The 2016 Grammy Awards show takes place Feb. 15, where we’ll get to see Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar go head to head for Album of The Year, while everyone who could care less about country wonders who the hell this Chris Stapleton guy is. It’s the last big chance music stars have to dress to the nines and pat each other on the back before the sweaty mess of festival season gets underway, and as usual, we can expect the usual run of meticulously planned outrage and spectacle. Check out the full list of Grammy nominees.
While the night is sure to be packed with over-the-top performances and enough “by golly!” shocked exclamations by the inevitable big winner Miss Swift to make our heads spin, plenty of artists have had a more serious bone to pick with the Grammys over the years. Whether through bashing or boycott, we’ve collected 12 of the more memorable anti-Grammy moments in the show’s recent history.
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Grammy Bashers
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Jay Z
Jay-Z made waves back in 2002 when he refused to attend the ceremony, despite several nominations and wins of his own. Why? He was showing loyalty to everyone's favorite dog-fighting, police-impersonating, carjacking crackhead rapper DMX: "I didn't think they gave the rightful respect to hip-hop. DMX had an incredible album in 1999. He didn't get a nomination. I was like, 'Nah, that's crazy.'" It mirrored his 1999 boycott of the awards, accusing the Grammys of not respecting rap.
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Kanye West
West had the following to say in a rant on his two nominations for the 2014 awards: "Do they think that, someway, I don’t have the power to completely diminish all of their credibility at this moment? But no, no. Only positive energy, only positive vibes. But when you see me talking about what people are doing when I say ‘marginalized,’ when I say ‘boxed in,’ when I say ‘hold back,’ when I say people are afraid of the truth, that’s one example right there in front of you. And people come to me and congratulate me on those two nominations. F*CK THOSE NOMINATIONS!"
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Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor
Trent Reznor, never one to be called soft-spoken, lamented the desperation of industry fatcats when cutting down the awards ceremony (though he DID win an Academy Award, so...). This was undoubtedly made worse by the Grammys choosing to cut to commercial during an incredible onstage collaboration between Queens of The Stone Age and Nine Inch Nails.
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DJ Jazzy Jeff & Will Smith
DJ Jazzy Jeff & Will Smith (the Fresh Prince himself) were the first rap act to ever win a Grammy, but they – along with JJ Cool J, Salt-N-Pepa, Kid N' Play and Def Jam honcho Russell Simmons - boycotted the 1989 awards because they refused to televise the Hip Hop portion."What I really wanted to accomplish is, next year, or two years from now, the rappers would be able to have what I didn't have," Smith explained. He and Jeff performed on the show the following year.
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Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder
Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, the corduroy-clad Zinn-quoting grunge king, scoffed at the idea of the band's Best Hard Rock Performance win at the 1996 Grammys: "We just came to relax. We just wanted to watch the show. I don't know what this thing is. I don't think this means anything. I think it would've maybe meant something to my dad."
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50 Cent
50 Cent, who's got plenty of reason to gripe given that he's never won a single award despite being nominated 13 times, put on don't-care airs in 2008 when asked about the awards: "Man, f-ck the Grammys! I couldn't care less about the Grammy Awards."
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Flying Lotus
Flying Lotus went in hard on The Grammys in 2010 after anticipating (and not getting) a nomination, calling them all sorts of names while writing off the awards show's relevance.
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Rick Ross
Rick Ross, upset over his number-one-debuting 2009 album Deeper Than Rap getting the big snub, dropped a verse on a new remix to Beyonce's "Video Phone" song to protest the nomination omission. "What I think bout the Grammys? I think they all haters," he declares. "What they all think bout the album?/ They think it's amazing/ What I think about the album?/ I think I'm the greatest." Too bad the Grammy people didn't agree.
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Silversun Pickups
The Silversun Pickups were nominated for Best New Artist in 2011, but frontman Brian Aubert isn't much a fan of the self-congratulatory nature of the awards. "Does it really matter to us? No. Absolutely not," he said when asked about the band's feelings regarding the nod. Do they matter to anyone anymore? No. Absolutely not.
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Sinead O'Connor
In 1991, Sinead O'Connor boycotted the Grammy ceremony and refused her award for Best Alternative Album, Best Record of the Year and Best Alternative Musical Performance, stating that her absence was a protest against the extreme commercialism of the Grammy Awards. It was the first time in Grammy history that an artist refused to accept an award.
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Pubic Enemy
Public Enemy boycotted the awards the same year as Sinead, only their refusal to show was based around accusations of racism among those selecting the winners. It didn't help that Vanilla Ice was nominated or Best Rap Performance.
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The Dream
The-Dream also expressed his displeasure in being shut out this year through a barrage of Twitter messages: "GRAMMY Isnt it FUNNY THE BEST ALBUM OF 2009 DIDNT GET ANOMINATION for the second year strait," he wrote on December 3 morning. "LOVE VS MONEY GOT NO NOMINATION the last time this happen i had LoveHate out and in the category had written the singles on three of the… Albums ,This time once again ive written on two of the albums ,jamie and B and no Nomination on a whole album of of the shit that got….those albums considered in the first place. I AM BOTHERED KNOWING THAT THIS IS THE PATTERN OF a DYING industry not because of what was…..but what wasnt when i know clearly MY ALBUM BLONG there period."
