411 Music Ten Deep 2.11.11: Top Ten Who Never Won a Grammy

Posted by Andrew Moll on 02.11.2011

From Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin to Bob Marley, Queen and more, 411's Andrew Moll counts down the top 10 artists who never won a Grammy Award! Check out the full article to see which artists made the list and why!


(Disclaimer: All opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of 411 Music and its staff.)


Welcome in to another edition of 411 Music Ten Deep, and just like Hosni Mubarak, I don't plan on going anywhere anytime soon. (Topical!) Let's get right into it, though, by looking back a week to the response to the list of the Top Ten White Stripes Songs:




Not bad! I would've personally had "Hotel Yorba" or "Icky Thump" in place of "There's No Home For You Here," but I can't argue with the other choices.
Posted By: Wyatt Estabrooks (Registered) on February 04, 2011 at 12:12 AM

I've always found "Hotel Yorba" to be pretty good, but not great, while "Icky Thump" was merely a good version of some earlier, better songs.

Good list, although if we can count it as theirs, I gotta say I think Jolene beats out Seven Nation Army, or at least sits in the top 3. What Jack White did with that song was amazing.
Posted By: MAC (Guest) on February 04, 2011 at 02:58 AM

"Jolene" was absolutely the toughest omission, and even as I was posting the article I thought it deserved a place on the list.

has anyone ever checked out 'death letter'live?, its probly his best guitar work..the way he does it is mindblowing check it out.. worthy of no. 1 spot...trust
Posted By: tool (Guest) on February 04, 2011 at 06:22 AM

Oh yeah, it's good.

Fuck the White Stripes. I dare you to listen to "Seven Nation Army" and "Cactus" and tell me they didn't rip off the Pixies.
Posted By: thepsychedelia (Registered) on February 04, 2011 at 08:04 AM

In that both songs feature guitars, drums, vocals and a little slide guitar work, then maybe. And also in the sense that lot's of people in the last twenty years have ripped off the Pixies.



Top Ten Who Never Won a Grammy



Well, the Grammy Awards are on Sunday night, and as we all know, they're a pretty meaningless circle jerk for industry types to reward people who don't really deserve it. As Trent Reznor tweeted last year, "The Grammys = the old guard / old media propping up their puppets trying to convince the outside world (and each other) they're relevant." So with that, we move onto some of the greats who never received such a great award during their careers.

I didn't count those that received Lifetime Achievement Awards and the like, and I only focues on groups that conceivably would have had a chance. The Velvet Undeground weren't just ignored by the Grammys, they were ignored by just about everybody. So with that done, let's look at those that just missed the cut:


Some Honorable Mentions: The Grateful Dead; Buddy Holly; Janis Joplin; Lynyrd Skynyrd; Diana Ross




10. Curtis Mayfield


Curtis Mayfield received a Grammy Legend Award and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, but never won the actual award over the course of his few decades in the business. Granted, those are certainly deserved accolades for one of the greatest and most influential figures in soul music, but it's kind of amazing to think that at no point in his career, even later on in it when the Grammys love to award older musicians, that Mayfield's work was deemed worthy enough of an award





He didn't even receive an award for Superfly, his legendary and monumental soundtrack for the movie of the same name. Mayfield was nominated for best soundtrack in 1973 but couldn't even receive that award. (Granted, it lost to the soundtrack for The Godfather, but still, this is Superfly we're talking about.) At least Mayfield was honored with those two other Grammys before his death in 1999, but he surely deserved some recognition at the time he was putting out his best work.





9. Bob Marley


Another winner of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, Bob Marley was the biggest and best ambassador that reggae music had in the Unites States and bridged the gap between that genre and American popular music better than anybody before or after him; still to this day, when you think of reggae music, you think first and foremost of Bob Marley. Add to that classic albums like Burnin' and Exodus and you get one of the great resumes in rock.





Unfortunately, none of it was quite good enough for the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, who were unable to find an award to bestow upon Marley before his death in 1981. Of course, had the award for Best Reggae Album been established before 1985 Marley surely would have been rewarded with at least one, but the fact is that despite his recording output and iconic status during the 1970s, Marley never won a Grammy at any point and had to settle for posthumous awards for his work.





8. The Doors


In some ways it's not all that surprising that the Doors never won a Grammy during their time together, considering that not only were they a subpar band during a good stretch of that time together, but even at their peak the Doors were the type of band that probably rubbed quite a lot of people the wrong way. They've become Grammy favorites in the last decade or so with inductions into the Grammy Hall of Fame and with a Lifetime Achievement Award, but this just shows that the greats can sometimes be unappreciated in their own times.





The Doors of their prime and the Grammy do seem like odd bedfellows, considering they would have had to honor a band with a lead singer that willfully disobeyed orders on national TV, may or may not have exposed himself live in concert, and probably didn't mesh too well with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Glen Campbell, who were being rewarded at that time. Jim Morrison, as always, was the Doors' biggest weapon and worst enemy; he made the band not just famous but great, but he also probably helped keep them from being recognized when they should have been.





7. Chuck Berry


John Lennon once said, "If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it "Chuck Berry." There is no rock and roll without Berry, his showmanship, his guitar skills and the way he pioneered a new vision for popular music. All that of is pretty good to say the least, but as you can probably guess, not quite good enough to earn himself a Grammy Award.





