I think the context of the thread you're pulling this quote from is important, and I wish you'd quoted the whole post instead of just a piece of it, but okay, here's my rebuttal: I have heard "Blinding Lights" a fraction as much as I heard "Old Town Road" last year. Like, maybe five percent as much. That's just my personal anecdotal experience, and I'll acknowledge that "Old Town Road" is probably an unfair comparison since that's a once-in-a-generation hit that topped the charts for 16 weeks. But I do wonder if the weirder Grammy nominations this year are the result of a more segmented year in the overall musical cultural experience. Something that had a clear "quarantine" narrative like folklore may have had more of a pull for voters than the big ubiquitous hits, simply by virtue of voters hearing those songs less and witnessing their impact less than they would have in any other year. This is actually exactly the point I was making in the post quoted, which was a response to someone arguing that Taylor Swift's album didn't have a huge impact on radio and was therefore an odd frontrunner to win Album of the Year. Here's the full post:
i would go so far as to say blinding lights is the biggest song we’ve had in a number of years, full stop. it easily his biggest song and he’s one of the biggest artists around. didnt it set the record for the most weeks in the top 5 songs on billboard? and that’s just in this country. it’s had massive chart appeal in europe and latin america
"Blinding Lights" hasn't been as ubiquitous as "Uptown Funk", "Despacito" or "Old Town Road". No chance. Those were utterly unavoidable in the wild. It's a massive, massive hit. But it's not "the biggest song in a number of years" It's definitely surprising that it's not in record of the year category. For the record, the Grammys have definitely been suspect on race, but half the Record of the Year category is black this year. Seems odd to peg that as the reason for him missing.
Gotta be honest, I think I've only heard Blinding Lights like 3 times. I can't even think of how it goes. All I remember is that it had that 80s feel. Blows my mind to see that it has almost 2 billion streams on Spotify! As someone said before I think bar/retail being closed most of the year, along with never listening to the radio, has really made me disconnected to what's popular and whats not.
I strongly disagree with that last part, I think the album's incredible. I've been listening to The Weeknd since 2012 and I think this is probably his best album
o like others have said, i think that’s due to there not being a wild to be unavoidable in this year radio, tv spots, soundtrack stuff ... it has absolutely been unavoidable. charts don’t lie haha
I dunno. I don't think Sturgill Simpson and H.E.R. necessarily raked in the TV viewers. I really wish pop stars wouldn't get so sour grapes about it all.
When your song is attached to a massive tiktok trend like Blinding Lights was, I should think it will attract a lot of people wondering what the song is like outside of the 30 seconds people are dancing to
I have to be honest, I had no idea it was a trend until my mate mentioned it to me about a month ago. I thought it was just a video of that one old dude dancing with his sons, had no idea how massive the meme was. But then she thought it was a song from the 80s, so we both looked silly haha
i want them to happen so riley wins a grammy. cancelling the grammy's cancels that so I don't support it.
but... isn't that just "ignoring racism" instead of being anti-racist? The Grammys are a racist institution, this is proven year after year.
Isn’t canceling the show rather than trying to make the winners more diverse also ignoring it though?