How do we know what music is actually good? Many fans look to critics. Sure, some might label music journalism as irrelevant in assigning value to art, but the reality is, critics do at least partly contribute to the consensus on the quality of music. That’s why, whether it is during a civilized conversation or the most rabid Twitter stan war, an album’s Metacritic score typically comes up. So award show voters must take those top albums more into consideration than others, right? To be a big awards player, doesn’t your album need to be somewhat acclaimed?
Let’s take a look at the past three Grammy ceremonies as examples. Since these are ceremonies with no nomination review committees involved, the results are a more accurate, unfiltered reflection of what voters (and, by extension, the industry) think. According to Metacritic, anything below 81 is not “universally acclaimed,” so that’s how I’ll sort it out.
In 2024 Taylor Swift won, and she did have one of the most acclaimed albums. “Midnights” received a score of 85 on Metacritic, the fourth highest of the lineup. SZA’s “SOS” and Boygenius’s “The Record” were actually tied as the second most acclaimed, with 90 each. But the most acclaimed album nominated that year was Olivia Rodrigo’s “Guts,” which earned an astounding 91 on the site. Ironically, Rodrigo ended the night with zero awards; Swift, SZA and Boygenius all picked up multiple.
While those four records were universally acclaimed in the lineup, the other half weren’t. Three of those, however — Janelle Monáe’s “The Age of Pleasure,” Lana Del Rey’s “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd” and Miley Cyrus’s “Endless Summer Vacation” — ended up just one to three points away from the universally-acclaimed threshold. Jon Batiste was actually the outlier here. His album “World Music Radio” received a mere 69 on Metacritic, which isn’t low enough to call mixed or panned, but definitely not what most would call Album of the Year material. All and all, though, it was a pretty well-reviewed lineup: the average score for this year was around 83.
Going a year back, things seem similar at first glance. The most acclaimed album of the pack was Beyoncé’s “Renaissance,” with an amazing 91 score on Metacritic. The winner, Harry Styles’s “Harry’s House,” was also acclaimed, receiving an 83 on the site. Furthermore, Adele’s “30” (88), Brandi Carlile’s “In These Silent Days” (87), Kendrick Lamar’s “Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers” (85) and Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti” (85) were acclaimed too, making it six out of the 10 nominees with records universally beloved by critics.
Lizzo’s “Special” wasn’t that far behind the threshold, scoring a 78. Legends ABBA (“Voyage”) and Mary J. Blige (“Good Morning Gorgeous”) both had modest but good scores: 72 and 75, respectively. However, this lineup featured a much more poorly reviewed album: Coldplay’s “Music of the Spheres,” which scored a 55 on the site, quite a mixed score. This brought the average score down to around an 80, just short of universal acclaim.
Last, let’s go over the 2022 lineup. That year’s winner, Batiste’s “We Are,” was so low-profile it actually doesn’t have a Metacritic score. But averaging out the four reviews listed on the album’s Wikipedia page (from Rolling Stone, Albumism, All Music, and Spill), you get an average between 82 and 83. Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever” was the most acclaimed of the lineup, with an 86 on the site. Close behind were Lil Nas X’s “Montero” (85), Swift’s “Evermore” (85), and Rodrigo’s “Sour” (83).
No other album was universally acclaimed, although releases from Doja Cat (“Planet Her,” 76), H.E.R. (“Back of My Mind,” 75) and Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga (“Love for Sale,” 70) had solid reviews. Justin Bieber’s “Justice” is technically also classified as having “generally favorable reviews,” but its 62 score is just two points above the mixed category. Kanye West’s “Donda” was the least well-reviewed here, with a 53 on the site. If we count Batiste’s theoretical 82 as part of the average, you are left with a score around 76. Without Batiste the number goes down to 75. Either way, you can’t call the lineup universally acclaimed.
So it seems like either we are just getting better music, or the Grammys are being swayed more by acclaim, though it’s hard to definitively identify a trend from just three years of data and one review aggregator. All three years have one thing in common, though: each winner was over the universal-acclaim threshold, although not the highest scorer. The winners scoring over 81 makes sense; after all, voters are more likely to vote for something that is generally agreed upon as excellent. Not being the most acclaimed, though, might suggest that voters prefer less boundary-pushing albums. Still, a combination of good reviews and either sales (“Midnights,” “Harry’s House”) or widespread industry connections and respect (“We Are”) do seem like the paths to a win.
Even considering earlier years, you’d have to go back to 2018 to find an Album of the Year winner without at least an 81 on Metacritic (Bruno Mars’s “24k Magic,” 70). In fact, the mean score for the last 11 winners in the category is around 82. This might also explain the backlash the Recording Academy faced back in the 2010s for some of their picks like Taylor Swift’s “1989” and Mars’s album, which beat other nominees in their lineups that were far more acclaimed.
So to answer the question: yes, acclaim is important. Can you get nominated without it? Sure, especially if you’re a Grammy favorite like Kanye West or Coldplay, or just a huge star like Justin Bieber. However, as far as winning goes, the Grammys may more and more be picking albums that hopefully won’t make media publications write another “Are the Grammys relevant anymore?” piece. Keep that in mind when predicting this year.
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