The 2024 Grammy nominations were announced on Friday morning, and artists including SZA, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo were among those with the most nods.
But several high-profile singers and musicians were left out of the Grammy nominations altogether or snubbed from major categories they were expected to be nominated in.
Among the snubbed artists was the controversial country superstar Morgan Wallen, whose One Thing At A Time album topped the Billboard 200 albums chart and the Top Country Albums chart.
Despite that, he didn’t score a single nomination, bringing his total career Grammy nominations to zero.
Doja Cat, on the other hand, was lucky enough to earn three nominations this year, but she was notable absent from the Record of the Year category for her song Paint The Town Red, and her album Scarlet received no nominations in any category.
Passed over: Morgan Wallen and Doja Cat were among the major artists snubbed when the 2024 Grammy Awards nominations were announced
Wallen’s third studio album One Thing At A Time was a massive hit upon its release in March.
The 36-track LP — which runs just over 111 minutes — managed to place all of its songs on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart when it debuted, breaking Drake’s record for most singles on the chart at once and the record for most debuts on the Hot 100, with 27.
However, the album received mixed reviews from critics, and the Recording Academy (which runs the Grammys) may have been unwilling to nominate Wallen again due to his past racist behavior.
In February 2021, TMZ published a video of a seemingly drunken Wallen returning to his home near Nashville, while his friends made plenty of commotion and honked car horns.
After an angry neighbor began filming his antics, the musician shouted that someone should ‘take care of this p***y-a** motherf*****,’ before calling them a ‘p***y-a** n*****’ as he went into the house.
Wallen apologized in a statement after the incident was revealed, but his music was temporarily taken off multiple high-profile radio stations, and several streaming services removed his music from public playlists.
The country hitmaker’s record label Big Loud suspended him from his recording contract indefinitely, and several country award shows removed content he had previously filmed for them.
His then-new album Dangerous: The Double Album was also made ineligible at the upcoming ceremony by the Grammy Awards.
Left out: Wallen’s album One Thing At A Time was a massive record-breaking hit, but it earned no nominations, and Wallen has a grand total of zero Grammy nods across his career; seen November 8 in Nashville
Not original enough: Doja Cat’s Paint The Town Red was snubbed for Record of the Year, possibly because of its sampling of Dionne Warwick’s Walk On By; seen in September in Newark, New Jersey
But something about Wallen’s N-word controversy spurred his fans to stream and purchase his album even more, and Dangerous’ sales rocketed up in the immediate aftermath.
He helped make amends by donating $300,000 to the Black Music Action Coalition, while singling out 20 Black artists.
Six months after the video first was published, Wallen’s music began appearing on the radio again, and since then he has been performing in front of large crowds as if the scandal never happened.
Doja Cat, who had her own racism controversy when she was forced to deny that she had ever engaged in racist conversations after being pictured in a chat room featuring an alleged alt-right/incel group, missed out on some key nominations.
Her single Paint The Town Red topped the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, but it failed to secure a Record of the Year nomination, which goes out to the artists, producers and engineers who work on a song, whereas the Song of the Year category is awarded to songwriters.
Billboard speculated that Grammy voters may have left the song off the list of nominations because of how prominently it uses a sample of Dionne Warwick’s 1964 song Walk On By.
Doja’s album Scarlet, which featured Paint The Town Red, was also missing from the Album of the Year category, despite receiving relatively strong reviews and peaking at number four on the Billboard 200 albums chart.
Morgan Wallen wasn’t the only snubbed country artist, as Luke Combs also was absent from the Record of the Year category.
MIA: Country star Luke Comb’s massive hit cover of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car was also left out of the Record of the Year category; seen November 8 in Nashville
His cover of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car topped several Billboard charts and reached the number two spot on the Hot 100, proving massive crossover appeal for the singer.
But despite winning Single of the Year days before the nominations were announced at the CMA Awards, Combs fell short for the Grammy nominations.
However, his song is still nominated for Best Country Solo Performance, its only nomination.
Lainey Wilson, another major country music hitmaker, has been racking up honors at country-themed award shows.
But when it came to the Grammys she was left empty-handed in the Best New Artist category.
The singing sensation was eligible for the category and had entered to be considered, but she was left out despite her profile being higher than ever.
Her latest album, Bell Bottom Country, went home this week with the CMA Award for Album of the Year, but Lainey was absent from the same category in the Grammy nominations, though she did score a Best Country Album nod.
Other country artists, included Zach Bryan, were largely left out of the nominations outside of country categories, suggesting that the Grammys may have an issue with the genre, even if some of its artists — like Wallen — were ignored due to their specific past controversies.
Not fans? The Grammys appeared to have a problem with country music. The breakout star Lainey Wilson was left out of the Best New Artist category and Album of the Year; seen November 8 in Nashville
Rap artists also came up short in the Grammys top four categories.
Only Ice Spice — who was nominated for Best New Artist — represented rap, though she also was nominated in genre-specific categories.
Howver, Song, Record and Album of the Year were completely missing hip hop artists.
Next year’s ceremony will also likely feature fewer male winners than usual in the top categories, though that change is a welcome departure for many fans and Grammys viewers.