The Grammy Awards are as guilty for marginalizing heavy music as any other mainstream music institution. Yet, we're still interested to see who the block of voters consider this year's premier crop of heavy-music makers.
Today (November 10th), the nominees for the 66th annual Grammys have been announced, and there's actually a diverse range of acts competing for the title of Best Metal Performance.
Ghost, Slipknot, Spiritbox, Metallica and Disturbed are the bands vying for the trophy in the one category specifically dedicated to metal artists. For those who are new to this, "performance" refers to a single song rather than a full album, and you can see which tracks from those band's recent LPs made the cut after the jump.
Sometimes, the other categories like Best Rock Album, Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance also include nods to acts from the metal world — Ozzy Osbourne and Turnstile were spread throughout those sections in 2023, for instance — and this year, Metallica racked up nominations in those categories.
The title-track from 72 Seasons is nominated in the Best Metal Performance category, while the whole album is up for Best Rock Album, and its lead single, "Lux Æterna," is nominated for Best Rock Performance.
Queens of the Stone Age and Foo Fighters are also in the Best Rock Album category, and they each have songs competing for Best Rock Song ("Rescued" and "Emotion Sickness", respectively).
To us, the most exciting inclusion is Spiritbox's "Jaded," which marks the Canuck alt-metal rising stars' first-ever Grammy nomination.
See the nominations for all four metal-relevant categories below. The 66th annual Grammy Awards will take place February 4th, 2024, at the Crypto.com Arena in L.A.
Best Metal Performance:
Disturbed - "Bad Man"
Ghost - "Phantom of the Opera"
Metallica - "72 Seasons"
Slipknot - "Hive Mind"
Spiritbox - "Jaded"
Best Rock Album:
Foo Fighters – But Here We Are
Greta Van Fleet – Starcatcher
Metallica – 72 Seasons
Paramore – This Is Why
Queens of the Stone Age – In Times New Roman…
Best Rock Performance:
Arctic Monkeys - "Sculptures of Anything Goes"
Black Pumas - "More Than a Love Song"
Boygenius - "Not Strong Enough"
Foo Fighters - "Rescued"
Metallica - "Lux Æterna"
Best Rock Song:
Boygenius - "Not Strong Enough"
Foo Fighters - "Rescued"
Olivia Rodrigo - "Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl"
Queens of the Stone Age - "Emotion Sickness"
The Rolling Stones - "Angry"
