Bruno Mars Beat JAY-Z For Record Of The Year At The Grammys & Fans Are So Pissed
One of the biggest awards of Grammys night was just handed out, confirming which song ruled 2017. Oh wait... sorry, I said song, and this award went to the year's best record. I had honestly always been pretty confused about the difference between the Song of the Year and Record of the Year awards at the Grammys, but I did some research and understand the difference now. I can break that distinction down later, but first let's talk about who won the Record of the Year at the 2018 Grammys.
Towards the end of the night, Alicia Keys announced that the winner for Record of the Year was... Bruno Mars' "24K Magic." And yeah — not everybody was happy about that. JAY-Z was losing out on all the categories he was up for all night, so people were assuming the awards show was building up to the rap giant taking one of the big awards, like Record of the Year. But, the Recording Academy gave that trophy to Bruno Mars yet again, in what seems to be becoming a predictable and safe decision.
Fans were not feeling the Grammys decision to award Bruno Mars over JAY-Z's hip hop opus "The Story of O.J.," and took to Twitter to express their disappointment. Check out some of the tweets below:
As always, the Record of the Year category was absolutely stacked with talent, representing the best of the best in music that was released in 2017. Take a look at all the nominees in the category below:
- "Redbone" by Childish Gambino
- "Despacito (Remix) by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee featuring Justin Bieber
- "The Story of O.J." by Jay-Z
- "Humble" by Kendrick Lamar
- "24K Magic" by Bruno Mars
Something pretty upsetting to note about this year's nominees is that it marks the first time in over 50 years that only men have been nominated for Record of the Year. The last time the category included no women was back in 1966, when the all-male nominees included The Beatles, The Ramsey Lewis Trio, Roger Miller, Tony Bennett, and the award winner Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Bass.
This year also marked the first nomination in the Record of the Year category for most of the nominees. Only JAY-Z and Bruno Mars had been nominated for Record of the Year before this year. JAY-Z was nominated as a featured artist in 2004 and 2008 for Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love" and Rihanna's "Umbrella" respectively, and then in 2011 for "Empire State of Mind," but he lost each time.
But the big win this year went to the seasoned champion: Bruno Mars was the only nominee in the category this year who had won the Record of the Year award before. He has actually been a semi-perennial nominee in this category for the last seven years, scoring steady nominations in 2011, 2012, 2014, 2016, and of course 2018. Despite these constant nominations, his only win came in 2016, when he and Mark Ronson took home the trophy for their collaboration "Uptown Funk."
Bruno Mars was also among the nominees in the Record of the Year category that was also up for Song of the Year this year. Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee, and Justin Bieber were double nominated in the categories for "Despacito (Remix)," and Mars also found his way into Song of the Year for another of his hits, "That's What I Like." And in the end, Mars took home that award as well. But what is the difference between these two very similar categories? Basically, Song of the Year only takes into consideration how a song is written and composed, whereas Record of the Year is focused on the vocal performance and production of a song. You can think of it as Song of the Year being an award for songwriters and Record of the Year being an award for performers and producers.
But I guess this year, that distinction between record and song didn't really matter since Bruno Mars took home both Grammys.