It's odd that Berry never received one, considering how big of a star he was at the dawn of rock and roll, which helpfully coincided with the beginning of the Grammys. A short prison sentence didn't help Berry's case or his commercial prospects, but still, at some point over the last fifty-plus years, you would have thought that Chuck Berry of all people could have been rewarded for his work and efforts, especially back when there was nobody quite like him.





6. Jimi Hendrix


Just like with a number of artists on this list and others who never received a Grammy, Jimi Hendrix's career was possibly too brief for him to be given a Grammy Award during his time as a musician. That, of course, is a stupid reason, because you would think that the most deserving people would be honored when they have earned it, not when the voters get around to it. (I'm looking at you, Martin Scorsese.) There were only a few years with which to honor Hendrix when he was alive, but surely they could have found some award that he was worthy of.





It's not like Hendrix was some underground artist who the general public wasn't yet aware of, or someone that the critics didn't take to at the time before becoming a legendary figure years later. He was regarded as a genius and virtuoso right from the beginning of his career and still wasn't rewarded for his efforts. Nobody could have figured Hendrix would die before winning one, but reasons like that shouldn't factor into voting for these kinds of awards. As with many of his contemporaries, Hendrix just wasn't going to be fully embraces by those voters.





5. The Who


The Who weren't only of the best and biggest bands in rock for more than fifteen years with one of rock's great songwriter's at the helm, one of rock's greatest lead singers out in front, and one of rock's great drummers pounding away; they were also a band that put out a mediocre record long after their time had passed, leading them to receive an award they earned forty years ago but were given just now. But no, not even Endless Wire could give The Who the Grammy they've long deserved.





This is another situation where you can't really find a good reason as to why the group has yet to receive this award; they were popular commercially and critically for not just a brief time but for a long while, and you would think that at some point, one year, in one random category, people could have thought that The Who of all bands did the best job. But that apparently wasn't the case. Because, as we all should realize by now, this people are morons.





4. Queen


And now we move onto another incredibly popular and influential British rock band that was around for quite awhile yet still never won the incredibly prestigious Grammy Award, Queen. Sure, they're Grammy Hall of Fame inductees, but that's not really what we're talking about here. At no point between 1973 and 1991 did the Recording Academy deem Queen worthy enough of one of their awards, which sounds kind of crazy. Stone cold crazy, in fact. (Ba-zing!)





Of course, Queen were a band that were slightly ahead of their times, and the people behind the Grammys aren't exactly known for the same things; also, at this point in the list it should be clear to everyone that just because you deserve something doesn't mean it's actually going to happen, even if your band features one of the single greatest frontmen in the history of rock and roll.





3. Led Zeppelin


Out of all the groups on this list, it probably makes the most sense that Led Zeppelin never received a Grammy Award at any point during their career. Despite their massive commercial success early in their career, Zeppelin were critically derided, so it's no huge surprise that the Grammy Awards weren't all that willing to heap praise upon them, either.





It also didn't help that there was no real category for the band to fit into and dominate. They weren't a pop or R&B band, so they never really fit in with any of those groupings; also, the category of Best Metal Album wasn't created until two decades after Zeppelin helped create the genre. (And we all know what happened when they did give that award away.) So Zeppelin's Grammy snub is one that looks worse in hindsight, that as giant and epic a band as this one could never get its industry's so called biggest prize; it was really a matter of ill-timing for the group more than anything.





2. Neil Young


I'm calling in a technicality on this one, because Neil Young actually did win a Grammy last year for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package for The Archives Vol. 1 1963-1972. So yes, Neil Young has a Grammy, but he never won one for his actual output over his last four decades-plus as one of rock's preeminent writers and talents, so I'm including him here. (My list, my rules)





It's not as if there haven't been plenty of opportunities for Young to win a Grammy, considering the volume and quality of all the records he has put out over his career. From Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere to Harvest to Freedom to Mirror Ball to Prairie Wind, you would have to think that at some point, in some way, Neil Young of all people would have earned a Grammy Award, but you would be sadly mistaken. So Young can at least sleep well at night knowing he finally has a Grammy, but unfortunately it wasn't the kind that he really deserves.





1. The Beach Boys


The Beach Boys are arguably the greatest American rock band of all-time, the answer to the British Invasion of the 1960s, and one of the most important and influential groups in the history of pop music. So of course the Beach Boys, those of the accolades and accomplishments I just mentioned, are without any Grammys. In fact, it's as fitting a description for the Grammy Awards themselves as it is anything else.





Despite all the great work that Brian Wilson and his bandmates put out during the 1960s, not once were they nominated for Album of the Year, Song of the Year or Record of the Year, not to mention not being victorious in any of the lesser categories. Even an atrocious song like "Kokomo," which you would think would be right in the Grammy wheelhouse couldn't win anything! Maybe if Wilson had stayed sane the band would have had a better chance going forward, but that's beside the point. Only The Beatles, Bob Dylan and maybe a couple others matched the Beach Boys output in their prime, yet they were never rewarded for their work. (Dylan wasn't at that point, either) It was thru no fault of their own that they never received such an award; instead, it's simply Exhibit A in the argument against the Grammys and shows their own failings in what they attempt to do.



That'll do it for this week folks, thanks for reading. If you have any questions, comments or concerns feel free to let me know, and make sure to leave your own lists in the comments. I'll see you all next week. And if you're out on your bike tonight, do wear white.