The Grammy nominations were released on Wednesday, and along with the snub of Kanye West‘s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy not being nominated for Album of the Year, we’ve realized that another album was completely snubbed: Beyonce‘s 4.
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Bey’s three previous albums, Dangerously In Love, B’Day, and I Am…Sasha Fierce, have all either been nominated or won Grammys for Album of the Year or Best Contemporary R&B Album. 4 has neither.
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But what albums are nominated for Album of the Year, you ask? 21 by Adele, Wasting Light by The Foo Fighters, Born This Way by Lady Gaga, Doo-Wops & Hooligans by Bruno Mars, and Loud by Rihanna.
Some of those nominees aren’t surprising, but 4‘s Metacritic rating of 73 is better than four of the nominated albums. Although critics aren’t the academy, that adds to the public shock of 4 not getting the acclaim it deserves.
With the academy eliminating Best Contemporary R&B Album as a stand-alone category, sets that would have qualified for the prize are now eligible in the broader category of Best R&B Album.
And given that Bey herself has said countless times that 4 is completely different from her previous Grammy winning albums, you can’t deny the fact that it’s an amazing R&B album and arguably her best R&B work to date.
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With songs such as “Love On Top” displaying Bey’s master class vocal ability, to “1+1,” “I Care,” “Start Over,” “I Miss You,” “I Was Here,” and “Rather Die Young” bringing us back to the feeling R&B ballads by Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson, it’s the perfect R&B album.
What albums did receive Best R&B Album nominations?
F.A.M.E. by Chris Brown, Second Chance by El DeBarge, Love Letter by R. Kelly, Pieces Of Me by Ledisi, and Kelly by Kelly Price.
By the time the Grammys are televised, Bey and her newborn bundle of joy will be rooting for Jay-Z, who is nominated for Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song for “Otis” and Best Rap Album for Watch The Throne, along with Bey’s “Party” up for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration and her I Am…World Tour DVD up for “Best Long Form Music Video.”
If you ask Bey how she feels, I’m pretty sure she’ll say what she always does: “What do you do after 16 Grammys and millions of records sold? Whatever makes you happy!”
