Music

The Recording Academy Actually Addressed Some Of The Biggest 2021 Grammy Nomination Snubs

Getty Image Recording Academy interim president/CEO Harvey Mason Jr. spoke about The Weeknd and Harry Styles missing out on major nominations. …

Every year after the Recording Academy announces its extensive list of Grammy nominations (which it did this morning), music fans take to the internet to point out the artists and works they feel should have been up for certain awards. One thing that doesn’t usually happen, though, is the Academy addressing those snubs, but interim president/CEO Harvey Mason Jr. has done so this year.

The Weeknd didn’t earn a single nomination despite having one of the year’s most successful and beloved albums in After Hours, and Harry Styles’ Fine Line and accompanying singles were also excluded from the Big Four categories (Record Of The Year, Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year, and Best New Artist). Mason was asked about that in a new Billboard interview, as the publication’s Paul Grein said, “I was shocked that The Weeknd wasn’t nominated at all, and that Harry Styles wasn’t nominated in any of the Big Four categories. Why do you think they weren’t nominated?” Mason responded:

“For The Weeknd, in every year you only have a certain amount of people you can nominate for each category. As for Harry, he has some great nominations this year [even though he wasn’t nominated in the top categories]. We are excited about some of the other categories where he was nominated. It’s never easy to tell where people are going to land.”

The interviewer then continued, “There was a day where both of these artists would have been nominated for album, record and song of the year. The Grammys have shifted in terms of what they value. Now they seem to value championing newer and less well-known artists over reinforcing things that have already been rewarded in the marketplace.” Mason “hesitantly” (as the publication put it) responded, “Yeah, it’s interesting.”

It was later pointed out to Mason that country artists weren’t well-represented in the Big Four categories, to which he responded, “There are a certain amount of nominations that we can give out. The voting body really determines where those nominations go. We take it very seriously. We review every bit of music that is submitted. From year to year, it is really hard to predict who is going to be nominated and who’s not. I personally wish we could give everybody a nomination, but there are only a certain amount of slots. There were some amazing records that did not get nominated.”

Mason was then pressed, “There doesn’t seem to be a high priority given to making sure country is represented, like there is to making sure the nominations are diverse.” He replied, “We don’t sit down and decide we have to have this person and we have to have that person; We have to have that genre; and we have to have this race. We really are trying to land on quality. In my experience, it’s not really been about trying to even the playing field for every different group and make sure that everyone’s included. It’s really about trying to highlight quality and excellence. We really hope that is a diverse group; that it represents a lot of genres. I think this year if you look at the overall nominations, we have represented more genres than we generally do in our Big Four categories. They’re very diverse across the board in gender, age, and genre.”

Read the full interview here.

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Album Review

Cognitive Constellation Corps blurs humanity and technology on “Thank You for Your Feedback (I)” album

In a world of notifications and automated responses, algorithms, and feedback requests, Cognitive Constellation Corps finds something unexpectedly human inside the machinery. “Thank You for Your Feedback (I)” is an alt-pop exploration of connection, isolation, communication, and the increasingly complicated relationship between people and technology, transforming familiar procedural language into something else.

Created by Brooke Tamsin Clevenger, a Belfast-based artist, the project’s principal composer, lyricist, producer, and conceptual director, the album is deliberately constructed around what happens to human emotion when our lives are increasingly structured by systems that process information rather than necessarily understand feelings. The album opens with “Opening Loop (i),” which introduces that world through the idea of repetition, linking software loops to the habits we humans learn in modern life.

Followed by “Signal Received (i),” the track becomes more fragile, a mix of bubbling electronic movement and the promise of waiting for a response. It picks up the strange emotional weight that can be behind something as simple as a digital signal. “Thank You For Your Feedback (i)” examines the pressure to be constantly evaluated, and “Echo Chamber (i)” reflects on how digital interaction creates intimacy and amplifies alienation. “The Curve of Clarity (i)” is a road toward understanding where data and human realization begin to converge.

On the production side, the project explores electronic textures without allowing its technological concept to overwhelm its emotional core. “Threadbare, Threadshare (i)” turns the fatigue of constant communication into an interesting concept. “The Response Loop (You’re Still Talking)” injects a sense of urgency with a faster, more club-friendly beat that mixes early-80s electronic music with state-of-the-art sounds.

“Harmonic Distortion (i)” continues the album’s obsession with emotion that has been filtered, and “Always (i) [Sevahem]” is an appropriate closer, reflecting on organic feeling and ancient human knowledge through the prism of digital sound. “Thank you for Your Feedback” is a tech-driven concept that is always aware of the person behind the screen. Cognitive Constellation Corps is cerebral and electronic and conceptually ambitious while remaining emotionally accessible.

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Artist Spotlight

Shawn Brown raises the volume on love, loss, and survival in “What a Way to Go”

Shawn Brown’s new single, “What a Way to Go,” is a guitar-heavy rock-pop anthem that makes doomed young love, instability, and survival something ferociously cathartic. The single, produced by celebrated musician and producer Grecco Buratto, fully embraces the scope of its story. Brown doesn’t turn heartbreak into a quiet, inward experience, but he energizes it, giving it drive and urgency.

“What a Way to Go” is a relationship against impossible odds, and the emotional tension is the clash between a world that feels like it’s falling apart and the stubbornness of two people who won’t let go of each other. That tension is what makes the song dramatic, but it also allows Brown to aim for a bigger, more explosive sound.

Recorded at The Trench in Portland with engineer Gregg Williams and the full Shawn Brown Band and trusted creative team, including Ben Landsverk, Jeff Langston, Ned Failing, Tiago Becker, and Juan Garcia Petri. Their combined presence adds to the muscular, expansive character of the single that one would expect from an anthem of this magnitude.

Brown handles the emotional commitment with confidence, true to its survivalist spirit, and pairs the guitars with a performance that feels immediate rather than remote. “What a Way to Go” is one of Shawn Brown’s most electrifying releases, blending raw rock power with the emotional openness of a love story that won’t go quietly. It’s raw, loud, passionate, and unapologetically alive.

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