change who I am or what my Americana community continues to mean to me.”
This latest controversy follows last week’s news that the Recording Academy would not consider Kacey Musgraves‘ album Star-Crossed in the Country category. Much like Carlile, Musgraves recorded her new album with the same team that produced 2018’s Golden Hour, which took home both Album of the Year and Best Country Album in 2018.
View this post on Instagram
The post Brandi Carlile Lambasts Grammys Over ‘Pop’ Categorization Of “Right On Time” appeared first on L4LM.
